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The Ultimates 2

 
  

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The Natural Way
11:52 / 09.12.05
Okay, I totally retract my grumbling and apologise: BUT NOT TO THE REST OF YOU!
 
 
Haus of Mystery
12:11 / 09.12.05
overall tho, a bit naff this issue. naff in the way that the ulti-boes are NEVER prepared for this shit

Agreed. This issue actually whizzed past without me giving much of a shit. Not entirely sure, but as Yawno said, the relative ease with which the Ultimates were overwhelmed dissipated all the tension built up by the previous 8 or so issues of suspense. And the whole 'swarm' of superheroes sctick is a tad overplayed. Plus Black Widow? How...predictable. Millar drops the ball. Surprise, surprise.
 
 
Triplets
12:16 / 09.12.05
Easy, Kurt Russell. Not over til the Fat Laydee sings n that, yeah? Millhaus might pick things back up yet.
 
 
Aertho
12:22 / 09.12.05
Besides Widow, what else would've made a bit of sense? Jarvis in league with the Axis of Evil? The murderer actually being Cap? Tony in a weird effort for corporate takeover of teh world? Ultimates is Avengers in power ballad format. It needed to be Widow.

I'm sad for Ulti-merica. How's anything going to right itself? In three issues? Another of Wanda's cosmic vaginas?
 
 
Haus of Mystery
12:22 / 09.12.05
True enuff. But this didn't give me the adrenaline rush i was expecting is all. And i bet the endings a let down.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
12:24 / 09.12.05
Grammar be damned!
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
12:29 / 09.12.05
And it is SO NOT OKAY that this thread is FULL of people who have no idea what 'The Great Satan' refers to. No wonder Barbelith @ large despairs of this forum.

Because nothing screams freedom like the quashing of a difference of opinion.

That's the fucking dumbest thing I've ever read. People are upset because they think that all us dullard comic book fans think America is A-OK, that everything that this country is responsible for is completely within reason, that we don't get why someone would refer to America as the Great Satan?

So, what if we think that's a bit harsh of a generalization? That, in say, the case of the comic book we're discussing, there are tons and tons of innocent casualties involved in this "Liberation" of "The Great Satan". That's cool? I mean that is such a dick position. Our government leaders might be complete fucking retards, but that doesn't make me complicit in their evil nor does that justify me becoming Knock Off Super Soldier fodder.

So hey, if we're bothering you so much with our philistine grumblings about comic books, if somehow the fact that we read these things makes us more likely to be complicit in the acts of a corrupt administration, then go ahead. Cut off the arm and cauterize the wound.

Just know that to a rational person, you sound an awful lot like every NeoCon douche that gets made fun of on The Colbert Report, only with different sets of dialogue.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
12:42 / 09.12.05
Easy tiger. I think it was desperation at the fact that sometimes people forget about the world outside the funny books.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
12:42 / 09.12.05
There's a...wait, what?
 
 
The Natural Way
12:48 / 09.12.05
What Mac said. Those people in the book didn't really die etc. America wasn't really "liberated". A bunch of people here didn't know what 'The Great Satan' referred to and should.
 
 
Ben Danes
12:49 / 09.12.05
While it was alright, I couldn't help but feel that Millar has just recycled the first part of his last Authority arc. It basically hits all the same beats and high points, and even ends with nearly the same pose of the anti-team at the end. The Carrier/Triskelion destroyed, the team taken down by Hydra(?)/Seth.

What will be interesting is to see how much Millar's improved as a writer since then. That last Authority arc ended virtually how you would have predicted it would, Midnighter saving the day, and so on, which was not a good thing for the reader. He's off to a bad start with Black Widow being the traitor. Yes it was clever hiding her in plain sight, but only because people didn't expect it to really be that predictable and obvious. Will the end be something different than just Cap saving the day?

Like MacReady said, it didn't have that adrenaline rush that was expected, like that Authority issue did. I expect it to be better than that Authority arc in the end though. While Hitch isn't quite God/FQ, he's not going to bail after this issue either, which does help. Plus there's the Thor/Loki stuff, Hank and the Defenders, is Natasha going to force Tony to marry her (shotgun wedding?)? Plenty of interesting stuff that hasn't come into this new main plot yet. It should look lovely at least when it's collected in the oversized hardcover.
 
 
Aertho
12:51 / 09.12.05
Oh goodness. This is what I get for expecting Grant-like depth from mouthy Millar.

I don't think I've ever heard America referred as "Great Satan" on the news channels I watch. Granted, to be a true player I should be watching only the best and most unbiased of networks, but I needed to see about local school closings. That doesn't mean I have no clue about the world at large, and why Western culture is seen as decadent and all-thats-bad to other worldviews. Great Satan is perfectly understood. But then what?

Benjamin, don't wrap yourself in the stars and stripes just yet. America isn't clean or that great. It's just the latest nation-state to top the others.
 
 
Aertho
12:53 / 09.12.05
Oy. Posted a bit late to the party. Disregard, por favor.

I felt the same about the Authroity riff. Here come the analogs!
 
 
FinderWolf
13:00 / 09.12.05
Vanguard not Beta Ray Bill. Beta Ray Bill was a horse-faced alien. Plus, the hammer & sickle motif.

I thought maybe the creature some thought was Ult. Abomination was Ultimate Gargoyle. But probably Ult. Abomination fits better.

I'm still in shock that they actually really made *SPOILER BLEEPED OUT* a true, evil, totally vile traitor. Pretty gutsy.

More later...
 
 
Aertho
13:06 / 09.12.05
Don't make us WAIT!
 
 
FinderWolf
13:14 / 09.12.05
>> And the robot with the hidden human head behind red glass is Crimson Dynamo?

Or it could be an all-human human in a robot suit, like our very own Ultimate Tony Stark.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
13:16 / 09.12.05
Duly noted. Must give more attention to non-comic book related events in the comic book forums.

Wrap myself in the Stars And Stripes? The country that killed Arrested Development? Tuh-ry NOT.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:18 / 09.12.05
On a separate subject, do breast implants really itch? I guess I don't know any women with implants and have never heard this bit of info.

Seeing America get taken over so quickly, and particularly seeing the Statue of Liberty knocked over, was seriously a bit unsettling for me as it recalled 9/11 and was a very well-drawn, well-paced representation of what I imagine is the fantasy of many al Qaeda members...
 
 
Aertho
13:32 / 09.12.05
do breast implants really itch?

How absolutely queer of me to have not considered this at all. Not only queer but thoroughly nerdish. For me: implants = supercool muscle enhancements! Maybe even machine guns that pop out of her forearms! SWEET.
 
 
The Natural Way
13:34 / 09.12.05
I really fucking dug the speed of the take-over. Talk about shock and awe... Sure the it's-raining-men men are a little played out, but, for me at least, that didn't detract from the drama. I'm with you Finder.
 
 
Spaniel
14:07 / 09.12.05
I fall somewhere in between "that was teh awesome" and "I'm a bit tired of it raining super baddies". And, IMO, the Widow being the traitor was a little too obvious. I thought Millar was going to pull something more interesting out of the hat, like a guilt and grief stricken Betty Ross deciding that the only way to redeem herself was to sell the Ultimates out.

Also, I'm with Wedding re the Red Skull. We've met a Red Skull analogue already - sure, he didn't have a red face and he was an alien, but he had most everything else going on. This guy, no idea, but I like his double ended light sabre. Can't wait to see him and Cap go head to head.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
14:11 / 09.12.05
But it was SO obvious that it went back to being unobvious again!
 
 
Spaniel
14:16 / 09.12.05
Yeah, you're right there.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:19 / 09.12.05
Ults 2 has followed the same trajectory as Ults 1.

build up to internal team fight. then bubble away till external badddies come for scrap.

S'okay.

the battering of thor was was well bum for starters

but

I was never a marvel kid so a scrap with the B-listers posing on the final page just duzni dae-it furmee.

hopefully loki will do something really unusual and unexpected. something that requires jobbey-hot artwork.

so far he's not been as tricky as I'd expect him to be.

cunt's a recalcitrant trickster so he is.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
14:27 / 09.12.05
I was never a marvel kid so a scrap with the B-listers posing on the final page just duzni dae-it furmee.

Ditto. Sorta just glazed over that last page. They'll all be Hulk food in an issue or two anyways.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:03 / 09.12.05
I dunno. It's ... slight ... (Oh, sorry, "decompressed") but I'm more impressed (read: shocked) that Millar's showing some depth of characters, finally - I've been rereading, and the Ultimates are assholes but not uniformly so; he's managed to sneak in some character bits in between ripping off the earliest of Ellis Authority Arcs.

Fury & Betty - I don't think that was necessarily to indicate that they've been doinking all along, but he's presented them pretty consistently as having an actual friendship, even if it's mostly a "work friends" situation - Betty thinks her husband's dead, and Fury's always been there to hash things out with. I liked that bit, it showed actual intimacy between the characters, when usually the Authority is all about the Self-destructive Abusive Relationship(tm) and the fact that they're all assholes who hate each other.

"The Great Satan" - shocking, but ignorance is simply a state before enlightenment, and SHOCKING that a COMIC BOOK (filthy, filthy) might actually encourage people to learn something. So don't jump down people's throats for not knowing, it's just the same as all those new words you read and then have to go look up. People didn't know, and discussed the fact that they didn't know, and then found out the significance.

Oh my god. Cap-free issue. That's probably why I enjoyed it.

Tony & Jarvis & 'Tasha: another good character sequence; I like Tony (when not written by Card) because he's generally a spoiled snot-nosed brat genius but he's clearly in the process of re-evaluating his life, and Natasha exploited that. And while Jarvis irks me (dirty old man butler, huh), his interactions can be amusing and I like that once you get past Millar's character-posturing, there -is- an intimacy with Tony, even if it's hidden behind all the irritation.

And I'm betting her itchy implants were fight enhancements. I liked that she begged off so that - what? She could have the pleasure of killing Tony herself? That's intimate in it's own vicious way.

Any of that make sense?
 
 
FinderWolf
15:29 / 09.12.05
Hulk food! LOL!

>> like a guilt and grief stricken Betty Ross deciding that the only way to redeem herself was to sell the Ultimates out.

that would have been cool too.

I actually just saw the phrase "Great Satan" referred to in a CNN online news article today about Iran's recent comments about how Israel (which it calls the "Little Satan" by comparison, incidentally, a phrase which I'd never heard before, unlike "Great Satan" which I had) should be wiped off the face of the earth and doubts that the Holocaust actually happened, etc. Those crazy Iranian leaders.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:17 / 09.12.05
I like this Big Fight more than the Vol. I Big Fight...the Vol. I Big Fight felt really stretched out and just didn't jazz, this one (at least the beginning of it) has me mucho jazzed.
 
 
Aertho
16:46 / 09.12.05
What's that thesis, antithesis, synthesis theory?

Horrible, horrible that Loeb and JoeMad get to do the integrated "Avengers" volume.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:52 / 09.12.05
I assume that Loki's gang is going to be called the Avengers. It makes so much sense.
 
 
gridley
17:00 / 09.12.05
I was a bit bothered that all they had to to do was torture the codes out of Hawkeye to bring down the entire Ultimate base. There's no backup security? Fury can't at least call someone and try to get it turned back on instead of taking a moment with his special lady?

And if Black Widow was betraying them, wouldn't she have the codes too? Maybe she was lower down the totem pole but I thought Hawkeye was pretty much junior staff as well.

All in all, though, it was pretty good.

I figure Jan's already gotten herself into some crucial place inside one of the baddies' technology. And Hawkeye will escape by expertly spitting out one of his own teeth. Then Cap and Thor can escape now that the security grid's down. Is Hank Pym really betraying them? I suspect he's being forced against his will or being tricked, and will end up calling Bruce in at the last minute.
 
 
Aertho
17:09 / 09.12.05
Pym's wants attention. He gave up on Fury and the Ultimates when they wouldn't acknowledge his contributions or assistance.

I'm sure Widow snuck in and suggested he use his expertise for the Next World Power. On one hand, he's playing to win. On another, he's just a guy who wants to be one of the big dawgs. I think in super-hero terms, he's a filthy traitor, but in Ultimate World, he's just another bitter agent in the big ideological soup.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
17:14 / 09.12.05
Hawkeye's been around SHIELD for a while - he and Fury are old buddies, so it's not unrealistic that he'd have codes. Natasha - well. She /is/ a former Soviet agent, so despite the Cold War being over, I'd imagine they'd limit her access to info regardless.
 
 
Grady Hendrix
18:32 / 09.12.05
I was a little underwhelmed by this one, especially with what I thought was the predictable reveal that the Black Widow was the traitor.

But - I think a lot of holes in the story are tied up with my New Super Theory. Because, see, this issue ate at my brain. It wouldn't leave it alone. And then I realized: it ain't over. I predict (just like Criswell) that this is going to feed into the whole "Bush knew about 9/11" thing. Lots of folks think that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen in order to force America into World War II. Some people think Bush and Co. knew about 9/11 and let it happen so that they'd get a green light to invade Iraq.

I think it's going to turn out that Fury let Hawkeye be kidnapped, he kept the security codes the same as the ones Hawkeye knew, he let the most powerful Ultimates be taken down, he let other nations build people of mass destruction, and he let Black Widow stay in the team because he wants carte blanche to turn the Ultimates into a global police force and a superpowered invasion of the US would pretty much give him that.

I predict that in the next couple of issues we'll learn that Fury has been pulling the unsavory strings on a lot of this (witness the Ultimate Annual where he orchestrates his own assassination in order to clean house of a potential threat - foreshadowing anyone?).
 
 
Dark side of the Moonfrog1
18:37 / 09.12.05
Loved it. Agree that the speed of the takedown really added emphasis to the situation. Can't wait for issue 10!

Had two thought about the guy in the red mask. In the normal 616 universe, wasn't there a unit of black guys who were used to test the super soldier serum? Maybe this guy is an ultimate version of one of them. Or maybe he's Native American, hence the 'your country' jibe.

Other thought was that maybe the guy under the red mask is the real Fury minus the 'tache. Maybe the (now one-armed) Fury is a chitura-ra-hoo-hoo imposter.

But that's just silly.
 
  

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