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Underground > Comic Books >

The Ultimates 2

  
  

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Mug Chum
16:49 / 07.10.06
Is it possible that all my "god, so crass" feeling was intentionaly made by Millar? He has very defined what people are looking for in a Ultimates' issue. It's really all too much "in your face". Nick Fury wihtout an arm and still shooting feels like Carl Weathers in Predator, and trying to save the president and all, feels all too much like every MuscleShooter action film from late 80ies-mid90ies.

On the other hand, if it wasn't all parody...
That "No joke, Abdul" really made my skin creep deep.

I was hoping for a Cap (a America) we could A)sympathize; or B)soberly watch him die without any sort of liberal wet dream scenario.

Ended up on either C)neoCon hating-machine rewatching all of the homoerotic hardAction flicks; or D) a parody of all that, massaging liberal's hating tingle. Either way, it's all the same to me. (I thought of another possibility, but still... the same thing in the end)
 
 
The Falcon
22:55 / 07.10.06
I was hoping for a Cap (a America) we could A)sympathize

The non-ultymate version is definitely sympathetic enough; by this point, Cap is - in this version - what everyone I know seems to think he is anyway, imperialism made flesh (well, pencils, inks, colours - you know.) The thing is, and I think Millar's done a good balancing act with him, aside from the unmentionably poor Ultimate War he's never had a concrete moment I can point at and go: "I am appalled." There's beating up muggers, 'this A on my head..', kicking Banner in the face and doing Pym... most of it's merited, that violence. I mean, he's not really sympathetic - he solves problems with his fists, like mike robot & other superheroes - and never was, but then there's the arrest ish, where he kinda is. That's pretty engaging, to me.

Also, that fight scene is really good. Hulk winning through stupidity is a decent joke. I like reverso-versions of characters, particularly those guys in 1963's Tomorrow Syndicate; however, in typical Millar style he's taken a one issue thing that'd be cool and overstretched it.

I do feel a little dirty and used by this ish, but by fuck, it's nowhere near as bad as Brit legend Garth Ennis latest Boys. Predictable and grotty, and earmarked for avoidance henceforth.
 
 
Sniv
23:53 / 07.10.06
Thing is, reading this arc back, I don't think Cap is meant to be a sympathetic character. All the way through, Millar has been portraying him as someone completely out of touch with the 21st century, and to quite some extent appalled by it. He's absolute, there's no room for grey areas in his worldview - see his treatment of Hank Pym in the triskelion a few issues back, or the conversations he's had with Janet over the course of the series.

I think we're supposed to sympathise with him as far as the fact that he's a disorientated anachronism, and how that must feel, but we are also shown his black-and-white/good-and-evil worldview, and how that doesn't really translate into issues like America's imperialism or it's taking on the role of 'world police'. I think we're meant to feel icky when Cap beats Al-Rahman, because of what it represents. I'm not sure if that's heavy-handed or not, but the whole theme of this 'season' has been America using it's 'persons of mass destruction' in foreign war zones, an act that it specifically said it wouldn't undertake.

It used it's Ultimates to cripple a nation a few issues back (in Al-Rahman's origin story). I really don't think America (and it's captain) is supposed to be the good guy in this story. In fact, the only blameless character in all of this is Thor, the Norse god that stood opposed to America throughout the entire run. America is just defending itself, but there's no real glory in stamping out a threat that they created in the first place, and is simply reacting to America's agression.

Crickey I sound like a right anti-American there, don't I? Bear in mind, this is my reading of the fictional story the Ultimates and not of international politics as it stands at the moment. Honest.

Anyway, for all of the people that hated #12, try reading the 11 issues before it in one or two sits. It reads just as well as the first season, I think. The excellent setting-up and characterisations of the previous couple of years worth (!) of issues really help to contextualise the big fight scene and give it some meaning (as it picks off right from the last page of #11 and the previous 2 issues, carrying that momentum with it). Like the question as to where the rest of the Ult. U come from in that splash page - well, we see the FF being led away in chains a couple of issues back and it's not unreasonable to imagine the rest of the superpeople being rounded up and when the Union setting them free ("We're looking for the Fantastic Four..."), Superhero fightback. Made sense to me, at least. I don't meant to sound like such an apologist here, but I just don't quite get where all the hate for this issue comes from.
 
 
The Falcon
01:25 / 08.10.06
It is kind of disappointing and puerile, esp. if you've waited several months in the hope of getting some awesome. A lot of the criticisms are valid, I think, but I'd not agree the first half of first volume was necessarily better than, well, the first half or even 2/3 (up to #8) of this volume. The execution was altogether stronger and smarter, imo.

Also, in what is an apparent inversion of Civil War world, Tony Stark remains a decent chap alongside Thor.
 
 
The Falcon
01:28 / 08.10.06
Ah, but you know another thing that's crap - Al-Rahman 'waited half his life' to go head-to-head with el Capitan, which makes him - at best - ten years old ('twas about five year ago with the ish where Cap was recovered from the ice, wasn't it?) and more likely, given his harbouring resentment from when the Ultimates (never) invaded his native Azerbaijan, about 10 months old. Or deeply shit at maths.
 
 
The Falcon
01:29 / 08.10.06
Also, in what is an apparent inversion of Civil War world, Tony Stark remains a decent chap alongside Thor.

Apart from that military-industrial complex thing, Duncan, you clownshoe.

stopping now.
 
 
Sniv
11:30 / 08.10.06
Falc - Al-Rahman 'waited half his life' to go head-to-head with el Capitan

Yeah, I have to agree with you on this, as the timeline makes it pretty clear that Al-Rahman's super-surgery process had only taken 6-months tops. I guess he could have been waiting half his life to stick it to a symbol of american imperialism, but that may be a fanwank too far. Sloppy.

I still liked the rest of the book though.
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
16:45 / 08.10.06
Maybe he views it as his "new" life as Captain Azerbaijan?
 
 
This Sunday
18:06 / 08.10.06
Both US and Soviet governments spent the last fifty-plus years trying to compete, essentially, and build off of, Captain America. That's been established with everything from the Hulk to those Russian supersoldiers in a bunker in Tunguska. That's the Black Widow. So why not the new Cap A? The surgeries may be recent, but the idea? Do we know how long the concept of anti-capping could've been sitting in this guy?
 
 
The Falcon
19:38 / 08.10.06
What, he waited half his life to square go a guy that was presumed dead? Okay.
 
 
This Sunday
20:07 / 08.10.06
Didn't the nutty Russian with the organic shield in the Galactus-stuff do pretty much the same?

Dream the impossible dream!

I might not mind popping a few people in the jaw who've been dead for quite some time. If I were a little more jingoisticmilitantsupertype maybe I'd give it some serious time and effort.

Or maybe it's just waiting for the chance to kick about whomever's currently the top-wrung of the flagwaving America-representation line.

Or it was Loki's magic. Loki's gonna be my Skrull/Space Phantom/Wanda for this series.
 
 
The Falcon
20:50 / 08.10.06
Well, after all, he wizard.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:57 / 08.10.06
All this discussion of whether characters are meant to be sympathetic misses the following:

i. In Millar's Authority, the main characters were gung-ho, sadistic uber-liberals (of a sort). When I was first reading and enjoying it, I assumed it was meant as some kind of very sick satire. But on the internet, he stated repeatedly that he was fully behind the Authority and thought of them as heroes.

ii. In Millar's Civil War, the pro-Reg side come off as heartless science fascists and the anti-Reg side as unthinking gung-ho thugs. He has said on record that he thinks both sides are fighting for what they believe in, and are still heroes.

So, in Millar's Ultimates, Captain America is a Republican dick. But he's still intended to be seen as a hero. It's just that what Millar sees as heroic behaviour is not what you or I might see as the same.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
15:11 / 10.10.06
so, is Millar - as a writer of superhero adventures set in a heavily political background - just like a good journalist who listens to both sides, or simply a bitch who writes to the idealized audience of choice?

writers shouldn't be judged by their stand on Politics but when your Body of Work [containing heavy political tones] lays on the biopsy/autopsy table, your ability to make an argument and what the hell that argument comes off as important, I suppose. if you're going to make a stand, what are you standing for? it's just a reason for fight scenes, sure, yet I want to know what his Discourse is about.

is Millar also a Master of Mischief? because this v.2 of Ultimates has been awful from the start, and the introduction of the Liberators pointed to some hope of a counter-balance to ultimate Cap's right-wing caricature, even if it was to show they were also wrong in their self-righteousness to liberate the liberating USA of its said imperialist position in that world.

I don't know if he'll able to wrap this Discourse issue with only a chapter left, and I hope we're in for a surprise. but not too much... was I clear in my point? just rambling here.

and technically-speaking, I'm with diz, Hendrix and Gumbitch. what a bad comic. Image'92-bad. it's just posing, bravatto, some fighting. repeat. I mean, why Rob Liefeld's not in the art team? Hitch was uninspired. the Star Wars stuff was lame, and Hollywood SmarTalk(C) bores me to death.

some good scenes though, as you guys said: Quicksilver, Pym and that single Wanda panel; I could hear her sweet voice. other than that, worst comic I've been reading of late.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:24 / 10.10.06
>> Maybe he views it as his "new" life as Captain Azerbaijan?

So did they ever explain what the W on his chest is supposed to be for? There is a "W" on his chest, right?
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
17:37 / 10.10.06
The W stands for BYOBB.

The extra B is a typo.
 
 
The Falcon
17:38 / 10.10.06
Well, it kind of looks like the hawk on the Egyptian flag, and there's a fork-like W shape on Iran's too. So, I'd guess not a W, really.
 
 
FinderWolf
18:05 / 10.10.06
Bring Your Own....Blade? (double edged lightsaber) where do you go there from a W, even with humour?
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
06:50 / 11.10.06
I'm trapped in a random simpsons quote world. Everything's coming up Milhouse!
 
 
Grady Hendrix
14:37 / 11.10.06
I do think Millar may be able to save this run on ULTIMATES because I think we're building to a surprise revelation in the next issue.

I believe! That it's going to turn out that Nick Fury knew about this attack and let it happen. I believe! That there's no way he could not have known this was being planned by foreign governments. I believe! That (as shown in the ULTIMATES Annual) people in the US government were mistrustful of Fury's Ultimates program and wanted to shut it down. I belive! That like the long-standing rumors that Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were known in advance by the President but were allowed to happen in order to get a blank check for international military intervention - that Nick Fury wants to fix the world and needed an attack on America to be authorized to send the Ultimates out to save the planet. I believe! That Fury knew his guys - who took down the Hulk (twice), and an alien invasion - would mop the floor with these largely untrained and inexperienced foreign super soldiers. I believe! That this will piss off the Ultimates to no end and that they will leave the government and go private at the end of this series. I believe! That this will set them up nicely for their run with the new writer and artist. I believe! That then they'll be called the Avengers.

I belive these things! It may not save the series. But I believe!
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
16:24 / 11.10.06
I share this belief with you, brother, and maybe Thor will be a key player in these revelations; after all he's Ultimate Jesus.

but let's see how it goes. odss say there's still a 50% chance of the finale suck ass. here's hoping not.
 
 
Spaniel
18:39 / 11.10.06
so, is Millar - as a writer of superhero adventures set in a heavily political background - just like a good journalist who listens to both sides, or simply a bitch who writes to the idealized audience of choice?

What the very fuck are you talking about? That writers shouldn't have political bias and express their bias in their works? That writers (or journalists) who don't tell the fascist dick side of the story, or give more weight to those that aren't fascist dicks, are "writing to an idealized audience of choice"?. What the fuck is "an idealized audience of choice"?

Personally I think it's pushing it to suggest that Millar's doing anything politically worthwhile in the Ultimates (or in any other book he's ever written, for that matter).

Feel free to start a new thread explaining your thinking, or continue in this one with reference to Millar's Ultimates.
 
 
FinderWolf
20:11 / 11.10.06
I hope to believe! what Grady theorized.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
00:36 / 12.10.06
no, Boboss, quite the opposite. maybe the use of "journalist" was unfortunate. read on.

what I said is based in an old Millar interview [coudn't find it on Google, sorry; it was on Newsarama, I guess] in which he said something to the effect that there should be more comics aimed at a conservative audience. and that ULTIMATES was an atempt at that.

either he was writing to please said projected audience through mainly this Cap version [the infamous "A" line], or he's been fooling us since then. we'll know when 2.13 arrives..

the [north-american] cultural zeitgeist has clearly changed from a pro-BusheneyIraqOccupationFuckTerroristsAndOurCivilRightsToo stance to a much more critical one. Millar could have gone with the flow, but we'll never know for sure. is he a guy who, in terms of the how stories show his personal worldview, shifts gear according to who's buying his story?

I woudn't say he is, at all... until I read that interview then and the full run of Ultimates vol. 1.

BUT: given his track record of how the political issues are dealt with in his superhero comics - as others have mentioned here - a coming twist may still be a possibility.

I'll be happily fooled.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
00:47 / 12.10.06
oh, and yeah, I do think he's doing something politically worthwhile in the Ultimates - even in a very distilled form.

I for one think the Authority are the ultimate Humanitarian heroes [in a way Superman has never been - and of course, blame it on Moore's MIRACLEMAN] and not the villains that even Warren Ellis said they were. no matter what they did in the end sounded very totalitarian anyway.

haven't read AUTHORITY since Millar left, but I guess it turned out to be a big theme in following runs.

this probably is a whole other thread, but there you go.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:56 / 12.10.06
so, is Millar - as a writer of superhero adventures set in a heavily political background - just like a good journalist who listens to both sides, or simply a bitch who writes to the idealized audience of choice?

He's someone who writes characters - whatever their professed politics - who come off as dickheads to anyone who isn't a dickhead, but whom he wants his audience to cheer.

I'm with Boboss that it's hardly even worth trying to read his recent work politically, but if you were going to, bear in mind that he's an admirer of Condoleeza Rice, and someone who once attended an anti-capitalist demo wearing a suit in order to MESS WITH THE PROTESTORS' MINDZ.
 
 
Evil Scientist
08:53 / 12.10.06
That then they'll be called the Avengers.

Oh I hope not. I much prefer the (to paraphrase Baron Zemo) "suitably crypto-fascist" Ultimates as the team name.

Although I suppose if they're being sent out to attack the countries involved in the invasion then Avengers is a more apt name.

Calling them The Ultimates is part of what distinguishes the group from their 616 counterparts. What I don't want to see in the new stuff is the team becoming more and more like their mainstream versions. Going private is, in the current Ultimate US political climate likely to bring them into conflict with the government and SHIELD, so I'd like to see that if they do break away.

I'm not sure that they will though. Even if Fury is revealed as a big bad (no doubt a stunning reveal of Black Widow as actually still working for him), most of them would be happy to stick with their state-funded celebrity lifestyles.

For my money, even though the second volume looks to be ending in a very average finale, I still enjoy reading the book. The fact that some of them are very unlikable people adds some character to the story. I'd just rather they focus a bit more on the relatively okay people (like Thor, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, even Hawkeye is alright).
 
 
This Sunday
19:10 / 12.10.06
With the politics, I guess there's a real thrill in seeing something that agrees with your own, sure, but it shouldn't be a necessity, by any means. For any entertainment or entertainer. I still like Heinlein's books, Wagner's music, and can watch Mel Gibson in a movie without shuddering horribly. Unless you push it to the Riefenstahl/'Triumph of the Will' level, anyway.

As to Millar's suit-at-protest deal, it had nothing to do with the protestors. He dressed that way to present a clean-cut, respectable face in front of those they were protesting and because it lends itself to making one less likely to be beat about the brains by overanxious policemen types. He has on a few occasions, suggested such tactics be embraced by all protestors, rather than going out in the traditional tough old clothes that could stand up to a good scraping and thrashing, if it came to that. Suits respond to suits.
 
 
Spaniel
19:20 / 12.10.06
Yeah, but the Ultimates still isn't any kind of worthwhile political tract and his characters are dickheads (always).
 
 
Alex's Grandma
20:05 / 12.10.06
Someone who once attended an anti-capitalist demo wearing a suit in order to MESS WITH THE PROTESTORS' MINDZ

On the one anti-capitlaist demo I ever went on, it seemed if at least a third of the protestors were wearing suits, on the basis that they'd blend in with the crowd in the City. Who, paradoxically, had all been told to dress down for work that day, so they wouldn't be such an obvious target for 'the rioters' to, as it turned out, mainly play the bongoes at. These were more innocent times.

I'm not sure if Mark Millar really is teh political conservative - I think it's more just a case of his having got so lost in his left-baiting persona (this in the first place being largely to do with his desire to 'kill the father,' ie, George,) that he's forgotten what he was originally trying to 'say' in the first place. More than anything, he's just after a reaction. See also (though it's a terrible thing to say about anyone); Julie Burchill. It's a bad place to be, but at least Mark Millar's amusing on occasion, and I don't know how his work on this could be read as anything other than (all right, fairly heavy-handed on occasion,) satire.

Being nice to Mark Millar, perhaps he's trying to show how attractive the use of unlimited power can be (Steve, Tony, Nick,) and what upsetting it is if you're left out of the loop (Henry, Bruce,) if you've sacrificed your integrity in pursuit of same. Tellingly, perhaps, Thor is the only member of The Ultimates who doesn't routinely go by his civilian name.

He's a bit hit-and-miss as a writer, I suppose, but the 'fate worse than death' hasn't made it's appearance yet - if Mark had been given free editorial reign, I suspect that what happened to The Abomination wouldn't have been ... well it wouldn't have been so good, but the point is that Mark has been, I don't know, quite entertaining throughout the run.

There's only this, Daredevil, and the idea of Grant Mitchell's latest that give me any thoughts of genuine anticipation as I trudge off, hungover, to the local comic shop every couple of weeks.
 
 
This Sunday
20:42 / 12.10.06
Thor's civilian name is Thor. His real name, anyway.

Of course, when you get down to it, 'Captain America' is Rogers' real name, in the ol' six one six.
 
 
Feverfew
19:34 / 28.03.07
So. Amazon is listing the second volume, issues 7-13, as available on April 25th. Did I miss a memo? I swear the last one I saw was 12...
 
 
Alex's Grandma
20:09 / 28.03.07
Issue 13's out in late May apparently, trade to follow shortly afterwards, I'm guessing. It's rumoured to have taken a long time to draw.
 
 
Spaniel
12:15 / 29.03.07
No, Joe Q said it took a long time to draw and pointed the finger squarely at Hitch. Hitch, obviously bristling, countered that he'd had it finished before Christmas and that good ol' Joe should go and check his invoices.

Yet again with the shockingly professional behaviour from Marvel, then. I know that when I go into our board meetings I'm prone to the odd shrug and bout of finger pointing and look of hurt when I am oh-so-unfairly accused of not doing my job. I mean, why not?
 
 
Alex's Grandma
19:00 / 29.03.07
Yeah you're right actually. Apparently it was Paul Neary's fault, due to illness and other committments.

Still, I'm sure it'll be good when it finally comes out. In eighteen months time according to Mark Millar, but I guess he was joking about that.

(Reading Millarworld eats the soul.)
 
  

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