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Underground > Comic Books >

Ultimates 3 - Speculation and Spoilers

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Glenn Close But No Cigar

10:49 / 12.11.07

Official press release for Ultimates 3 here

Wizard piece here

Ultimates 3 is scheduled for release this December. From the look of the preview images, the new team of Loeb, Madudeira and Lichtner have turned Millar and Hitch's creation from an initially interesting (first 6 issues) then increasingly tedious book into a full-on 1990s nightmare.

Dude who looks like a refugee from WildCATS is apparently Hawkeye. Kewl! The woman with the sword is Valkyrie, who apparently gets a) powers and b) it on with Thor, which begs the question just why Hank Pym's team-mates are so keen to get it on with his ex-lovers? Maybe it's a size anxiety/self-reassurance thing...

So, what would you like to happen in U3? What do you think will happen? And why exactly does the formerly Asian-American Wasp appear to be a red haired, well, WASP?

11:01 / 12.11.07

did i miss ultimate black panther appearing somewhere because that looks like him at the bottom, i have liked some of leobs work at DC but wonder what is the point of the ultimates now that they have stopped being an interesting PR vehicle for the military industrial complex - the strong posibility is that the UMU has just gotten itself a kick ass superhero team like any other in the regular MU.

still, valkrie is back so not all bad news. wonder if the other defenders will end up with powers somewhere along the line?

11:07 / 12.11.07

I know I was hungering for the return of Valkyrie

11:31 / 12.11.07

Yes, that's Panther. There's a bit about the new run in Wizard.

My guess is they are just throwing in pet character concepts before the line implodes.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:48 / 12.11.07

I know I was hungering for the return of Valkyrie

It's just a pity about the art - I'd prefer someone more realistic, you know? Perhaps Land, Horn or Turner could be drafted in to do some alternate covers.

Glenn Close But No Cigar

15:26 / 12.11.07

Mad! really is a horrible choice for this title, and Loeb is just meh. Milligan, I think, would have been great choice as writer (see esp. his X-Statix vs. Avengers), and someone like Harsine would have been fine for the art, which really does need to have a live action movie-like feel.

16:51 / 12.11.07

I...uh...I'm the only one whose first thought was that it looked pretty good art-wise aren't I?

I'm a horrible horrible human being.

17:24 / 12.11.07

I think you'll find Petey was being cheeky. The arts not my favourite, but it may well be fine for the direction they're taking the book.

18:42 / 12.11.07

Ouch.

It's pretty okay for what it is - super high fx sheen, hyperkinetic Saturday cartoon - I mean, I really liked Madureira when he was doing X-Men and Deadpool books - there's something immediately eyegrabbing to a casual fan about him and his Image predecessors; the nineties are kind of back in, too, as any reader of Punisher War Journal already kno. Hawkeye certainly looks a ton less bland or, rather, is "KEWL!!!!"

'Snot as good as McGuinness, though, who's doing the next volume; I really, really wish he'd do some comic that had a remote chance of not sucking massive ass.

19:45 / 12.11.07

But, like, Dude! Hawkeye's all badass and shoots Ultimate Venom in the eye! With a tiny arrow!

Ahem.

The other half of the cover's what intrigues me on the CBR preview, though; they seem to have gone from having world-threatening Chitauri or reality-altering Asgardian tricksters to having what appears to be the Ultimate Brotherhood of Mutants +1, Venom. (Plus the long-silvery-haired lady at the back whom my geek-fu does not recognise).

The Wizard preview really doesn't help sell it, though.

But there's no point in whinging about it w-a-a-y before it's out.

20:15 / 12.11.07

Well, I can write you a big fucking check in blood, on stone, that you can cash if you like it and I'll not worry about much other than where the blood's coming from.

It will be a bollocksly written comic with some exciting art to carry it: this is how Jeph Loeb do. Honestly, if you're genuinely thinking about buying it because 'oh, the characters' or whatever - consider this a warning: don't. The art's the sole reason to even glance.

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:46 / 12.11.07

Look, the artist for the other characters is fine. But Valkyrie needs a nice Land pin-up.

Land. Land. Land.

He cannot draw a foot.

Or hand.

23:12 / 12.11.07

Before I contribute a short pome about what a terrible load of balls I suspect this series is going to be, how is Loeb pronounced? Is it 'lobe', 'lob' or 'leeb'? Or something I haven't considered?

Whatever, the eight page fight scene being previewed on Newsarama at the moment doesn't seem all that promising. If what was engaging about the Ultimates was the characterisation (of Bruce Banner, the Pyms, Steve Rogers, etc) as opposed to the mega splash blow-outs that apparently nearly did for Bryan Hitch in the end, it looks as if somebody's managed to miss the point in a fairly dramatic way.

Glenn Close But No Cigar

10:47 / 13.11.07

While I suspect it is pronounced 'Lobe', I'd prefer it if it were 'Lob', alllowing me to ask Joe Quesada whether he has a 'Loeb on' with impunity.

I'm not sure whether the only engaging thing about the Millar/Hitch run was the characterisation. Rather, it was this coupled with the wow factor of all the SHIELD tech, parties at the White House etc. etc, rendered in Hitch's realistic, trillion-dollar-budget-if-it-were-a-movie widescreen stylee. For me, the Ultimates only really worked when they had nobody to fight but themselves. A really brave (and professionally suicidal) writer / editor would have explored this, rather than opting for Nazi Aliens, piss-weak political allegory, and Warhammer Norse bollocks.

From the Wizard piece: [Thor's] pretty much the badass of the team [...] He’s a Viking; he likes to drink and enjoy women,” laughs Loeb

Sensitive eco warrior (albeit one that Millar hinted enjoyed the occasional beer in a trendy niteclub and the attentions of that pink-haired Suicide Girl follower of his) to frat boy in one 'season'. I'm imagining Odinson drunkenly singing Love Among Freaks' 'Berserker': 'My love for you is like a truck / Would you like some making fuck?...'

Laugh it up, Loeb, laugh it up.

19:25 / 13.11.07

That's awful in ways that I will take weeks to describe. If there was one thing that could drive me away from the Ultimate line, it would be Loeb.

02:15 / 07.12.07

wow, this was even worse than I thought it would be.

Yikes. Just... yikes.

02:15 / 07.12.07

(I just read/skimmed it in the store. Was not going to plunk down actual money for this.)

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:12 / 07.12.07

He's achieved something extraordinary, though, hasn't he, the Loebster? He's made Mark Millar look like a subtle and nuanced storyteller who pays great attention to characterisation. That's quite an accomplishment.

08:46 / 07.12.07

To be fair, that did, in a way, exceed expectations.

Next month's sales figures should make for interesting reading.

10:03 / 07.12.07

It was just terrible. Really really bad. My flatmate liked it though, he reckons the art's really good.

15:06 / 07.12.07

I dare you to eat your flatmate.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:17 / 07.12.07

Having looked at it in the store -- wow. They really have advanced the colouring/inking technologies used to make women look like they've been composed of shiny fetish leather, haven't they?

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

17:41 / 07.12.07

Oh dear. I realize I forgot to remove the Ultimates from my pull list after the last series finished, so I suspect there's going to be a copy of this waiting for me tomorrow, which I shall feel obliged to purchase. Is it amusingly bad, or am I going to hate myself in the morning after buying it?

Essential Dazzler

17:44 / 07.12.07

It's not even close to funny.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

18:42 / 07.12.07

just pretend you can't read, and try to appreciate the art.

there's a lot of "I don't want to talk about it" or "just let it go" statements used to make What is Going On or What Will Happen Next be a bit more mysterious, but really is done kind of jarringly and just makes everyone seem like a dick.

especially after the last run ended with happy happy we saved the world, sorry I ever doubted you, let's form our own team and make a fresh start doing the right thing, isn't life great sentiments.

some elements seem to be clumsily drawing on ideas from the first two arcs (like "Cap can't relate" or "Quicksilver's overprotective of Wanda and hostile to everyone else"), and others seem to indicate that Loeb has never read a single previous issue of the Ultimates (what the fuck happened to Thor?)

it also feels like the author is forcibly making the characters do stupid things as dramatic elements - like Venom seeming fairly lucid at times, but not being able to explain what he wants in any useful way. presumably this was set up as some kind of foreshadowing.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

08:47 / 09.12.07

Hmmmm. That wasn't quite as awful as I was expecting. I mean, sure it was a not very good comic book, but I was expecting Flash: The Fastest Man Alive levels of bad, and it certainly wasn't on that level. The dialoguie was fairly poor, and not that much happened, and much of what did happen didn't make much sense, but I'd describe it as mediocre writing rather than absolutely awful.

Art-wise I don't want to comment too much - it was odd art, and at first look I'm not impressed, but sometimes that kind of strange, immediately bad looking art can grow on me. With regards to the whole fetish leather thing - it's not just the women is it? The men are largely just as shiny and leathersome - in the case of Black Panther and Hawkeye probably more so, although with better reason I suppose.

19:17 / 09.12.07

Immeadiately bad looking art? Mediocre writing? MAKE MINE MARVELTIMATE!

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:25 / 09.12.07

With regards to the whole fetish leather thing - it's not just the women is it? The men are largely just as shiny and leathersome - in the case of Black Panther and Hawkeye probably more so, although with better reason I suppose.

The men don't look quite as balloony as the women do, is all -- yeah, they're both shiny and leathery, but the women have a rubbery balloon quality that extends beyond their breasts. I don't know. They all look like horrible action figures being mashed together by some strange little boy somewhere. Only they never make enough of the female figures in the first place...

It's all like some elaborate fetish roleplaying game being performed by Plastic Man to work out some fevered imaginings.

10:32 / 10.12.07

It's all like some elaborate fetish roleplaying game being performed by Plastic Man to work out some fevered imaginings.

Now there's a comic I'd buy.

16:20 / 18.12.07

This was really bad. I didn't even like the art. That picture of Black Panther punching Venom was just wrong. A problem I often have with painted artwork is that - okay there's lovely three dimensional looking textures on everything but the initial drawings are just bad. All ridiculously exagerated physique and poor storytelling.

I'm glad I didn't pay for this piece of crap.

Essential Dazzler

16:51 / 18.12.07

Was it painted?

Despite near-universal derision the first issue managed to sell out at Diamond and is getting a second printing. Of course, that doesn't have to mean that customers are actually buying it, but I have a horrible feeling that a lot of people are.

It breaks my mind, I guess there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

17:23 / 18.12.07

I'm prepared to bet money the sales figures will start to drop off sharply next ish

17:25 / 18.12.07

Well, they will by about 20% probs, but not because people have suddenly realised Jeph Loeb is the worst writer in superheroes I think.

17:34 / 18.12.07

I remain an optimist.

Anyway, all those brilliant story ideas might've exploded Jeph's head by then.

Regrettable Juvenilia

17:38 / 18.12.07

He is a very scary figure at this point - god knows what he's going to do to the Hulk, and for now it seems as if any character or franchise he fancies swinging his cock at is his.

Be afraid.

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