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Underground > Comic Books >

The Ultimates #6

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The Natural Way

08:34 / 22.08.02

It was the art, wasn't it? 'Cause it certainly had nothing to do w/ anything that was said....I think you'd have to struggle to find flirty-rudeness embedded in the dialogue.

yawn - thing's buddy

09:23 / 22.08.02

its what people want

13:26 / 22.08.02

Yawn wrote: Strange that hank should be obsessed with size when millar’s given him a healthy seven inches.

Well, that could be a problem for some guys. Anyway, it is not yet hinted at in the book. What do we do with this kind of information? Chatter, just chatter.

Making Jarvis gay is not a much bold thing to do these days, lets admit it, he is a secondary character, and it has become sort of a pathetic and regrettable cliché. Iron Man being gay or bisexual would be indeed bold, and keeping readers on the perennial doubt also.

I was thinking that peceptions of homosexuality and other sexual behaviors like incest and travestism vary dramatically at the extremes of the socio economical range, such extremes being either extreme poverty or extreme wealth, to which the latest Stark does belong. I do not mean they are more tolerated, but they are indeed handled differently among pairs, with a different set of prejudices and connotations that those in the "burgeois" middle like myself have.

yawn - thing's buddy

13:42 / 22.08.02

so seb (sorry, if this abrvtn makes you throw)

would you be unhappy with just the seven?

14:34 / 22.08.02

Anyone can provide a link to someplace with page previews? I'm interested in the art mentioned in this thread, and I don't think The Ultimates will be published around here so soon...

14:40 / 22.08.02

>>>I didn't get that Stark as gay/tranny thing at all. He keeps his Mum's clothes...so what?<<<

In issue 2, Jarvis says: "Overcompensating a little, aren't we? You know what they say about bachelor boys who are always reminding us what insatiable ladies' men they are..."

Plus the crack about hanging on to mummy's clothes.

>>>And where the fuck is he "coming on to Thor"?<<<

>>>It was the art, wasn't it? 'Cause it certainly had nothing to do w/ anything that was said....I think you'd have to struggle to find flirty-rudeness embedded in the dialogue.<<<

Not Thor, but Cap - ish 6, p.10, panels 5 and 6. "Do you think Captain America and Thor have even noticed that preposterous new waistcoat of yours?" "Give it time, young sir, give it time. I'm feeling jolly lucky this evening." And there's an unmistakably lascivious grin on Jarvis' face as he pours the wine...

yawn - thing's buddy

14:55 / 22.08.02

Cameron - I don't get what you're saying in the last couple of paragraphs.

can you elucidate?

The Natural Way

15:07 / 22.08.02

Cam: yr confused. I was responding to Fool's post.

He DOES claim Stark was coming on to Thor. By "he" I meant Stark, not Jarvis.

Oooh...argh...just reread it. Even I'm getting confused now.

Anyway...Jarvis is probably just poking fun. The clothes thing? Well, all I got from that was that Jarvis would like to wear them.

20:55 / 22.08.02

Surely it's possible for one straight man to kid another straight man about being gay...? What, that never happened to anybody here...?

And, technically, Millar didn't write a gay version of Superman & Batman, he inherited them from Warren Ellis and spent all his time making queer jokes.

The Natural Way

07:29 / 23.08.02

Only Jarvis clearly isn't straight.

yawn - thing's buddy

07:50 / 23.08.02

this is getting like millar world

The Natural Way

08:23 / 23.08.02

No it's not. I've just been there.

I must stop going there.

There are a lot of very confused posts here, though: Cam's and Hou's make no sense. Cam because he misunderstood my posts and Hou...well, it sounds like he didn't even read the book, but he's commenting on it all the same. And, yr right, I don't really want to be having this conversation, 'cause it's not actually a conversation and....yargh.

The Natural Way

08:30 / 23.08.02

Clear up mess. (Always was) My take: Jarvis likes to rib Stark about his being a latent homo. *Finds* evidence to suit his piss-takey purposes. I've had plently of gay/bi friends who've ribbed me in the same way - not exactly rare. Stark keeps his Mum's clothes. He loved his Mum. She is dead. Jarvis wants the underwear for saucy cross-dressing purposes. Millar is cheap, but I like him.

Jarvis is gay and wants to make an impression on Cap and Thor with his special new waistcoat.

There.

Done.

I shut up now.

The Natural Way

09:07 / 23.08.02

The more I think about it, though, the more irritated I get that Millar's stuff lends itself to this kinda "is he or isn't he?" shit. An individual's (fictional or otherwise) *Gayness* shouldn't really be the object of schoolboy tittilation. Sometimes I wish Millar would at least attempt to veto the millarworld.biz spackchild that lurks beneath his supertexts. He's a bright lad, very capable and spins out a good, fast moving, imaginative story, but lumping together homosexuality w/ crossdressing for cheap ("look at the funny old queen!") laffs is just a little....embarassing. Trouble is w/ Millar: most 'lithers objections to his stuff do ring true. But I don't think he's dumb at all - just lazy. A lazy thinker.

Can't get over the fact that I really enjoy his books, though.

11:52 / 23.08.02

~Runce: The more I think about it, though, the more irritated I get that Millar's stuff lends itself to this kinda "is he or isn't he?" shit.

We also have to admit that is more entertaining to wonder this kinda stuff in this kind of comic-book than to be wondering at the pathetic, dull hands of Jenkins in the crappy Origin story kind of things like "is he Wolverine or is he Sabretooth? Does he has blue eyes or are they brown?".

12:14 / 23.08.02

~Yawn: so seb (sorry, if this abrvtn makes you throw) would you be unhappy with just the seven?

I'm already fine with my seven and half, bub, but I've seen people go to plastic surgery to make'em for less, takes lotsa good canadian blood to drive it. And I doubt that Kank chum could do it while he is on the "big" mode. Pssss

yawn - thing's buddy

12:57 / 23.08.02

cool

The Natural Way

13:56 / 23.08.02

Absolutely, Seb: I'd much rather read Millar's stuff than a million other superhero books. Just pointing out that it is, as Fly's mentioned previously, a bit of a guilty pleasure.

16:50 / 23.08.02

In the interests of clarity, I did not read the book. I still think that kidding people about their sexuality, one way or another, can sometimes be a dialogue thing.

Anyway. Let me never post to this thread again. I think Runce already said everything that I could say about Millar, save that I don't buy The Ultimates.

17:11 / 23.08.02

Now, seriously, I've just realised that even in TPB the six issues will not appear much self-conclusive as I would like them to be, it still looks like a good entertaining and complex prologue of a really big and multiple level story, even to new readers who have never picked up an Avengers issue, but still a prologue.

And the above only if we take for granted that there is indeed a "story" in what for me has mainly been a book devoted to a delightfully minute character development, more akin to a TV reality show than to a standard super-hero comic book, in which even at this "format" level there is a game at stake on shock-value reserved for readers who would rather stay forever in the promised and issue faithful "Snikt! Slash! Burp!".

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:22 / 23.08.02

Notto sound like the old fart, but since Marvel is pushing the Ultimate line as "new reader friendly" and aimed at getting younger teens to read comics again, I think all the stuff in issue 6 we are discussing is a bad idea.

Flame away, but this IS in Wal-Mart and Target right now next to the Spider-Man toys. If this were a mainline Marvel and rated PG-13, I'd be thinking a lot different about it than I do.

As for having Hank be a dangerous wife-beater...ick. Ick when they did it in the 80's with the over-the-top storyline of Hank Pym going insane and ick to this issue that reads almost like a super-hero Lifetime movie titles "Mommy, May I Sleep With Dangerous Antman?"

Sorry, but this book just doesn't work for me on any level. As a super-hero book the pace is way too slow, and as a "new reader book" it's a lot like putting bugs in the middle of a DQ Blizzard, shocking, but in a way that keep the customer away.

18:51 / 23.08.02

And Cap kicking puny Banner's face once he was already in is not the best example either, but then those videos of cops badly hitting guys should only be shown after 10 PM or with a warning and they are not.

Its not Rockwell's America.

12:41 / 24.08.02

there's a good little line when cap gets his old helmet back which makes me think the story will work as a collection. i always get the feeling millar's work is basically smarter thn it looks. i don't remember a superbook that ever pointed the camera into these bits of the heroes' lives before.

17:01 / 24.08.02

~glassonion: there's a good little line when cap gets his old helmet back which makes me think the story will work as a collection.

Whesdat line??

The Natural Way

10:16 / 25.08.02

But, solitaire, the customers are buying it in droves.

And it isn't "too slow" - it has its own pace. Why should it be constrained by the pacing of the trad superhero narrative?

11:41 / 25.08.02

the one about the fat lady he got it from - the wife of the guy who's ragging cap in ish 1. nothing earth-shaking, just gave me a nice warm feeling.

13:50 / 25.08.02

>>>But, solitaire, the customers are buying it in droves.<<<

Well, no. It's doing decent numbers as far as comic books go, about a hundred thousand copies, but that's still pathetic compared to other forms of mass media. It's failing to draw in that new readership outisde the existing comics niche...

>>>And it isn't "too slow" - it has its own pace. Why should it be constrained by the pacing of the trad superhero narrative?<<<

Because, as has been said before, the stated point of the Ultimate line was to make rebooted, highly-accessible comics to appeal to new readers. When you're buying one chapter of a story at a time, with thirty days in between (sometimes more), at a fairly high price - there hasn't been enough to keep the average person (who hasn't been ALREADY conditioned to go to the comics shop every week anyway) coming back. Sorry, but there hasn't. I've asked. I've shown copies to friends who enjoyed the X-Men and Spider-Man films (so they're not averse to the superhero concept) but don't usually read comics, and they've thought it looked pretty but were largely indifferent to the story because "it didn't look like much was happening." Certainly not willing to make a trip to a shop and plonk down a few dollars a pop for it every month.

Step outside of your geek self for a minute (not an insult, believe me) and think about it from the other side. These things - for the price and effort involved to procure them - need to really grab hold of the reader's throat and not let go. There needs to be eye-popping spectacle in every issue that they're not going to be able to see anywhere else. 22 pages of three men sitting around a dinner table and a fourth beating up his wife ain't going to pull in the punters.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:17 / 26.08.02

Cneron said it better than I can, but sales are good because it is selling to the "different factor". See Iron Man as Bi-Curious! See Thor as a obnoxious jerk! See Captain America as a big bully!

I really don't see much a difference between this book and a Peter David snooze-fest where he says "Yeah, just wait, in about 6 - 10 issues the story starts to come together!" As a non-comics fan, I would think: Comics are $2.25 each...and I just paid over $10 for a single fight scene and a LOT of exposition. Movies, TV and video games give me more bang for the buck.

I don't comics to be constrained by the pace of normal super-hero narrative, but this reminds me of what people said about 80's comics...in the 40's, you'd have Superman fly off to fight a bad guy and stopon the way to fight a whale attacking a boat. All in 10 pages...now, the same story would give you the history of how the boat go there, the passengers, the whale, and if you are VERY lucky, the same story would only take 4 issues. In one of Millar's Ultimate books it would take two years.

Ultimate SpiderMan is the only one of the Ultimate books that does what the line is supposed to do, re-image the characters for a new audience. Yes, he took 6 issues to tell the origen, but nowhere did I feel like I was reading padding...it gave depth to characters who were toss aways and gave a "sense of wonder" to Pater Parker, which has been missing for years.

For camparison's sake, read a single issue of Morrison's X-Men, or even a book like Nightmares and Fairy Tales...each issue feels like a complete story even if it is part of a longer narrative. YOu get enough that you don't feel cheated.

I feel cheated from Millar's Ultimates books. Which is too bad, since on Superman Adventures and other one shots he did, he CAN tell a very good, consise story.

Oh, and sales are no indicator...since it was outsold by a fucking unreadable Transformers comic.

yawn - thing's buddy

11:24 / 26.08.02

audience expectations are different these days: kids want gossip, relationship dramas, big talking as well as fights.

meaningless action is not appreciated by any generation.

13:22 / 26.08.02

It doesn't HAVE to be meaningless action. I'm not calling for 22 pages of explosions with no story. The test of the writer is to be able to make it exciting and action-packed, but still dramatically substantial and compelling. I'm not saying that the dinner-table scene SHOULDN'T exist at all - I'm saying that it should be fit in amongst the spectacle.

It CAN be done - I can hear the squelch of all your eyes rolling in unison from here, but Stan and Jack's Fantastic Four comics managed to perfectly balance spectacular world-shattering action and human drama in every issue. If you want a more recent example, Ellis' Authority had compelling characters but *at least* one huge action set-piece in every issue. Just cos a story has a lot of action in it, it doesn't have to be idiotic. If it is, that's the writer's fault.

[Mugatu] I feel like I'm taking CRAZY pills! [/Mugatu]

14:56 / 26.08.02

~Cam wrote: 22 pages of three men sitting around a dinner table and a fourth beating up his wife ain't going to pull in the punters.

In case you have not already noticed I despise completely the 22 pages A MONTH about just anything. For me its the only way today to grant what everybody is talking about here: less and less people interested. That's why I am switching to TPBs entirely, as much as I can, and will jump directly to buy the second Utlimates TPB, no matter if years pass by. Its like reading those european titles like Asterix or Lucky Luke that were regularly released about each year.

And lets face it, hug sales or not, there aren't much inidcators heralding a sudden rise in the number of Ultimates readers.

15:05 / 26.08.02

I would like to expand because there is also the matter of audience. The Ultimates is clearly -tell me if I am wrong- not aimed to the same, exactly the same audience to which Ultimate Spider Man is, as far as I see it.

The above said, Ultimate Spider Man can remain in 22 pages a month with TPBs twice year to keep everyone happy, as far as I am concerned, but I think that it would make a significant difference for audience -and for the sake of the story- if you could get lets say an Ultimates issue each month the size of a collected TPB which is of course an utopian challenge and if pursued would ultimately turn the tide against the overall quality of the work. What is evident from our discussions above is that the 30 days-22 pages format is not at all satisfactory for The Ultimates in order to either keep its readership interested like us or bring in new ones like Cam said.

The Natural Way

19:13 / 26.08.02

Maybe The Ultimates does appeal to the lowest common denominator, or maybe readers like it for the same reasons yawn, glassonion, pranny and myself do.... Reasons that have fuck all to do with how much of a shit Captain America can be. Everyone forgets to mention Millar's sensitive portrayal of Gail; OldmanBucky's confusion and that lovely "it's me you idiot" cuddle; Betty Ross's hugely conflicted (and genuinely complicated) feelings towards Bruce; Jan's spirited impersonation of an "average gal" in the wake of a good egg-laying sesh.... This is good, soap-operatic stuff (no worse, and in many cases better than last night's Eastenders) and I don't want to see Millar rush through this shit like we're watching some dullarse porn movie/action flick, where everything else comes second place to a good fight (and, anyway, when the fights DO turn up, they feel more powerful because of the wait).

Part of me agrees w/ you, Cam - part of me's all "Yes! Right! Speed it up!" and then another part of me remembers growing up reading 2000AD, Crisis, Revolver and all the rest and I realise that, as a teenager, I enjoyed loads of different approaches to comic book storytelling....why should the kids today be any different? The point is: I'm not sure. I don't know the answer. But I do really enjoy The Ultimates the way it IS and I don't really want Millar to change it. And it sells shitloads for a comic? That might be a good sign - it might actually mean, when it arrives on the shelves of WalMart, that the kids will dig it...

Look, as I said - I have no idea. You may be on the money here. But, then again, maybe the market will enjoy the soap opera. I don't think you can be so sure they won't: it IS action, don't forget that. And how many films, TV shows and books use big, hard, superdupers as window dressing for all that soap shit? Loads. It might be enough for Cap to have super strength in order to keep the readers reading...

Might, might, might....

And, Rose, I thought we were talking about sales. In that case: yr bored, I'm not... There you are.

Oh, I'm just so unsure about this one (hence incoherent "argument"). Cam: next time you see Grant take it up w/ him. He was the guy who started making all these supersoap predictions a few years back...maybe you can get him to slap Millar around a bit.

Murray Hamhandler

20:18 / 26.08.02

The problem here seems to be that the modern audience tends to want more out of its comics. Yes, Cam, Stan and Jack were able to toss both action and drama into their super-hero stew, but you have to admit that it was pretty one-dimensional on both counts. If you're aiming to make a well-rounded product, it seems that one has to extend outside of the boundaries of the 24-page monthly periodical comic book, but this is definitely a problem when it comes to luring new readership.

Possible short-term solution? Marvel, instead of making monthlies twice-monthlies (as they've threatened to do), increases regular page count to 48 per issue. Raise the price by a dollar. More bang for your buck + more story per month + less headscratching mid-storyline = more chance at acquiring new readers. Do this every couple of years. Change the twice-monthly 48-pagers into 64-page monthlies. Raise the price another buck. 64-pagers into, I dunno, 80-page bimonthlies. Raise it another buck. Once the new readers start coming in, I don't see any reason why this couldn't work (specific economic issues aside). Five or six bucks for an 80-page comic every other month seems like a pretty decent deal to me, and I think it's fair to say that it would seem like a more decent deal to a new reader than the "deal" as it currently stands. And it would be a concession to both the periodical comics and graphic novel camps. Whaddaya think? Eh? Eh?

The Natural Way

08:10 / 27.08.02

I like.

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