Ultimatum
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: David Finch
Ultimatum goes far beyond “jumping the shark…”
Rating: 1 Star
Jeph Loeb is quite possibly one of my top five favorite comic book writers (constantly wrestling for the number one spot with Brian Michael Bendis of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN; I can’t decide who is better). Many of Loeb’s works are among my all-time favorite comics, including BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, BATMAN: DARK VICTORY, BATMAN: HUSH, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, as well as SUPERMAN | BATMAN VOL. 1: PUBLIC ENEMIES. What attracted me to those stories was Loeb’s extensive use of narration boxes which helped conveyed a deep first-person storytelling from the main character, allowing us to dive deep into their psychology and emotions. Despite creating such marvelous masterpieces, in recent years, Loeb has gained an unfair reputation as one of the worst writers in the comics industry. While stories like his introduction of the Red Hulk, as well as ULTIMATES 3: WHO KILLED THE SCARLET WITCH (which to be honest, wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be) helped contribute to this, it was the genocide-fest known only as ULTIMATUM that truly brought Loeb intense hatred from fans.
Created at the dawn of the new millennium, the Ultimate Marvel Universe was designed to tell stories about Marvel’s most famous characters without relying on years of confusing backstory. Not having to rely on the convoluted continuity of the mainstream universe, this line started its characters fresh and anew, allowing new readers be introduced to titles such as ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN (Brian Michael Bendis), ULTIMATE X-MEN (Mark Millar and Bendis), and THE ULTIMATES (Millar). For many years, the Ultimate universe garnered countless innovating stories, and a large number of readers. However, as the stories continued to go on, they began to form a continuity of their own, resulting in the same problems this universe was designed to avoid. This caused a decline in the quality of many ultimate titles (not including ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN of course) so the “geniuses” behind Marvel decided to give the Ultimate Universe a massive makeover to correct the problem. What fans got was the travesty of a comic known as ULTIMATUM. I wrote a negative review on this book two years ago, but I didn’t actually read it, making my criticisms biased and unfair (I made this mistake with SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY as well; I’m still embarrassed that I actually did that). Since I rewrote my review on SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY (having actually read it this time), I decided to do the same for ULTIMATUM, and while I don’t blame Loeb for this story (I’ll explain why later), I got exactly what I expected from this story, and it was garbage.
The story (or what there is of a story) begins with the heroes of the Ultimate universe conducting mundane business in their ordinary lives. The streets of manhattan are relatively calm, with no notable threats under their radar. However, the peace is suddenly broken by a series of catastrophes across the globe. A massive tidal wave engulfs manhattan (did the comic suddenly turn into THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW?), instantly killing millions of innocent civilians, as well as a fair number of superheroes. Also in the small nation of Latveria, Doctor Doom finds that half of Eastern Europe has frozen over, with people literally becoming human icicles. As panic and destruction ensues, the surviving heroes are alerted telepathically by Charles Xavier that the culprit behind the destruction was none other than Magneto. Having lost his children Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in ULTIMATES 3, Magneto has decided to obliterate the entire human race from the face of the Earth. In order to do this, he has used Thor’s hammer to reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles, which resulted in the aforementioned disasters. Although the concept behind the story is interesting, and it could’ve resulted in an awesome crossover event with the heroes boldly fighting to save their world from destruction, as well as creating a story that eliminated the universe’s continuity problems. Sadly however, this was not the case. Instead, the book is just a irreparable mess that includes the deaths of numerous characters, which are excessively graphic and lack any depth of emotion, as well as awkward and gag-inducing dialogue that not even Ed Wood could take seriously.
Before I begin my bashing of this book, I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear. This book is not jumping the shark. Oh no, it goes far beyond simply jumping the shark. What we have here is jumping the shark… THEN COMING BACK, KICKING THE SHARK IN THE GROIN, SPRAYING IT WITH MACHINE GUN FIRE, BLOWING IT TO SMITHEREENS WITH DYNAMITE, VOMITING ON THE CHUNKS OF IT’S BODY, AND THEN FEEDING IT’S REMAINS TO OTHER SHARKS JUST TO BE SAFE!!!! (Okay, I know that I was ripping off the Nostalgia Critic on that one, and that I was being unnecessarily disgusting and violent, but that’s pretty much what a large portion of this book can be described as)…
After the tidal wave devastates Manhattan, we the readers are exposed to a countless number of characters that are over-the top violent, disgusting, and have no trace of emotional depth to them. While I’m alright with characters being killed off (even major players), the readers must be able to feel the character’s pain as they die, like as if a part of themselves died as well, having grown to love and connect with those characters. The exact opposite happens here. There is no time to mourn for these characters as it feels that once character is killed off, then another is on the next page, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then…(I’ll just stop there as there are so many of them, it’d take the entire review to list them all). Although we know these characters from previous stories, and have grown attached to them, their deaths are rushed and lack depth to them, so why should the reader care if their’s no emotion to them. Besides lacking emotional depth, these deaths are just unpleasant to look at. Not only do they come every two to three pages, but they are extremely violent and gory as well. Examples of this are Wolverine being reduced to a flesh-charred skeleton before being stripped of his adamantium, Dormammu squeezing Dr. Strange to the point his head literally explodes, Thing crushing Dr. Doom’s head and causing his brains to burst out, Sabertooth bitting off Angel’s wings, and Cyclops disintegrating Magneto’s head with his eye beams. However, the death that truly takes the cake was the Blob eating the remains of the Wasp’s corpse. Seriously?! Cannibalism in a superhero comic?! That should only belong in THE WALKING DEAD (don’t get me wrong, I love that series)! There’s a time and place for that type of violence, and this series is not it (unless you’re a zombie, steer well away from having characters eat human flesh; ewwww)! It’s with that one death that you realize that Marvel could care less about their characters, and just want to create excessively bloody deaths for the sake of shock value (trust me, that’s all it’s meant for).
What was worse than the graphic violence for me, was the writing by Jeph Loeb. The writing style in this book is so far from the one he employs in his other works, that I was actually questioning if this was actually written by him. As I said before, Loeb’s greatest strength in his writing ability lies in his use of first person narrative through narration boxes, which gives it a strong flow and connection with the characters. The dialogue between characters in his stories is usually sparse, as it’s weaker than his narrative, but it was still pretty good in other comics. ULTIMATUM however (like its predecessor ULTIMATES 3), does not follow his usual narrative. Instead it has no flow with the characters or events and the stories, and is filled to the brim with awkward lines. While events such as the tidal wave hitting Manhattan and the assault on Magneto’s citadel should have been suspenseful and exciting, I couldn’t take them seriously as they literally come out of no where, and have zero build up to them. When concerning the writing, most critics have been more positive towards the series’ earlier chapters, but I was underwhelmed from chapter one. Like the situations that should be taken seriously but are not, dialogue between the characters just pops up out of no where, and comes across as random and cheesy. The point where it failed for me is when the setting cuts off to the Ultimate’s mansion, and Tony Stark suddenly asks Captain America, “Steve, I wonder how practical it would be to take a bath in a martini.” "Seriously?!" I thought, "Who says that?!" I know Iron Man’s an alcoholic, but that’s kind of pushing it. To add even more awkwardness, serious situations are often interrupted by a gag-inducing one-liner. Probably the most painful one was when Captain America was being rushed to the emergency room after nearly drowning, and for once, Iron Man shows a shard of emotion as he shows legitimate concern for his friend. However, this emotional scene that I nearly got invested in was suddenly ruined by Tony simply stating, “I really need a drink,” (another one about alcohol Tony, really)? That one line took me out of the seriousness of the situation, and any emotional investment I felt suddenly flew out the window. The dialogue in this book is just horrendous. There’s no thought or effort put into making the writing enough emotion, that the reader can take it seriously.
Although I can definitely say that this is one of the worst comics I’ve ever read (possibly worse than SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY), I honestly do not hold Jeph Loeb responsible for this awful book. Even before, I read ULTIMATUM, I held no grudge towards Loeb for it as his other works were so great and innovative, and I believe that he was going through some tousles that I will not mention for his protection (check Wikipedia if you want to know what I’m talking about). The writing is definitely horrible, and far from what you’d expect from Loeb, but I still don’t believe it’s an excuse for fanboys to demonize him as the “Hitler” of the comics industry. All writers have high and low periods, and while this was a definite low in Loeb’s career, people need to remember that many of his works were masterpieces (and personal favorite’s of mine), and that he’s only human, and no one is always going to produce great work. Humans are flawed by nature.
I think the people who really deserve the blame are the Marvel editorial staff. Like with SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY, the editors act like that they could care less about pleasing their fans, believing that they can toy around, and manipulate them in order to make money. While it’s good for most businesses to focus on the best route to making a profit, with comics, editors should carry out what appeals to their fans and draws them readers, and that by going against the fan’s wishes, they anger and drive away their audience. Here in Ultimatum, you can instantly tell that Marvel doesn’t care about creating developed and emotional deaths for their characters, and are only focused on killing them off in gruesome ways as they believe that they’ve failed to reach a large audience. I can’t take such logic seriously, as if Marvel doesn’t care about giving character deaths emotion, and only about the shock value of them, then why should the readers care. If Marvel thought that they failed to connect with an audience, they proved themselves right with this pile of contrived garbage (jumping the shark ring a bell)?
The only positive things that I can say about this book is that the artwork by David Finch is just stunning to look at (he’s my second favorite artist of all time, so obviously). There were also a few moments where I actually felt an emotional link with the characters, and even some of the deaths had more weight to them than just needlessly killing them off for the sake of it (that is until their interrupted by bad dialogue or a needlessly gory death). While this is one of the worst comics I’ve ever seen, I believe that people are being way too harsh to Jeph Loeb because of this story, as they seem to forget about the books of his that are great (and he’s making a comeback as a greriter with ULTIMATE COMICS X: ORIGINS in my opinion). Other than that, I do not recommend buying this one. The graphic and emotionless deaths, as well as the bad dialogue prevent ULTIMATUM from reaching the standards that the Ultimate universe and its characters brought us. Save your money folks. You won’t regret it.
“These shows didn't 'jump the shark'. That doesn't do them justice.”
-Cracked.com
