“In the early years of the 21st Century, America and the world reeled in horror in response to a vicious, unwarranted attack to some of the country’s most cherished institutions. I refer of course to Marvel Comics miniseries Ultimatum …” – Introduction to the Jeph Loeb chapter of Lloyd DeGroot’s “They Really Mean It: America’s War on Subtext”
I’m pretty sure it was during the scene where Batman and Black Canary have sex in costume after mercilessly beating the living shit out of a bunch of thugs that my mind broke. In that moment of epiphany, I recognized All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder for what it was. And I knew, with a cosmic certainty, that my prior view of the series, informed as it was by the quaint notion that mainstream superhero comic books were vehicles for stories, was based on a faulty premise.
Frank Miller wasn’t writing a story in ASBARTBW, I realized. He was making a joke, making it quite literally at the expense of DC and the book’s readers. The joke starts like this: Frank Miller, creator of The Dark Knight Returns, walks into a bar and–no, sorry, that was what happened prior to the ’06 Eisner Awards. Bugger. I’m terrible at telling jokes, but the point of this one was for Frank Miller to see just how far he could go, how many lines he could cross using one of North America’s best-known comic book characters, before someone made him stop.
“OK, first up I want the first issue to feature a serious reporter lounging around in lingerie and high heels, and there’s got to be at least one ass-shot. Also, Batman’s going to abuse Dick Grayson. Is that all right…? Yeah? How about Batman and the Canary having on-panel sex in costume? No problem, huh…? OK, I want Batman and everyone else in the book to not call him Batman, in this book, he’s the God-damn Batman (and he’s got the superpower to grow a beard inside five minutes.) Really, I can do that? Hmmm… Well how about this: I insist that you actually print the four-letter words I write and then put black bars over them, rather than just printing black bars, so that I’ll be the first writer ever to get the c-word printed in a Batman comic… ‘Sure thing, Frank’? Wow. Times have changed. OK… in #12, I want a full-on orgy between Batman, Black Canary, Batgirl, Robin, Ace the Bat-hound and , what the hell, let’s throw Commissioner Gordon in there wearing a dress…”
I bet DC would let him do it, too, as long as it stayed in the top ten. Anyway, it’s clear to me now that it’s all a joke, one that, like the comedy of Andy Kaufman, is probably funnier to think about than to actually experience. Fortunately for the sanity of people that actually care about the wellbeing of 40 to 70-year old corporate trademarks, Miller seems to have gotten bored with the whole thing and moved onto doing comic and/or film sequels to 300 and Sin City, presumably in the hopes that one or the other will help people forget what he did to The Spirit.
On the surface, Marvel’s Ultimatum has many similarities to All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder: it wallows in excess; it features well-known characters acting wildly out of character; both have artists that want to be Jim Lee. But while it would be nice to think that Ultimatum, like ASBARTBW, is an elaborate joke, I… can’t. I mean, I could, and I started writing a post that treated it as such (it was going to feature the “Ultimatum Truth Movement”, full of people with wildly differing conspiracy theories regarding why the series was so bad and who was secretly responsible.)1 But that post wasn’t coming together, and in kicking it around, I gave way too much thought to Ultimatum, and god help me, I think I actually started to understand it, at least a little…
Ultimatum poses a variety of questions for its readers:
-Which tastes better: Blob or Wasp?
-Was Ultimate Magneto always a total pussy?
-When did Jeph Loeb start doing crystal meth?
-Did they just–? They couldn’t, could they? I mean, what the fuck…?”
It even forces the reader to ask some serious questions, most of them variations of “How could this happen?”
Remember when people were afraid Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada were going to close down the “616” Marvel Universe and make the more modern, less continuity-laden Ultimate line the “official versions” of the characters? That was a good idea, what happened to that? It seems like, somewhere along the way, it was decided that the one thing that would make Ultimate-style stories better was decades of convoluted backstory. Instead of shuttering the Marvel Universe after Civil War (which ended on exactly the kind of upbeat note that a major superhero-centric continuity should end on)2 , everything in the Marvel Universe got Ultimatized.
Meanwhile, the Ultimate Universe was increasingly watered down. A creative brain-drain saw Ultimate U creators put to work on 616 Marvel titles and/or hired away from the company. Writers other than Ultimate architects Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar added a bunch of stuff to the mythos, some of which was interesting, most of which was unnecessary, all of which made the whole endeavour more convoluted and less welcoming to new readers.3
Eventually, all the hot creators (Bendis notwithstanding) were working elsewhere, while the Ultimate Line was left to guys like Robert Kirkman and Mike Carey (rock-solid talents, the both of them, but outside of Walking Dead and {knock on wood} The Unwritten, writers that didn’t have the kind of fanbase of a Bendis or a Millar and frankly weren’t going to get them, as Bendis and Millar largely did, based on their Ultimate contributions.)
Eventually, someone at Marvel likely noticed that the original versions of the company’s franchises were selling better than the Ultimate ones, and probably started wondering what the point of the Ultimate Universe was. The obvious answer was, “It’s a place that Bendis can write Spider-Man as a high school kid, which he seems to enjoy.” Nice for Bendis, but it’s not much of a raison d’etre for an entire imprint.
They could’ve shut things down then, or mostly shut them down, letting Bendis continue to do that thing he does so well on Ultimate Spider-Man. Or they could’ve kept the line going as it was, until it stopped being worth it at all. Instead, they decided to try and resuscitate the Ultimate books by making them even more Ultimate.
I am not without sympathy for Jeph Loeb. He had a thankless task, trying to find a way to differentiate the Ultimate Universe from its Marvel counterpart after that counterpart had co-opted most of the Ultimate line’s positive aspects. Loeb was ready to take things to the next level, but all that was left to take there were elements that, uh, maybe weren’t so good.
That didn’t stop them from getting taken to the next level anyway. Mark Millar’s Ultimates was a Michael Bay film in comic book form. Jeph Loeb’s Ultimate output apparently took its cues from Eli Roth.
It’s easy to get snarky about Ultimatum’s descent into depths of superhero decadence previously unexplored in a mainstream capes ‘n’ tights comic. So I have, because I like doing easy things. But I believe a critic who’s looking for something more than a punchline has to consider what the intent behind a given piece was, and base their criticism on how successful the creators were in achieving their goals. Looking at the big picture, assuming Loeb was tasked with taking the Ultimate line and doing something that could only be done there, something that would get a lot of attention… in that context, I can see where the arbitrary wholesale murder of numerous major characters might not automatically register as the apocalyptically bad idea it obviously is in retrospect.
That said, most ideas, even great ones, can’t carry a story on their own. Even giving Marvel and co. the benefit of the thematic doubt, when it came to execution, for whatever reason, Ultimatum was a swing and a miss. I’m just not sure it wasn’t a swing worth taking under the circumstances, or how much it actually missed by.
So what happens now? Obviously, just ending the Ultimate Comics imprint is a non-starter. If Marvel’s going to do multiple Noir books, there’s no way they’re letting something as once-popular as the Ultimate U go. So: do they embrace the New Direction of the Ultimate line? Do they try something altogether new and different? Or do they do they fall back on the creators who made the line a success in the first place while trying to distance the line from Ultimatum by making “Ultimate” branding as unobtrusive as possible without eliminating it altogether?
Yeah, if I were them I wouldn’t be trying new and different right now, either.
-Foley
- Dan Didio figured prominently, as the brilliant puppetmaster who activated DC’s secret sleeper agent, Joe Quesada. [↩]
- Which isn’t to suggest Civil War itself didn’t have a very Ultimate line philosophy underpinning it, or even that it was a particularly good story. All I’m saying for the moment is that it would’ve been a decent place to stop telling a fifty-year long story and concentrate on stories that didn’t revolve around which cafe Peter Parker hung out at in the sixties. Or his wife. [↩]
- Bendis himself didn’t help things when he rushed headlong into Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, then reversed course and decided some, most, or all of it never happened–I’m not entirely clear on that myself… [↩]
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Actually, I hated Civil War. I think it would have been perhaps a classically tragic DOWNbeat note to end the 616 MU on, and now Marvel is in the awkward position of trying to redeem Tony Stark by, apparently, putting him through the same on-the-run-from-the-law wringer that he put folks like Peter Parker through — not enough? Okay, he’s having to erase bits of his memory while being on the run — not enough? Um, okay, he’s going through a Flowers for Algernon riff, no way people can’t feel sorry for him now — is that enough yet? etc. I think they’re trying something similar with Reed in the Dark Reign FF mini.
Happily, Paul Tobin is effectively starting a new MU off from scratch without any of that in his new direction for the Marvel Adventures books, which might really be the best available solution altogether to the ghastly mess 616 has become — they’re going to have subplots and continuity and everything, like classic Marvel, but without friends backstabbing each other and without Wolverine getting his genitals shot off by the Hood in Avengers (not making this one up) and things like that.
Personally, I think it was after Loeb’s son died. Poor guy hasn’t been the same. I don’t blame him for it.
Ultimate Power was a horrible idea that really messed things up. I wish we could more or less ignore it, and everything that happened after it.
Yeah, re Loeb, to be fair his work before his son’s death was great — I loved Superman for all Seasons, and the Marvel “color” miniseries. He may simply have not have recovered yet.
“the Ultimate line’s positive aspects.”
Wait, the Ultimate line had positive aspects?
Like what?
Being derivative and full of characters no value whatsoever?
Yeah trying to figure out what does and doesn’t count in Team Up is a headache. Oh hey look, Ult. Spider-man and a Fantastic Four team that…seems just like the originals. Oh hey, there’s the Hulk. Hmm…
And yeah, outside a couple things that were a tribute to his kid, Loeb’s just been way way off since he passed – who can blame the guy?
My personal theory is that Marvel decided that post Ultimates 3 the line need a reboot, had a bunch of writers decide what the new status quo post Ultimatum was first, and then told Loeb “Hey, we need this list of characters to die. Write us a story around that.”
Why did, say, the Juggernaut need to die? They had pretty much left him alone since that one Weapon X arc way back when Ultimate X-Men started and one Annual where Juggernaut killed Gambit.
Pfft. Like the Spider-Man comics have any relevance, now.
They should be shamed out of existance in comparison to the cartoon, Spectacular Spider-Man. THAT, my friends, is the best rendition of Spidey in over 20 years.
It’s better than the comics.
It’s better than the movies.
It’s better than the old 90s cartoon (that’s speaking as a fan of it way back when).
And, because I want a third season very badly, the first season just came out on DVD, which I’ve already happily bought.
I’m glad there are other people in the world who recognize that Frank Miller’s ASBAR is a big “Up yours, fanboy!” to the people who wont leave him alone about re-doing DKR… As if DK2 wasn’t a big enough hint to let the past stay the past.
I find it hilarious, personally.
And I always thought that the superhero companies should treat their properties like book releases. Got a good, self contained Spidey story? Put out the graphic novel. Don’t have a good Spidey story? Don’t make one just because…
I’m glad there are other people in the world who recognize that Frank Miller’s ASBAR is a big “Up yours, fanboy!” to the people who wont leave him alone about re-doing DKR…
So, with all due respect, what the fuck was The Spirit? The whole “frank miller is just telling a joke” theory is bollocks because it doesn’t explain why Frank Miller’s hasn’t done anything other than these crappy, one note, unfunny, “joke” comics for the past 10 years. The simple fact of the matter is that Frank Miller was the guy who wrote a scene in Batman Year one, back when he was fresh and almost a good writer, in which future-commissioner Gordon beat the shit out of some corrupt cops and then took one of the cops out to the woods and anally raped him “because that’s the only language those guys understand”.
Frank Miller only ever had two very simple concepts – crack-as-narrative and Whoreswhoreswhoreswhores – and I don’t think he’s currently capable of writing anything so coherent as “fuck you fanboys” as that would stray outside those two ideas.
Liefeld is of course even worse though (the lady who kills people with her explosive menstration he came up with for instance) so we should probably count our blessings in a way.
They should be shamed out of existance in comparison to the cartoon, Spectacular Spider-Man. THAT, my friends, is the best rendition of Spidey in over 20 years.
Did you catch the Spider-Man: India comics from a few years back? It was an extremely well done retelling of the spiderman story in an indian setting.
coren: I’ll be that guy. How long ago did his son die? Cause if its anything more then a year, three years tops, then its an excuse he knows people will use to excuse his fuck aweful writing. He’s so fucking bad the producers of Heroes let him go. Let me repeat that: the producers of Heroes let him go. If that’s not an indicator that he’s gone off the deep end I don’t know what is.
DistantFred: Back on the soapbox, eh? That’s ok, I agree with you actually.
Andrew Foley: The first image you posted is broken and you repeat “do they” in such a way that the sentence doesn’t make sense.
I image the real reason Canary and Batman has sex in costume was because DC wasn’t going to publish a non Vertigo comic with nudity, no matter how many copies DC probably would have sold because of Canary tits. Either that or Frank’s building up to it.
I think there’s another post embedded in this one, that being which comic book writers have gone off the deep end and are no longer worth reading, except maybe in an ironic “this shit is so bad you have to read it to understand how bad it is” situation. I would certainly put Loeb and Miller on mine.
Fred Davis: Dude, I’ve read and re-read Year One several times and never, not once, did I EVER get the idea that he raped that guy. Beat him with an inch of his life, because VIOLENCE is what the guy understands.
The thing with Frank Miller, though, is there’s two types of his writing: the Frank Miller of the 80s, who wrote the brilliant Batman and Dardevil…and the Frank Miller of today who has degraded into a joke.
The final story, as I understand it, on UMTU, is that everything “counts” barring a few select issues (the Fantastic Four issue, for example).
Of course, since most of what was in that comic a) doesn’t align with the rest of the Ultimate Universe and b) isn’t very good, I’d’ve been happier just ignoring it wholesale.
Honestly I liked Ultimate Marvel Team-Up more than the rest of the Ultimate line that I’ve read. But I don’t care for the Ultimate books much in the first place, and I wish they’d just kept Bendis and Millar in the Ultimate sandbox…
What did Mark Millar ever do beside recycling old stuff from 616 continuity (while going all Geoff Johns on us and making the wife beating or whatever more “extreme”), making really bad pop culture references that weren’t funny and taking easy pot shots at Dubya?
Putting Cyclops in leather pants and making him cuss like a Marine wasn’t exactly groundbreaking work. Neither was making Jarvis gay or deciding that Nick Fury should look like Samuel L. Jackson. What was the good stuff? Magneto being related to the Bush family? Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch committing incest while wearing their crappy original costumes from the Sixties? The Hulk eating people?
Mark Millar wants to be Grant Morrison when he grows up, but he comes across to me more like a slightly smarter Geoff Johns. And he tries to justify the graphic violence and nihilism and other pointlessly grim ‘n gritty stuff as supposedly being social commentary that Americans are too dumb to understand. It was bad enough when he did that crap while he was writing The Authority. There’s something wildly inappropriate about doing similar stuff with members of The Avengers.
“I am not without sympathy for Jeph Loeb. He had a thankless task, trying to find a way to differentiate the Ultimate Universe from its Marvel counterpart after that counterpart had co-opted most of the Ultimate line’s positive aspects.”
What’s ironic about this, is that if it were true he did a horrible horrible job right out the gate. Half of the costumes in Ultimates 3 were suddenly changed to slight variations on 616, rather than what was shown in previous volumes. Thor changed weapons for some reason, and started talking in ‘verily’s and ‘thou’s.
I’m not going to defend the entire Ultimate line, but I think it started with a lot of promise, and has been killed by some piss-poor storytelling and rehashing of old plotlines. Which led to the utter ridiculousness that was Ultimatum.
Dumas: I think Warren Ellis said it best: “Mark Millar licks goats.”
Millar only has one setting “eXXXtreme”. Ultimates, Old Man Logan, Wanted: they’re all about how many violent, needless deaths he can stick into them.
Civil War and Fantastic Four show his complete misunderstanding of established characterization. Doom has masters? He’s kidding right? (I haven’t read it as Civil War was the first and last thing of his I ever care to read. Plus the whole idea that Doom’s been doing his thing all these years because someone is telling him to is retarded. Doom bows to no one.)
I’ve heard it said that his purpose for existence was to give us Red Son. I haven’t read that either so I can’t say I agree with it, but given what else I’ve seen and read (and for giving us Batman’s sexy hat) I can’t argue it.
Hey, I liked the “pure id” concept of the Ultimate Hulk. Not always the execution, but it was a good take.
Yeah, the whole “taking heroes and trashing their heroism, including in their pasts with nasty retcons” thing has soured me on 616 Marvel, and Civil War is one great big chunk of that. They could have kept all that in the Ultimate books.
“So, with all due respect, what the fuck was The Spirit? ”
A bad movie.
I generally can’t stand Mark Millar but I loved his runs on Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men. Ultimate Spider-Man was one of my favorite titles up until the Ultimatum stuff started, and the new #1 was just Bendis picking it back up and doing what he always did.
The Ultimate titles were the first titles I collected when I got hardcore into comics so the Ultimate universe holds a special place for me as a fan. Besides, Ultimate Spider-Man was a consistently good book for over 100 issues in an industry where the mainstream titles tend to be rather hit or miss depending on the talent and storylines. The rest of the books were admittedly all over the place and a change needed to be made, but the way they went about that was just ridiculous. In fact, it was disrespectful to the fans that have supported the line for the last ten years.
I know fan entitlement is a hot button issue right now, but I think there’s a balance point there between what fans can reasonably expect from creators and what obligations creators have to be respectful of the properties they’ve been given temporary creative license with. Sure, its impossible for any creative team to please everyone, and creators should have the freedom to explore new ideas etc. However, it goes beyond a “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it” argument, because when a creative team does something that’s in-continuity, what they’ve done will affect those characters and stories that happen after it (unless it’s retconned by someone punching a wall or making a deal with the devil). In the case of Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum after it, it was mindless splatter porn that went beyond being “edgy” or “trying a new direction” and became a “f*ck you!” to the fans that still give a shit and have a 10 year investment in the universe. It’s not a Frank Miller ASBAR f*ck you, either. At least that was outside continuity and was still fun to read just for what it was. Ultimatum was just painfully awful, even if it was taken on it’s own.
As has been mentioned, Loeb just really hasn’t been the same since the death of his son. While that’s sad and I can’t imagine what he had to have gone through, there’s no need to take that out on my comics. Personally I think he’s still working for DC as a double agent with the goal of screwing over all their rivals through shitty writing.
You’re wrong about one thing: Joe Quesada is actually a sleeper agent for Valiant. The inks he used for that Captain N And The N Team splash page actually contained a psychotropic agent.