I was looking through my free copy of Ultimate X-Men #1*, and noticed an ad for Ultimate Spider-Man. Curious, I peeked on the Marvel website, but didn’t see anything more.
Anyone out there who has some insite on what the deal is? I know that the X-Men title is meant to be a clean slate, with teenagerish X-Men starting out under Xavier’s tutilage. But is the Spider-Man title in the same universe, and are there other titles that are going to be integrated into it?
Finally, do people recommend Ultimate X-Men?
*Incredibly disappointing. The story was disjointed and jumped around an enormous amount. Then yesterday I was in the bookstore and saw an X-Men display, with the TPB of the first story arc, “The Tomorrow People”. I leafed through it, and notices several pages that my #1 copy didn’t have. I went back home, and saw that Marvel had replaced about every 4th page with ads! Didn’t even insert them in, just completely replaced sections of comic with adverts! Oh well, I got what I paid for.
Ultimate Spider Man is also a restart with a teenaged Peter Parker in a contemporary world. IMHO it’s much more interesting than the conventional Spider Man books. Another good Ultimate book is, well…the Ultimates, which is sort of Ultimate Avengers.
I dislike Ultimate X Men intensely however for what they’ve done to Wolverine and Jean Grey.
I collect all the Ultimate Marvel books (except for the piece of crap “Ultimate Adventures” by even bigger piece of crap Ron Zimmerman) and love them all. Mark Millar is a great dark writer, and that first arc has one of the coolest pix of Magneto surrounded my Sentinels. Millar is leaving UXM but still writing The Ultimates, though that has been irregularly released. Maybe now that he’s cutting a book out he’ll do better on being on time.
Brian Michael Bendis, writer of Ultimate Spider-Man, is taking over the chores on UXM so the continutity should be even tighter.
You can find almost all Ultimate stories collected in TPB for usually $14.99. A great price for 6-7 issues per book.
Ultimate Daredevil and Electra was good too and be had for $12.99.
Ultimate Marvel Team Up is no longer published but most of the run is collected in a TPB. It was mainly used to show new heroes in the Ultimate universe (Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, etc) and most of them were written my Brain Michael Bendis as well.
Ultimate X-Men is a very good comic in my opinion. I really like how much tension there is between the characters, and some of the scenes are just amazing. My only complaint is that every few episodes there is an issue drawn by an artist who is just terrible. Its a real downer to see one of those episodes, because otherwise the art is very good. Note that part of the X-Men storyline is covered in Ultimate War (Ultimates/X-Men crossover), so you will want to pick up those 4 issues as well if you get into the series.
Ultimate Spiderman is a mixed bag. Really exiting and interesting in one episode, then horribly dull and whiney in the next.
The Ultimates is good, but it never comes out on schedule so there are only like 10 issues.
If you want to check them out for free you can go to dotcomics.marvel.com and look at the first couple issues of Ultimate Spiderman, Daredevil, and X-Men in the free section.
I loved Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra, I was really bummed that it was just a mini and not an ongoing, because I thought it was excellent. I’d read seperate Ultimate DD and Elektra books if they were half that good.
I always look forward to Ultimate Spidey, though I’m not crazy about every aspect of it (frankly, I’m getting tired of the artwork big time). Haven’t read UXM since the first ark ended, but I might start up again with Bendis.
The Free Comic Book Day edition of Ultimate X-Men #1 (as well as last year’s FCBD edition of Ultimate Spider-Man #1) were both edited down, which I was not fond of finding out either.
Ultimates (the Avengers one) has some gorgeous “widescreen” art by Bryan Hitch. It should be easy to catch up on, and seems to be people’s overwhelming favorite of the Ultimate titles (when it comes out).
There was also an Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, that ran for about 16 issues before getting canceled. Bendis wrote it, and every story arc teamed Spidey up with another Ultimate Marvel hero (usually appearing for the first time). But all the arcs were done by different artists, many of whom you wouldn’t think of as traditional “Marvel superhero” artists. My favorites were Spidey/Iron Man by Mike Allred in #4-5, Spidey/Fantastic Four by Jim Mahfood in #9, and Spidey/X-Men by Chynna Clugston-Major in #11.
I thought it would be nice to keep it entirely seperate. I think it would have been cool if the X-Men had been entirely removed from the Spiderman universe. (Although for some reason, I enjoy the Ultimates being a result of Magneto’s attacks).
I love Ultimates (the timeliness knock is noted), but really haven’t cared for anything else. USM is fine, but not my type of book. I checked out both of the first two UXM trades from the library but couldn’t finish the first one. Whatever magic is in the movies, it doesn’t translate to the comics for me. Love the onscreen X-Men, can’t stand the comic version in either universe. I think it is because the onscreen mutants don’t come off as whiney (he says as he whines about the X-Men).
UDD, to me, was one of the most mediocre books ever. This shocked me as Rucka is a great writer, and the DD character is my favorite. It was like they didn’t do anything new with it. That seems to be the whole concept of the Ultimate U. Make it fresh. This problem was worsened by the fact that DD is currently VERY good in the regular Marvel U (it is the only regular Marvel U book I read, unless Alias counts). UDD also seemed poorly written. A lot of bad dialogue. As I said, it was shocking as Rucka is top of the pyle. His dialogue in Queen and Country is excellent.
I am very much in favor of the Ultimate Universe, or whatever you want to call it. When I got into Spider-Man, Marvel Tales were available, and I didn’t feel there was any problem imagining a short timespan between the events written in the sixties and those of the early eighties. Maybe I’ve gotten less imaginitive since then, but now the forty years of Spider-Man seem like a hell of a lot of comics to have occurred over 10 years or so of effective time, even though the real world even as reflected in the comics has changed so radically. I liked seeing a young Peter Parker or a young Jean Grey in the dress of a modern teenager, even if they no longer reflected my elder preoccupations. Mind you, the tie and vest is not unlike the style I myself sported during high school a mere decade ago, yet I still don’t see even the nerds of our modern contemporary era dressing so.
I am getting old, and perhaps comic books are getting beyond me. When I see Spider-Girl, I feel like the old Parker, thinking that she should be wearing something perhaps more baggy, less than the kind of skin-tight faire that I worked in when I was her age, because after all that was the sixties, or the seventies, or the eighties. I’m not real sure when that universe places Spider-Man. Anyway, she should cover up, because her job is not to entice twelve year olds into becoming life-long fans of comics, by gum. I mean, what the hell are the X-Men for?
Also meant to mention, I like the fact that SHIELD is pretty much running the whole show. You can’t develop a power without Nick Fury/Samuel Jackson showing up and warning you you’re his when you turn 18. (I used to do that at Catholic girl schools, but I got arrested. Unfair, I tell ya.) The first few issues of the Ultimate mags hinted at it (Banner warning Spider-Man that THEY are after him) but now it’s pretty obvious.