I picked up a trade of Ultimate X-men 1-12 and 1/2(?). What a wast of $25. Bad story. Bad dialogue. Bad artwork. Just all around bad… very, very bad. The best way I can describe it would be comparing it to one of those straight to DVD suckfest action movies with Steven Segal or Wesley Snipes.
That’s Marvel’s entire ULTIMATE line for you. Lowest-common-denominator boner jamz intended to appeal to an imaginary mainstream comics-reading audience that saw the big Hollywood films and now wants to check out the funny books.
So, you’re saying I should skip the other titles?
From all reports, Ultimate Spider-man is a lot of fun. But yeah, the only Ultimate X-Men run worth the time it takes to read is Brian K. Vaughn’s.
I really liked the first few TPBs in Ultimate Fantastic Four, although it got pretty stupid around the fourth or fifth one.
I think Ultimate Spider-Man is very good.
The Ultimates vols. 1 and 2 are good, but have a bit of the Michael Bay in them, if you like that sort of thing.
I agree that Ultimate X-Men is terrible.
Oh god, I was just ranting about this not so long ago. The entire Ultimate line seems to suffer from a lot of ‘we fixed what wasn’t broken’ and such. Ultimate Spider Man is (usually) good, but as a whole the Ultimate universe suffers from:
Schizo Art: Sometimes they change entire art /styles/ in mid-arc… TWICE!
Horrible dialogue: Every character speaks the same way, sometimes with a bolted on accent(at least with some of the writers. Most noticeable in X-men.)
Unrealistic Realism: In an attempt to be ‘realistic’ and make their heroes more ‘human’ they’ve made almost every hero into an asshole. Basically taking all their worst moments from the main Marvel timeline and turning it into the basis of their character. It says something when Wolverine is one of the most /pleasant/ characters.
The Idiot Ball: “Hey, that Banner guy turns into a nigh-unstoppable killing machine when he gets angry! Let’s mock him and humiliate him at every turn, then we can be surprised when he turns into a nigh-unstoppable killing machine again!”
I could go on, but I’m at work and want to get some things done before the weekend.
I like Ultimate Thor. He’s a neat character. Pity Millar (or whoever) didn’t make his own creator-owned series about him.
I refuse to read Ultimate Spider-Boy.