I've been binge reading Marvel's Ultimate books recently, and I am about to enter the Miles Morales era. I thought this would be a good time to take a break and reflect on the characters and events of the Ultimate Universe. Spoilers ensue.
First, I feel like the writers of this line have been trying to see just how much they can get away with. They put themselves in our shoes, and they figure out what lines we think they would never cross, and then they cross them. Ultimatum is a prime example of that, though perhaps not the best one. The best example is probably the death of Spider-Man and the rebirth of Spider-Man.
The earliest examples of lines being crossed, however, involved the Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men. The Ultimates featured characters that were not very likable. Their shortcomings were very much front-and-center. But these were the guys who were needed to solve our problems, so that's the kind of hero we wound up with. Captain America and Hulk probably suffered the most for this. They made the abusive and unstable Hank Pym look sympathetic in comparison. Cap said a number of things that I just didn't like, a lot of it coming from judgmental attitude of patriotism. Hulk ate people. This was pretty jarring. This was superheroes without the purity and virtue. These were superheroes who didn't always feel like they were the good guys. But there were signs of the Ultimate Universe leaning in this direction since Ultimate X-Men, in which Wolverine left Cyclops for dead at one point.
Despite all this, the Ultimate Universe was still building something. At least, they were until Jeph Loeb got his hands on it. With Ultimatum, Jeph Loeb crossed almost every other line we thought Marvel would never cross. Iconic characters died. Mutants were revealed to be manmade rather than a product of evolution (as revealed earlier in Ultimate Origins by Bendis). The living were thrust into unfamiliar territory. Reed Richards turned villain. Young troubled heroes moved in with Spider-Man. Mutants were labeled as terrorists. In short, the writers were truly freed up to take the books in new directions that could not happen in the mainstream Marvel Universe.
I have many problems with Ultimatum. I think it crossed too many lines at once, and it wasn't as subtle as previous lines. Even the Hulk eating people was subtle in comparison. When so many lines are being crossed all at once, it feels more like the events are being played for shock value than for organic storytelling. The deaths of Professor X, Wolverine, and Magneto did not feel like earned moments. It felt like their stories came to an abrupt and unceremonious end. This might reflect the harshness of the real world, but it's not something I want in a story. It doesn't make sense for a story. In short, Ultimatum was a huge table-flip to the status quo. Some good things came out of this new status quo, but I'm convinced there had to be a better way to reach this point, even if it meant doing it gradually over several more months or a year.
Several of the Ultimate books are like strange footnotes. Orson Scott Card's Ultimate Iron Man didn't seem to fit in anywhere--until another writer decided that his books were a "Saturday Morning Cartoon" version of that world's Iron Man. Then it all made sense. The Ultimate Avengers books were hit or miss, and I strongly dislike the role they played in the death of Spider-Man, mostly because it didn't feel (there's that word again) organic. It also pissed me off that Spidey took a fatal gunshot wound from a shot that was only intended to take out Cap's kneecaps. It makes his death seem senseless. But, well, there's a lot of senselessness in the Ultimate books. This is not a safe comic book world where everything turns out okay. But I wonder if it could have been done better.
Spidey has proven to be the heart, soul, and conscience of the Ultimate Universe. As far as I'm concerned, this is Bendis's world. He was the one who made it work. It was other writers who decided to let character flaws overtake heroism. (And as I type this, I recall that he was the one who made Reed turn villain.) Specifically, his work on Ultimate Spider-Man is what made reading these books worthwhile, even the ones knee-deep in blood and compromise. His books had characters who loved each other and tried to do right by one another. These elements were so very necessary, and yet so very lacking in the Ultimates and Ultimate Avengers. These characters feel deadened by the amount of death they deal with. If Ultimatum had been truer to Spidey's spirit, it would have worked in at least a few moments like the ones in Spidey's book. The Ultimates need a hug or something.
This has taught me something about telling a story. If you want a character's decisions to have stakes (real stakes, not fabricated end-of-the-world stakes), then they need people in their lives that they love. It's like the old gag, where some random character shows us a picture of his family before being unceremoniously killed. It's a cheap way to make us care a little bit, though savvy audiences will recognize it as a death flag. But there was some truth to it. A character's world has to be populated with people and things that he cares about and wants to protect. For Spidey, this has been made clear numerous times. But for the Ultimates, as near as I can tell, all they want in life is to kill bad people. True heroes.
I'm kind of glad that the Ultimate Universe eventually came to an end. That world was too cruel for a gem like Spider-Man.
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