Tales From the Longbox 31: "Ultimates 3: Ultimately Crappy"

[DarkfireTaimatsu]

My main issue here is with that one about halfway down the second page, the one with Cap-bot sparking lightning out of his face and Ant-Man flying out of his mouth. Look at that word balloon. When your text is 80 times the size of the word balloon, just forget the balloon, honestly.

Also, I never thought I'd say this, but Captain America looks weird without his little wings on top of his head.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

Legend of Chun Li couldn't be any worse than the previous attempt at a live-action Street Fighter movie.

[Uroboros]

Oh yes, the Chun-li movie is orders of magnitude worse that the cheesy 90s version. It is literally one of the worst movies I have ever seen, period. It actually got into a fight with House of the Dead for worst movie, but since HotD was at least rated R, Chun-Li is now the worst movie ever made. Oh, and "cake or death" reference was pure win.

[Protoclown]

Like Max, I also immensely enjoyed the first two Ultimates series and normally find Mark Millar's work to be quite likeable. It's usually clear when editorial is dropping mandates on him (Civil War) and when they are not (The Authority, censorship issues aside). I'd say the Ultimates 1 and 2 are the best stuff to come out of the whole Ultimate line by far. Everything else went downhill way before Ultimates did (at least chronologically, not by number of issues).

Alcibiades: I love your interpretation of how things will go and wish that you could write it. Because I'm sure that would be a lot funnier and more enjoyable than when we eventually read the exact same thing but it's all done in earnest.

HeroliciousDeBlanc: Apparently no, there never was a real Ultimate Black Panther.

Purple Man: I will probably break down and read Ultimatum after it's all concluded simply because it will almost certainly make for a funny Longbox column. But I won't spend a dime on it, no sir. Thanks for sharing the crappiness with us so far though...

Rufus the Perturbed: I would love to do another Crossover column with Max, but it has to be a topic that really lends itself well to that kind of thing. If you have any suggestions, feel free to throw them out!

And sometimes I fear that my Longbox columns only serve to convince people that there aren't ANY good comics out there. This is not true. The best Marvel comics right now though are the ones that stay as far away from the big universe "events" as much as they can. Immortal Iron Fist, Captain America, and Daredevil are easily the three best books Marvel is publishing at the moment, and they only touch the "universe" in the most tangential way. If you want to check out an honestly GOOD Marvel book right now, any of those are worth a look.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I think a column about all these big crossover events, past and present. Or a column about Superhero death and resurrection would be great topics worthy of another team-up of that magnitude.

In fact one about the big events could involve the whole I-Mockery crew. As if the entire I-Mockery universe is affected by all these ridiculous "big event" stories.

[Graystreet]

You could make spin-off Hey Dork! into a new column about good comic books, and still do the whole synopsis thing with the panels and commentary, but maintain the dignity of the series and counteract any unlikely but potential negative side effects of the Long Box.

[Protoclown]

Tetsu, I'm actually glad you mentioned that, because back when Captain America died all four of the writers were talking about doing a combined Comic Book Deaths piece, but it never did end up happening. Max and I might be able to pick up the pieces of that idea and run somewhere with it.

Graystreet, "Hey Dork!" is Max's column, and what he does or doesn't do with it is completely up to him. I hope he has more articles in his bag of tricks though, because I fucking love those columns.

[Graystreet]

This is why I should always listen to my instinct to check my facts, I was positive that Hey Dork! was written by you and Max taking turns until Long Box spun off into what it is now, I apologize for my confusion.

[Gato]

That dialogue couldn't be any greater.

[OxBlood]

I don´t read comics but I know that this one is pretty shitty. Nonetheless it´s hillarious somehow... They could all just stand around in a pink room and yell "YA-YA! YAAAA!" at each other while blasting the shit out of an undead elephant. Would basically be the same.

[Purple Man]

I'm biased as hell, of course, but I would add a few other Marvel titles to the ones Proto mentioned. Captain Britain & MI13 has been going strong for a while, although the recent appearance of a craptacular Dracula and Dr "I'm EVERYWHERE these days" Doom does not bode well. But it's got Spitfire and Blade totally making out!1!!1!.

Also, Thunderbolts. It is a big part of Dark Reign, but I feel it's a shitload of fun. The new lineup is great (Yelena Belova, Headsman, Paladin, Ghost and Ant-Man III); it may yet turn crappy on me, but the setup is classic.

Lastly, The Twelve is one of the finest comics I've read in years. NOW IF THEY WOULD ONLY PUT OUT #9 IT'S BEEN THREE MONTHS ALREADY MR STRACZYNSKI PLEASE STOP TORTURING ME.

[the Platinum Poppy]

I have only one thing more to add... Hasn't brother/sister-incest become a pretty tedious ingredient in pop-culture? Perhaps it was "rad" when Jerry Cornelius was first published... but that was a while ago.

[Graystreet]

There's like six other incestuous twin couplets in the Ultimate universe, so apparently, it's new and exciting to someone.

[DavidFullam]

I heard tell that rumor had it that the Ultimates Universe was so popular at one time, it might have supplanted the regular Marvel Universe as the main continuity. Guess those days are over.

[Justaguy33]

Actually, there <b>is</b> an Ultimate Black Panther. He appeared in the Ultimate Captain America annual. Basically, he's T'Challa from Ultimate Wakanda. He got his ass handed to him by a real panther, and the king sent him off to Weapon X because they could save his life. Along the way, for some reason, T'Challa got jacked up with some super-powers pretty much like Wolverine. Healing factor, added strength, some adamantium claws . . . the whole deal. For whatever reason. But Weapon X never fixed his vocal chords. Fury, for whatever reason, decided to keep Panther after raiding a Weapon X place. Keep . . . as his property. So once Fury gets stuck in the Squadron Supreme universe or something, Cap takes Panther's place by dressing up as him and getting Tony to build him fake gear - that's why Tony knew to bring Cap's shield and costume for the 'Panther.'

[Graystreet]

Nick Fury's a homosexual pedophile racist, and Captain America likes to dress up as little boys?

I done told everyone to avoid the Ultimate universe.

[elmstreetkid]

It's become pretty commonplace to mock Loeb, and I can understand that impulse given the poorness of his work over the past couple of years (and its sheer what-the-hell factor), but I think this article sums it up well: you can't fault a creative person for wanting to write his way through a difficult time, but you can fault Marvel for putting him on a key title.

That's not to say that the Ultimates was any good before him, though. It's just old Avengers stories with a higher content rating. The usual, cynical Millar idiocy.

The article's hilarious, because it really is a misguided and just plain lousy book, but here's something that stands out to me: Loeb is writing a huge crossover about someone destroying a world because he lost his children. That's kind of heartbreaking to me, honestly. It reminds me of that Superman: For All Seasons backup Loeb did for Superman/Batman #26 (which really is a sweet little story), but with an Ed Wood poignancy.