Essential The Official Comic Book Discussion Thread [Support @Neuromancer’s book!]

[Jmare007]

Wait a minute, there's a Battle Beast comic?

 

[Primetime]

Read Ultimate Endgame #1 and first of all, the art is fukking atrocious how the fukk you let that book have such a shytty look is beyond me. Secondly, the story was meh,

Ultimates 19 was better but again, the art was not good.

The whole thing feels all over the place for something they've been working towards to at least a year in advance. Not a good look for Camp

They completely dropped the ball with the Ultimate universe. There were red flags early on but i was optimistic that Hickman would project mgt it to a satisfying conclusion... until it became clear that Marvel had other plans...

Marvel Surprised Jonathan Hickman With The News That The Ultimate Line Of Comics Is Ending​

Marvel Head Dan Buckley Told Fans At New York Comic Con​

When Marvel's Ultimate Universe was relaunched in 2023, it was giving a ticking clock: The heroes of Ultimate Marvel faced a climactic battle with its villains, led by the evil Reed Richards variant known as the Maker, in approximately 18 months in-universe time. In an intriguing move, Marvel announced that the line would elapse in real-time.

Except, few people thought the end of that timeframe meant the end of the Ultimate line altogether. Not even Jonathan Hickman, who set the two-year plan into motion, and writes Ultimate Spider-Man. According to Marvel Comics head Dan Buckley, Hickman couldn’t believe it when he was told the line would wrap up with Ultimate Endgame.

As Buckley put it:

“We were at one of those creative retreats and I was sitting next to him, we’re just talking, and he’s like, ‘Well, we’re finishing our stories, then you could do that.’ I said, ‘No, you’re done.’

I was by myself with Jon, Jonathan’s looking at me, he goes, ‘What do you mean we’re done?’ I said, ‘We’re shutting it down.’ He goes, ‘Why are we shutting it down?’ I said, ‘It’s the end, right?’”

There’s a lot of story being told here. You’ll be able to take this journey — take the beginning, the middle, and the end — and digest it for years to come and be able to pass it on to people and say, ‘This is the experiment, this type of storytelling, we’re allowed to do this.

In other words, when Jonathan Hickman outlined his arc for the Ultimate Universe, he was looking at it as the first arc, which subsequent authors would follow up on. Instead, Marvel is approaching it as a complete story. Marvel's decision makes a lot of sense in some regards, but Hickman's reaction might change fans' perception of the move.

Remember my early criticisms of the Ultimates (Avengers) book? That it felt unfocused with the "new hero of the month" episodic approach (ignoring perceived main-roster characters like Thor and Sif) while threading water with the main plot? I gave it some grace because it felt clear they were introducing all these new characters (Luke Cage, remixed Bucky, etc.,) for later down the road

However, once we learned the Ultimate universe was ending (prematurely) in 2026... all that excessive world building really was just meaningless

 

[Primetime]

Also, i forget who i was speaking to about Ultimate Black Panther and T'Challa's love life... i get why you'd think oh i don't care about BP's love life, but hopefully you now see the underlining issue with it (and Storm specifically).

That is, the love life angle is unfortunately 80% of his character arc for new (often black) writers and all they know is Storm, so instead of focusing on literally anything else about the character... the books instead turn into asspulls that crater into nonsensical shyt

Most recent example? See: Ultimate Black Panther

T'Challa's arc is basically cheat on his wife to fukk Storm so villains can fast track her pregnancy to create a vibranium sith lord baby that T'Challa and Storm now have to kill

20 issues of Ultimate Black Panther... for that

 

[Dillah810]

Also, i forget who i was speaking to about Ultimate Black Panther and T'Challa's love life... i get why you'd think oh i don't care about BP's love life, but hopefully you now see the underlining issue with it (and Storm specifically).

That is, the love life angle is unfortunately 80% of his character arc for new (often black) writers and all they know is Storm, so instead of focusing on literally anything else about the character... the books instead turn into asspulls that crater into nonsensical shyt

Most recent example? See: Ultimate Black Panther

T'Challa's arc is basically cheat on his wife to fukk Storm so villains can fast track her pregnancy to create a vibranium sith lord baby that T'Challa and Storm now have to kill

20 issues of Ultimate Black Panther... for that

I loved the visual of the BP/Storm black power couple as much as the next guy, but readers put too much stock into it. The BP/Storm relationship isn't even in the top 5 interesting things in the BP lore

 

[Jmare007]

They completely dropped the ball with the Ultimate universe. There were red flags early on but i was optimistic that Hickman would project mgt it to a satisfying conclusion... until it became clear that Marvel had other plans...



Remember my early criticisms of the Ultimates (Avengers) book? That it felt unfocused with the "new hero of the month" episodic approach (ignoring perceived main-roster characters like Thor and Sif) while threading water with the main plot? I gave it some grace because it felt clear they were introducing all these new characters (Luke Cage, remixed Bucky, etc.,) for later down the road

However, once we learned the Ultimate universe was ending (prematurely) in 2026... all that excessive world building really was just meaningless

When I read that Buckley quote like a month ago I couldn't help but going Hickman, the one author that keeps selling Marvel books like crazy continues to get the rug pulled from under him no matter what approach he goes for. He can be all hands on (Avengers), be a "lead writer" (Krakoa) and even a builder for hire (Ultimate Universe) and editorial always fukks up his ideas

Also, i forget who i was speaking to about Ultimate Black Panther and T'Challa's love life... i get why you'd think oh i don't care about BP's love life, but hopefully you now see the underlining issue with it (and Storm specifically).

That is, the love life angle is unfortunately 80% of his character arc for new (often black) writers and all they know is Storm, so instead of focusing on literally anything else about the character... the books instead turn into asspulls that crater into nonsensical shyt

Most recent example? See: Ultimate Black Panther

T'Challa's arc is basically cheat on his wife to fukk Storm so villains can fast track her pregnancy to create a vibranium sith lord baby that T'Challa and Storm now have to kill

20 issues of Ultimate Black Panther... for that

It was with me and we still disagree I thoroughly enjoyed Ultimate Black Panther. It has felt like a fun, harmless and quick read since issue 1 and hasn't dipped for me.

Completely disagree on T'Challa's arc. Him cheating was never treated like something important for his character. It is true that the Storm baby was hilarious wacky sci-fi but this whole run has been wacky sci-fi so I don't mind it. T'Challa learning from his roots and Bast showing up to save his ass and teach him how to actually solve this problem were dope moments.

The Sorcerer Supreme being completely obliterated was fukking hilarious too

 

[Primetime]

When I read that Buckley quote like a month ago I couldn't help but going Hickman, the one author that keeps selling Marvel books like crazy continues to get the rug pulled from under him no matter what approach he goes for. He can be all hands on (Avengers), be a "lead writer" (Krakoa) and even a builder for hire (Ultimate Universe) and editorial always fukks up his ideas


It was with me and we still disagree I thoroughly enjoyed Ultimate Black Panther. It has felt like a fun, harmless and quick read since issue 1 and hasn't dipped for me.

Completely disagree on T'Challa's arc. Him cheating was never treated like something important for his character. It is true that the Storm baby was hilarious wacky sci-fi but this whole run has been wacky sci-fi so I don't mind it. T'Challa learning from his roots and Bast showing up to save his ass and teach him how to actually solve this problem were dope moments.

The Sorcerer Supreme being completely obliterated was fukking hilarious too

I agree with you 100% on the Hickman ish. Marvel stays fukkin him over and he really do just needs to go to DC at this point

But yea we gon be at an impasse with the BP ish. Him being destined to creampie the “woman of light” (or whatever da fukk they call her) is basically the premise of the book from like issue 1 or 2

The first half of the series was still ok to good bc that shyt was an underlying mystery on the back burner. Latter half of that book was trash, unintentional comedy at best.

The Bast stuff and him learning how to solve his problems… maaan my nygga got his ass whooped for a new ambiguous power up that was basically him doing the same ish he been doing. Nygga had to get on his leggo panther machine to win the day… so Shuri gave him the real solution

 

[R=G]

So the absolute gimmick worked...the xmen with McKay doing that Cyclops is not readable. And I want more Silver Surfer..enough is enough. Loved the Doom speeches in his last two issues though. I still think Unthinkable was better though.

 

[Primetime]

I loved the visual of the BP/Storm black power couple as much as the next guy, but readers put too much stock into it. The BP/Storm relationship isn't even in the top 5 interesting things in the BP lore

Yea it’s the least interesting thing to me.

I got a chance to talk with Hudlin a few times a decade or so ago and when I asked him about it he said his two biggest regrets of writing BP:

(1) Having Doom beat T’Challa’s ass and leaving it to another writer to write the pay back (never happened).

(2) Marrying BP to Storm. He said he’d have married dude to an original Wakandan character if he could do it again

 

[Jmare007]

So I finally decided to start The Power Fantasy and holy motherfukk y'all were right, this shyt is amazing

 

[WhenWeWereKings]

I'm assuming no one read Age of Extinction. Don't waste your time.

Marvel is currently a snoozefest.

DC KO has been very enjoyable.

 

[Jaguar93]

 

[King Harlem]

Wait, Metropolis is in Delaware and only has about 70,000 people?

 

[Dillah810]

Wait, Metropolis is in Delaware and only has about 70,000 people?

Metropolis kinda bounced around. I think it was initially based on Cleveland since that was where the original writers lived. That would make sense since Clark is from Kansas, and if he wants to live in a big city, he would likely choose one somewhat close to home. Shortly after, like 1-2 years, it was formally located in NY. Then around the late 80s it was placed in Delaware which is where it is now.