History Headscratchers / UltimateMarvel

*** Fuck you.
*** He's right though, I mean, Captain America is one of the strongest guys around, so I'm sure one old man is more than worth it to bring him down.

* Why does Peter fight Osborn and his lackies unmasked in ''Death of Spider-Man''? Answers on a postcard.

* At this point, is anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. left ALIVE? Talk about a redshirt army. They die more easily then a vampire in a pencil factory explosion. And God only knows what the deal is with Nick Fury at the moment.

* In Ultimate Galactus, Ultimate Vision is stuck in a secret soviet complex where it was disasembled several time to use in super-soldier experiment. The complex has been recently abandonned and Vision become functional enough to do it primary function, broadcasting warning against Galactus on every possible channel, meaning the warning show up on every tv, radio, computer and even in the mind of telepathe, causing wave of panic and suicide across the world. Shield send a team of Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon to shut it down, while Xavier send Colossus, Wolverine and Jean Grey, believing the source to be a scared mutant. After the two teams meet each other and fight, Falcon berate the X-Men for thinking only telepathe were affected, with dialogue from the X-Men confirming that this is true, with Wolverine calling Jean and Xavier idiot for not checking the news or whatever. There's several problem with that. How in the fuck the X-Men, who have often been shown to watch TV during their down time, missed the broadcast? Especially since Iceman does exactly three things when not X-Mening: Watching TV, watching youtube and making out with Rogue/Shadowcat(usually with the TV or computer on in the background). Two, how does the fact that not just mutant are affected make it impossible for the signal to have a mutant origin? Keep in mind that by this point we've seen a few mutant reality warpers, including Scarlet Witch of the Ultimates whose probability-based power allow her to turn you into a cat.

* In Ultimate Galactus, Ultimate Vision is stuck in a secret soviet complex where it was disasembled several time to use in super-soldier experiment. The complex has been recently abandonned and Vision become functional enough to do it primary function, broadcasting warning against Galactus on every possible channel, meaning the warning show up on every tv, radio, computer and even in the mind of telepathe, causing wave of panic and suicide across the world. Shield send a team of Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon to shut it down, while Xavier send Colossus, Wolverine and Jean Grey, believing the source to be a scared mutant. After the two teams meet each other and fight, Falcon berate the X-Men for thinking only telepathe were affected, with dialogue from the X-Men confirming that this is true, with Wolverine calling Jean and Xavier idiot for not checking the news or whatever. There's several problem with that. How in the fuck the X-Men, who have often been shown to watch TV during their down time, missed the broadcast? Especially since Iceman does exactly three things when not X-Mening: Watching TV, watching youtube and making out with Rogue/Shadowcat. Two, how does the fact that not just mutant are affected make it impossible for the signal to have a mutant origin? Keep in mind that by this point we've seen a few mutant reality warpers, including Scarlet Witch of the Ultimates whose probability-based power allow her to turn you into a cat.

* The banshee drug from the last few issues of ultimate x-men. It gives normal people super-powers, it makes people that already have powers almost godlike (turning cyclops into a superman knock-off), has existed for at least twenty years, it's cheap and widely available and has no side-effects if used in proper amounts. This exists in the universe where the entire premise is there not being a good super-power serum yet. It invalidates the origin of roughly every single character in the entire universe. Why would SHIELD fund any superhuman research if this already exists? Why would companies like Oscorp or Roxxon think there is any money in a super-soldier drug if it already exists? Why would the world hate and fear mutants if they emerged at the exact same time as a drug that gave you the exact same advantages as them?

** ThisTroper is just agape at the fact that for ''once'', a comic-book military super-soldier project raising a child from birth actually seemed to remember to treat the kid at relatively decently, make sure he had psychological counselling available, and not use cattle prods -- and their test subject goes completely psychotic and kills off the entire project team ''anyway''. Seriously. What's the point of even trying?

* Spider-Man gets shot by one of Fury's people, and it's Carol Danvers' fault, even thought she was in a coma at the time. Not only does she have to step down from her job as Director of SHIELD, it's handed back to Nick Fury, who last fucked up so bad they had to deport him to another dimension. Fury, who once had the US invaded on his watch. Fury, who failed to detect Gregory Stark plotting to meddle in the affairs of other countries.

* Is anybody else but me worried about how the Ultimate Marvel writing team seems to be...''unnaturally eager'' to kill off major characters? Considering that originally one of the major pulls of the Ultimate universe was that it was going to shy away from traditional "comic book death", they seem to be burning through their character roster pretty damn fast. Eventually they're either going to run out of characters to kill off or they're going to have to fall back on flimsy excuses resurrect characters from the dead (and given Beast's resurrection I'm betting on the latter).
** This. It really worries me when I got to the marvel wiki and it's easier to list supers that aren't dead than the ones who are.
** And now, they've killed off [[spoiler: Spider-Man.]] When will it end?

* The European captains showing up in America during the Liberators' invasion bugs me. Here's what happens: a page or two of them standing around, saying that the Liberators will NukeEm if it looks like they're even thinking about making a move. Then Brian says "Actually, there is another plan we haven't considered..." Then a little later, we cut to some {{Mook}} saying "Why are you civilians out here without any identification!?" or something like that, and they say "We're not civilians, we're the European Union! Guess you guys never read comic books, huh? These are our secret identities!" And that is literally the only explanation there is for how they got to America without the Liberators noticing, not to mention the time factor. I'd say it was RuleOfCool, which it kind of was, except there really wasn't any dramatic reason for them to show up - they didn't help out in any significant way, and that sequence could have easily been cut. It seems more like ItRunsOnNonsensoleum...especially the fact that they apparently took a plane or whatever to America, then milled around the streets for a while, watching all the destruction and waiting to be accosted by a grunt so they could dramatically reveal themselves. Good going.
** Not to mention the fact that nobody had ever been able to make anything like Captain America, which is exactly what makes him so special? Seriously, the ''entire Ultimate universe'' is trying to come up with a way to duplicate Captain America. Now a bunch of OCs with precious little role in the story show up? So can we kill Captain America, then?
*** To be fair it was implied the European intiative tech took billions of dollars, even then the America implemented their own (the season themed heroes). The suits only offer flight, durability and strength, while probably needing to be maintained extensively. Super soldier serum on the other hand if perfected could turn every soldier in the US into what Steve Rogers was, a genuine superhuman with super-strength, durability, endurance and most importantly increased tactical awareness (it was suggested it was part of the serum). All of this for cents.
** Keep in mind that Mark Millar wrote this story arc. Just as with Civil War and the whole concept of superhuman registration, the whole Liberators thing is {{You Fail Logic Forever}}.
** Well, as I recall, the European captains could fly, and were seen in their appearance helping Iron Man at the bottom of the ocean. That explains how they got there ("fly" at top speed underwater)...but as to the time factor, no idea.
* Ultimatum. That the foremost mutant mind in the world told Reed Richards flat out that the same genocidal maniac that had tried to destroy humanity many times before was responsible for the attack and he still insisted that Namor was to blame. That the dialogue looks like it was written by someone in high school. That the art makes Rob Liefeld look like a Renaissance master. That these random and senseless deaths are still supposed to be at all shocking or interesting. That every female has been sexualized to the point of being unrecognizable. That Magneto is trying to kill everyone in the world because Hank Pym is an idiot and they still let Hank Pym do anything, ever.
** [[spoiler:Wasp]]'s death...talk about being gratuitously {{Gorn}}ographic. But also, how did it even happen? It didn't look like she was killed by the tidal wave or the building collapsing--she had a cut on her arm and no other non-chewy damage--and the only way I can possibly imagine Blob beating her is if he somehow snuck up on her before she could get away, which is...unlikely.
*** LOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEB!!!
*** I think one reviewer said it back when they called it eye rape. Seriously, what are we supposed to get from this story? How is it entertaining in the slightest and what good is it doing? Fair enough the Ultimates were already RuinedForever by same writer but this really takes the cake. And that it seeped into Ultimate Spider-Man makes it even worse. God dammit, One More Day looks like Watchmen part 2 compared to this. Oh and its depressing as hell too.
**** It was supposed to be depressing. It was "the end of the world".
*** End of the world, my ass, since Magneto fixing the Earth's magnetic polarity with a ''blink'' apparently made everything instantly better weather-earthquake-tidal-wise within moments, and the recovery efforts are going better than they would have in any real disaster. Plain and simple, there was no reason for the {{Gorn}} other than bad attempts at shock value.

** And the EXACT SAME THING had happened to him ALREADY.
* Nightcrawler. Best I can tell, he went insane and stalker-crazy because he was horny. I guess the X-Mansion porn filter was really strict.
** I'm sure the years of torture and brainwashing undergone at Weapon X had nothing to do with it.
* Wolverine. Colossus. Anyone in the Ultimate Universe if the writers aren't too careful. They go from the really awesome Mirror Universe origin to a MarvelComics duplicate who occasionally tears someone up and swears a lot.

** He ''should'' be eloquent enough to do that, but unfortunately Ultimate Nick Fury is an arrogant ass-faced moron. I honestly don't get why people think he's so cool. He's so wrapped up in his own superiority complex that he thinks he can intimidate anyone he meets into submission by crushing them under the weight of his massive ego. He said "when you turn 18 you belong to me" rather than "when you turn 18 you'll be on my team" because his pathological superiority complex won't allow him to do anything else.

* What they did to Hank Pym.
** On that note, it bugs the shit out of me when people call Ultimate Hank and Jan the "more realistic" interpretation ''because of the abuse level''. Yes, abusive husbands exist, and in higher numbers than should ever be, but Jesus, people.
*** Its more that the story of Ultimate Hank and Janet has many more real-life parallels than the story of 616 Hank and Janet.
*** That's not what I'm grouching about, my beef is the people who ''specifically'' cite the rate abuse as the reason it's more realistic. Apparently, hitting someone once during a mental breakdown and trying to make sure it never happens again when you recover could only be total fiction, but constantly beating someone to the point of surgery and later trying to kill them happens ''all'' the time. Maybe if you watch nothing but crime procedure shows where everyone in the country is a serial killer waiting to happen, sure.
**** Pessimists tend to confuse worst case scenarios with the likeliest scenarios, and so find such situations more 'realtistic' than their alternatives. Not an excuse, just an explanation for why assessments like this are so common.

*** Can you say {{TheAce}}/{{GaryStu}}? [[{{MisterRogersNeighborhood}} I knew you could]].
**** To be honest the guy is clearly a genius but also....he's clearly an idiot at the same time. I mean if he's ten times smarter then how the hell did Tony Stark buy out his company under him? And even more when the **** did this super genius think it was a good idea to combine Bruce Banner and The Hulk. Oh sure I mean it sure sounds like a genius bruiser was in the works but I guess Mr. Genius forgot that Bruce is a freaking wuss. I guess big brother Stark has a ten in book smarts and a three in common sense while Tony suddenly looks more well rounded.
* Ultimate Iron Man's origin. Nightmare Fuel doesn't even begin to cover it. So his mother was apparently not taking birth control as a married woman (I don't remember anything akin to ButWeUsedACondom) in a hazardous area. She dies before Tony is born, and this kid must now undergo perpetual pain unless he's wearing special blue makeup. Was this necessary? Was the movie origin of "a warmongering playboy has a brush with death and decides to reevaluate his life" just not topical enough?
** For one, Ultimate Iron Man's origin story was written well before the movie came out. Secondly, the point of the Ultimate Universe was to reexamine and reinvent the characters, and toying with origins is a good way to do that. Third, and most importantly, his origin story was written by Orson Scott Card, who is a crazy bastard.
** The movie origin ''is'' the 616 origin, more or less. I was only using it as shorthand.
** Actually the fact that the movie was so wildly successful pretty much proves that there was no need to change the origin. People liked the 616/movie origin just fine. The only "update" needed was to move it from Vietnam to the Middle East. Shazam, origin story successfully updated. Orson Scott Card basically changed Tony Stark's entire character. It would be like changing Ultimate Spider-Man's origin to that dumb joke Spidey made after defeating Doc Ock when he said he came from a planet where "man and spider mate and live in harmony".
*** I'd read that.
* Is it just me or it's completely impossible to relate with the Ultimates? I'm not talking about Banner or Pym here, but the other members of the Ultimates team. One of their friend is responsible for the death of more than 300 people and the first thing these guys do afterward is give interviews and throw parties to celebrate the legitimacy of their superhero team? Not a single second is spend grieving on the human cost of their legitimacy? And later they somehow find it wrong that Banner is being judged for his crimes? With heroes like that, who need villains?
** That's what I liked about them. Then they got all PG. Ah well.
** The above troper aside, no, it's not just you. However, this troper recalls reading somewhere that Millar (or somebody working on Ultimates) felt that because modern superheroes would be basically celebrities they should act like modern celebrities. So making them impossible to relate to may have been an intentional deconstruction.

* This has been bothering me for the longest. How is it that Ultimate Marvel is considered more "realistic" than the mainstream series? People usually seem to say it is because of two things:
** '''It doesn't mention/feature supernatural stuff like demons and sorcerers''' I guess you could argue that as being intentional misdirection on Marvel's part what with the hints to Thor being a real god and such, but regardless it's more open about magic and other dimensions now than it was when it began what with the Asgardians, Dormammu, Supreme Universe, etc.
** '''It contains more references to pop culture and politics.''' As of now, 616 titles have just as many references to pop culture and the like as UM does. Hell, look at Runaways. This troper first thought that Runaways was in the Ultimate Universe because of the dialogue, not to mention how the events of Secret War, Civil War, and such were portrayed as having such a (for lack of a better word) realistic effect on society. So just how in blue blazes is Ultimate Marvel more "realistic" than 616?
** I don't think there's anyone who still claims Ultimate Marvel is "more realistic". For any reason. Maybe it was at first, by a little bit. But even then it was splitting hairs. Doesn't matter how much they threw gods/magic out of the mix, it's still a series about people who can grow six stories tall, cling to walls, and shoot lasers out of their eyes. Just because you've dressed it up with Star Trek technobabble doesn't make it "realistic".
** I think the reason is more realistic versions of the characters. Which seems to mean that they are all dicks.
** In my experience, the claim is more commonly that it is more "mature," rather than "realistic." This is an equally dubious claim.
** Mostly it's because of how much track is kept of all the super-heroes. In marvel-616, pretty much any storyline can be ruined by the question "why didn't they just gather all the z-grade super heroes in an army to battle the threat of the day?" In ultimate marvel, there are few characters that are not kept track of, and even so, they are not very powerful.

* What is the deal with Swarm? In ''Ultimates 2'', she's a Syrian mutant who can control insects [[spoiler:who gets stomped on by Wasp/Janet Pym]]. Fine. But then in ''Ultimate Comics: Avengers'', she's a blond-haired blue-eyed Georgian woman with a RapeAsDrama backstory and now has Janet's powers. [[spoiler:And is somehow magically brought back from being squashed. How can you completely revive someone who's been crushed into a puddle of blood and hair, with all their memories intact?]] Also, an important part of the character, at least in ''Avengers'', is that she never takes off her wedding ring in remembrance of her late husband. Look back at Swarm in ''Ultimates 2'', however, and it's not there. Can anyone clear this up? It's doing my head in.
** Mark Millar. This is the guy who brought in a brother for Tony Stark that was 10x smarter and did nothing to explain where he'd been through other crises.
** All the ultimate avengers scripts were adapted from ideas mark millar had for the main ultimates series. Some of these ideas might have been quite old, or just not implemented for a very good reason. It's possible the scripts weren't updated to keep up with the events that the marvel universe had since experienced.
* The entire second phase of ultimate comics (ultimatum - ultimates vs ultimate avengers). What was EVERYONE thinking? Let's look at all the comics that have come out in this time period:
** ultimate comics - ultimate new ultimates. First of all, the new characters. Ka-zar's super power is owning tigers. Shanna's super power is being married to a guy who owns tigers. Black Panther and Zarda also join the team for the first time (remember, black panther was only impersonated in ultimates 3). Then, at the end of the arc, the characters leave again without any of them (other than Zarda) having done anything significant to the story. What was the point of all these characters? Second of all, Zarda's power level. In one panel, she rips off Iron Man's armour, which can resist nuclear weaponry. In the next, she has trouble with a tiger. Third, Thor going nuts over the death of Valkyrie is completely understandable. But why does he choose to attack her allies instead of her killers, despite the killers still being present?
** ultimate comics - ultimate avengers 1. Gregory Stark, Tony stark's brother. This guy makes no sense in respect to earlier continuity, especially since we know from ultimate iron man that Tony was an only child. The retcon that ultimate iron man (and therefore all four ultimate mini-series written by Orson scott card, which I love) was a foreign tv show was probably the most stupefying retcon I've ever seen. There is also the bits where captain america is acting out of character, but these are minor in comparison. It's not a bad story, but it's the continuity issues that makes it annoying.
** ultimate comics - ultimate avengers 2. Black Hulk has the same problems as Gregory, namely that he just doesn't fit previously established continuity.
** ultimate comics - ultimate avengers 3. The main problem with this story is the artwork. Every face is either DullSurprise or super evil face. The crowd shots of the vampires are awful, and it never feels like they are a great mass. Plus, who the hell thought it was a good idea to use giant people against vampires? The ending to the story was pretty good though.
** Ultimate comics - ultimate x. If it doesn't act like jean grey, doesn't look like jean grey and doesn't appear to have the memories of jean grey, it's getting kind of hard to accept her as jean grey. Also, how did the telepath not know that the parents were going to kill their daughter?
** Ultimate comics - Captain America. This story is just irky. There is a reason writers generally don't get to ascribe political opinions to captain america, and it seems weird that Marvel broke that rule with ultimate cap's "security over freedom" speech. Still, it does fit the character's portrayal in the ultimate universe. The real problem comes at the very last page where captain america decides its a brilliant idea to forcefully try to convert a tied-up and gagged prisoner to Christianity.
** Ultimate comics - Ultimate enemy, mystery and doom. This comic has way too many problems to mention them all. Every single character that appears in this comic, with the possible exception of Fury and Parker, is out of character, despite some of these characters usually being written by the same writer. The fantastic four are probably the worst off, with Ben and Sue suddenly falling head-over-heels in love and deciding to get married, and Johnny actually threatening a little boy. Meanwhile Reed Richards is turned into a super-villain, which would be semi-acceptable if he had just cracked under the pressure, but for some reason the comic wants to shove in our face that reed has always been this evil, and has tricked everyone into thinking he was a good person. Spider-woman is suddenly willing to let people die, despite literally being a female peter parker, with all the same life experiences. But the single weirdest case is probably peter parker. Peter parker is mentioned as taking an IQ test a year after the comic takes place. This is despite peter parker dying in a book, written at the same time as this and written by the same writer. Was this series ghost-written or something? Also, minor naggle. The comic wants to convince us that Parker is Reed's intellectual equal. Parker has a stated IQ of 145 (in the very comic), which, while still very high, doesn't even come close to superhuman. Since IQ isn't everything, this could have been fine, but we don't actually see Parker doing anything close to Reed's achievements (Parker, age 16: creates an adhesive fluid with help from an incomplete formula. Richards, age 12: First person to enter an alternate dimension and perfect teleportation, without any help at all.)
** Ultimate comics - spider-man and ultimate comics - thor were both a bit of an exception and opinion is generally positive on both, though some people react badly to the art in spider-man, as well as his death and being replaced by a completely new character.
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<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

** Ultimate comics - Ultimate enemy, mystery and doom. This comic has way too many problems to mention them all. Every single character that appears in this comic, with the possible exception of Fury and Parker, is out of character, despite some of these characters usually being written by the same writer. The fantastic four are probably the worst off, with Ben and Sue suddenly falling head-over-heels in love and deciding to get married, and Johnny actually threatening a little boy. Meanwhile Reed Richards is turned into a super-villain, which would be semi-acceptable if he had just cracked under the pressure, but for some reason the comic wants to shove in our face that reed has always been this evil, and has tricked everyone into thinking he was a good person. Spider-woman is suddenly willing to let people die, despite literally being a female peter parker, with all the same life experiences. But the single weirdest case is probably peter parker. Peter parker is mentioned as taking an IQ test a year after the comic takes place. This is despite peter parker dying in a book, written at the same time as this and written by the same writer. Was this series ghost-written or something? Also, minor naggle. The comic wants to convince us that Parker is Reed's intellectual equal. Parker has a stated IQ of 145, which, while still very high, doesn't even come close to superhuman. Since IQ isn't everything, this could have been fine, but we don't actually see Parker doing anything close to Reed's achievements (Parker, age 16: creates an adhesive fluid with help from an incomplete formula. Richards, age 12: First person to enter an alternate dimension and perfect teleportation, without any help at all.)

** Ultimate comics - spider-man and ultimate comics - thor were both a bit of an exception and were actually decent to very good, depending on your opinion.

* What is the deal with Swarm? In ''Ultimates 2'', she's a Syrian mutant who can control insects [[spoiler:who gets stomped on by Wasp/Janet Pym]]. Fine. But then in ''Ultimate Comics: Avengers'', she's a blond-haired blue-eyed Georgian woman with a RapeIsDrama backstory and now has Janet's powers. [[spoiler:And is somehow magically brought back from being squashed. How can you completely revive someone who's been crushed into a puddle of blood and hair, with all their memories intact?]] Also, an important part of the character, at least in ''Avengers'', is that she never takes off her wedding ring in remembrance of her late husband. Look back at Swarm in ''Ultimates 2'', however, and it's not there. Can anyone clear this up? It's doing my head in.

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