Line #35 YMMV/TheUltimates


1	[[AC:Specific series]]
2	* ''YMMV/TheUltimates2002''
3	* ''YMMV/TheUltimatesTomorrowMen''
4	* ''YMMV/TheUltimates2''
5	* ''YMMV/TheUltimates3''
6	----
7	* AllThereInTheManual: The Maker takes off his helmet and reveals that he's Reed Richards. Everybody thought that he died at the end of ''ComicBook/UltimateDoomsday''. Readers, however, should already know this, Richard's survival and new identity had been shown in ''Ultimate Fallout'' #4.
8	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
9	** Is Red Skull lying about wanting a better life? Is he just trying to screw with Fury? Is he deluding himself? Is he just trying to justify his actions?
10	** Given that this version of Captain America has the same origin as his 616 counterpart[[note]] Scrawny kid from Brooklyn gets injected with Super Soldier Serum.[[/note]], one has to wonder if his abrasive personality and JerkAss tendencies is a case of the bullied becoming TheBully. Especially with his treatment of Abdul al-Rahman, who went on to be the Colonel, Iran's answer to Captain America.
11	* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: To say that Marvel had absolutely no faith in an Ultimate Universe reimagining of the Avengers is an understatement, as they wouldn't even allow Mark Millar to actually ''call'' the team "Avengers", and only green-lit the comic because Millar was that adamant about writing it (Marvel would have preferred a spin-off of ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'' centered on Wolverine, but Millar prevailed). ''Ultimates'' was a smash hit, and this, followed by Bendis' relaunch of the Avengers and the ''ComicBook/{{Civil War\|2006}}'' CrisisCrossover (with the Avengers as lead characters), greatly boosted the team's popularity after decades of playing second fiddle to Spider-Man and the X-Men. And then the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse (which took a lot of inspiration from ''The Ultimates'') catapulted the Avengers into even higher levels of popular recognition beyond the comic book niche market.
12	* AssPull: Tony's brain tumor was actually an Infinity Gem. How that makes sense is anyone's guess.
13	* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: Bryan Hitch's knack for realism and talent for "widescreen" panels make the reader feel like they're watching a big budget action movie on in a comic book. Coupled with Mark Millar's gritty and cynical deconstruction style of writing, is it any wonder the first two volumes are so fondly remembered?
14	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Ultimate Captain America. Is he a more realistic portrayal of what would happen if someone like him woke up several decades into the future to a technologically advanced but far more crass and vulgar society, or an overly jingoistic joke of a beloved character? His infamous "You think this letter on my head stands for France!?" line he gives to Herr Kleiser certainly didn't help matters.
15	* CharacterRerailment: ''Ultimates 3'' changed Hawkeye's suit and turned him into a DeathSeeker. He was reverted to the original design and characterization in ''Ultimate Hawkeye''.
16	* CompleteMonster: Armin Zola, from the 2006 Annual, is just as twisted as his Earth-616 counterpart. A [[MadScientist scientist]] working for the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Zola [[PlayingWithSyringes experiments]] on concentration camp inmates, in order to create SuperSoldiers for the Third Reich. Zola's experiments usually result in death, with the grounds of his castle littered with mutilated corpses, some corpses even stuck on pikes, and the castle acts as a de facto camp with more inmates imprisoned so Zola can experiment on them later. Captain America confronts Zola and defeats him, with Captain America thinking him dead; the US government saves Zola's life, so he can make weapons for them. Zola eventually dies, but the US government uses his brainwaves to create an AI so that Zola can continue to make weapons for them. One day a white supremacist named [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic Thomas Jenks]], leader of a gang called the Marauders, attacks the facility holding the Zola AI, freeing it, thinking Zola will help his cause. Zola [[UngratefulBastard repays Jenks]] by turning him into a 12-foot mindless hulking monster called [=''SeigSoldat-X''=] and using his body to host Zola's AI program. Zola has the Marauders kidnap minorities across the US, so he can experiment on them, resulting in several more gruesome murders.
17	* ContestedSequel: ''Ultimate Avengers'', while an improvement over ''Ultimates 3'', has still gotten much more mixed reception than the original two volumes. While the return to the more grounded, political and comedic tone was appreciated, the stories were also criticized for overreliance on edgy shock value, many moments of unintentional silliness and lacking the thoughtful political critique of the originals.
18	* DesignatedHero: This is the main reason why many don't like the Ultimates. Most of their conflicts (with the exception of the Chitauri) in the Ultimate Comics are basically internecine civil wars, glorified bar brawls, Fury's byzantine scheming, where they more or less fight [[CreateYourOwnVillain villains they made themselves]] none of which adds to any sense of them being heroes:
19	** For instance, the Ultimates' first adventure is when they fight the Hulk, one of their own initial recruits after he goes {{Yandere}} on his girlfriend and massacres hundreds of civilians, an incident hastened by the belittling and insults [[WithFriendsLikeThese directed at him by his own team-mates]]. This incident is covered up by SHIELD with Fury and others playing this off as the Ultimates first major triumph, while they more or less hide the Hulk out of public eye and treat him like a secret WMD.
20	** The Liberators arc is triggered by the Ultimates openly fighting American wars overseas starting a superhuman arms race with many of their enemies from other countries victims of their aggression, and one of the Liberators is Hank Pym, a mentally unstable "hero" turned American traitor whose defection was inspired in part by the abuse and insults given to him by his Jerkass teammates (of course, being a Jerkass himself doesn't make him entirely squeaky clean here).
21	* FranchiseOriginalSin: Creator/JephLoeb's run started the downfall of the Ultimate line, but even the early stuff by Creator/MarkMillar has started to be criticized for the same reasons the later stuff has been, including making the protagonists into very dark antiheroes, the incestuous relationship of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and his characterizations of the Hulk being a cannibal and Hank Pym an unrepentant abusive husband.
22	* GeniusBonus: The "Son of Star Wars" that Nick Fury mentioned in the first miniseries is a missile defense program, proposed during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, for space-based weapons to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles ([=ICBMs=]). It has no relation to the Franchise/StarWars franchise, other than the popular name it got.
23	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: During the funeral for the people killed by Hulk, we can see an elderly woman being hugged by a blonde teenager. This was from before Gwen Stacy moved to live with the Parkers in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'' and became close with Aunt May (especially after Peter's death, which left them alone). If this story was made a bit later in the setting's history, those two could have been them.
24	* HilariousInHindsight:
25	** Ultimate Hawkeye is a violent sociopath with the ability to turn any thrown object into a deadly weapon, making him an {{Expy}} of ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'' antagonist Bullseye. Years later during ''Dark Reign'', Norman Osborn has several villains take on the identities of the Avengers; guess who Bullseye disguises himself as?
26	** A minor example, but the introduction for the hardcover collection of the first series happens to be written by Creator/JossWhedon.
27	** [[http://ew.com/books/2018/04/06/mark-millar-on-his-new-netflix-comic-the-magic-order-and-the-origins-of-the-mcu/ According to Mark Millar]], Marvel considered the Avengers so much of a FranchiseZombie that they did not want to have an Ultimate version of it, and when they finally accepted, they asked that the team was renamed. Yes, the same Avengers that became a worldwide film juggernaut by, partially, adapting Millar's take on them. However, other accounts suggest the renaming was to placate Creator/KurtBusiek, who was writing for ComicBook/TheAvengers at the time.
28	** Ultimate Red Skull is RelatedInTheAdaptation to [[spoiler:Ultimate Captain America, being Steve's illegitimate son who was raised by the US military and trained his whole life to succeed Steve as the next Captain America, only to turn rogue and be Steve's AntagonisticOffspring]]. Season 3 of ''Series/TheBoys2019'' would later reveal its Captain America analog Soldier Boy is [[spoiler:the father of the series' SupermanSubstitute Homelander, who was also raised by scientists and soldiers as a living weapon]], a connection they never shared in [[ComicBook/TheBoys the source material]].
29	* JerkassWoobie: A lot in this series since even the heroes are hardly the nicest people.
30	** Captain America has a big chip on his shoulder and very dated views but we're frequently shown that deep down, he is a good guy lost in a world that doesn't make sense to him. Immediately after being unfrozen, he learns his girlfriend moved on, he has outlived at least one of his brother's children, and almost everyone he knew from before is dead.
31	** Iron Man is even more arrogant and sleazy than his mainstream counterpart. He's fallen into alcoholism due to the constant pain of an inoperable tumor.
32	** Bruce Banner after becoming a villain. It comes after [[ThenLetMeBeEvil a lot]] of getting pushed around.
33	** Hawkeye's a PsychoForHire and a JerkAss but he was a genuinely loving family man. After their deaths, he's not so secretly [[DeathSeeker suicidal.]]
34	** Quicksilver is an incestuous murderer and an unapologetic terrorist but considering he was abandoned by his mother at a young age and left to be raised by an abusive monster of a father, it's almost lucky he isn't ''worse''.
35	** The Colonel was once like Steve Rogers--an ordinary if scrawny teenager from an impoverished background. Then his home country gets invaded by super soldiers working for a foreign power, and he's talked into joining his country's own super-soldier program. While he leads an invasion of America, he is the least evil of the Liberators, and out of all of them, is treated the most sympathetically when he dies.
36	** Red Wasp is a former terrorist, who has some truly horrific baggage, and it's all but outright stated she's being forced into performing wet-work for the U.S. government when she first appears.
37	** [[spoiler:Red Skull]] of all people is revealed to be one. In this series, he's not just a Monster, he's the ultimate walking talking MoralEventHorizon. But what was his goal? [[spoiler:He wanted to go back in time and save his father from being frozen so that he could marry his mother and they could all be a family because he utterly hated his life as a TykeBomb. It doesn't help that his final scene is saying goodbye to his mother before reflecting on his complete mess of a life and how all he wanted was a happy ending to it all before being executed by Red Wasp. But then again, despite having his goal in hand, he still decided to use it to be a sadistic dick to the Avengers some more instead of immediately using it to make it so his actions never happened.]]
38	* MisaimedFandom: Millar used the story to advance his anti-war ideas, but some people simply took note that Captain America as a conservative "GoodIsNotSoft" hero was so cool... Millar explains it best: "People would say, "''I joined the army after reading The Ultimates because I wanted to make a difference in the Middle East,''" and I was like, "''Well, I kinda meant the opposite of that!'' And I kinda like that, though, because I do quite like it being open to interpretation."
39	* MoralEventHorizon:
40	** For Ultimate Reed Richards, if orchestrating the city consuming Germany was not be enough, then [[spoiler: assassinating the president by blowing up Washington D.C. definitely counts.]]
41	** The Red Skull, like his mainstream counterpart has plenty, but one of his worst is [[spoiler: threatening to kill the child of the woman who's become Swarm/Red Wasp if she didn't kill her husband--only to kill the baby, anyway, and have her gang-raped]].
42	* {{Narm}}:
43	** From Ultimate Avengers: "I voted for the hot Alaskan chick." As a BondOneLiner.
44	** The reason Black Widow II and Nick Fury got divorced? [[spoiler:Over a period of few months, he somehow cheated on her with ''every single female relative and friend she had''.]]
45	** From ''Ultimate: Avengers'', the story of Red Skull's origin describes how he managed to kill an entire base of soldiers, but the art ruins it by showing a small swarm of [=GIs=] ''charging'' an unarmed teenager and getting slaughtered en-masse, rather than, say, ''using their guns to shoot him'', making it look like they were just TooDumbToLive. (Never mind the logic of how a teenager managed to kill an entire base of soldiers by himself, even as a SuperSoldier.)
46	* NeverLiveItDown:
47	** The 616 version of Hank Pym hit Janet once while going through a severe mental breakdown and that incident became one of the best known examples of this trope in comic book history. Ultimate Hank on the other hand ''is'' a straight up {{Domestic Abuse}}r who has beaten Janet several times in the past, with the one scene shown on panel even nearly killing her. And since this series was incredibly popular, this has only made the Never Live It Down even ''worse'' for 616 Hank.
48	** Captain America's infamous "You think this letter on my head stands for France?" line is something that is often brought up by his detractors to this day, albeit it's overshadowed by ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' these days.
49	* OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: There's a reason why after ''Ultimates 3'' and ''Ultimatum'' bombed, Mark Millar's return provided some relief to fans.
50	* RootingForTheEmpire: The Ultimates are not [[GoodIsNotNice pure good guys]], they are a military unit used by the United States to pursue its expansionist agenda. The Liberators, on the other hand, are villains from several oppressed countries, who organize a terrorist attack that seeks to stop American imperialism. Given the GrayAndGrayMorality of the series, along with Mark Millar's own political beliefs, it's possible that he intended to invoke this trope.
51	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The idea to make Ultimate Captain America display DeliberateValuesDissonance attracted a lot of controversy even ''before'' they famously took it into ham-handed directions, since his mainstream counterpart is famously portrayed as being forward-thinking, idealistic and enlightened for whatever era he's in. Fans rubbish the idea that Millar is somehow realistic since they point out that Captain America was created and printed before America entered World War II against the tide of strong isolationist sentiments, so it's not unreasonable that the character would be more progressive than people expect for someone from the late-30s and TheForties.
52	* ToughActToFollow: The first two volumes, by Millar and Hitch, set an insanely high bar for whoever would come after them. You'd think that there's just no way that Loeb and Madureira could get even close to the quality of the original. You'd be right.
53	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Valkyrie in ''New Ultimates'' is apparently supposed to be some kind of tragic figure, but given she's been shoehorned into a romanctic relationship with Thor, and a SpotlightStealingSquad and one issue shows her lying and cajoling her way through life, even before it turns out she made a DealWithTheDevil with freaking ''Loki'', it's hard to give much of a rat's ass about her.
54	* WinBackTheCrowd: The Avengers may have been important some decades before, but by the early 2000s, they were basically a FranchiseZombie, with Spider-Man and the X-Men being Marvel's main cash cows and most well-known characters. While Kurt Busiek and George Perez's run from 1996 was relatively popular, it was still mostly a CultClassic. Indeed, when the Ultimate Marvel line was being conceived, the higher-ups at Marvel had no faith in a reimagining of the Avengers and Mark Millar had to fight tooth and nail to get them to green-light the project, and even then, they mandated that he change the team's name. The success of this series propelled the Avengers back into the A-List among comic book fans, with elements of ''The Ultimates'' being integrated into the MCU, which pushed the Avengers to mainstream recognition.

Context YMMV / TheUltimates