Headscratchers / Ultimate Marvel

• At one point in the ULTIMATES, Captain America is suspected of murdering innocent civilians. Fine. So to arrest him, S.H.I.E.L.D. blows up half a WW2 cemetery. Not only that, they surprise and kidnap a WW2 veteran! Guess heart attacks just don't happen in the Ultimate Universe.
  • Not that I really want to defend this stuff, but I feel I need to point something out: if Captain America went on a killing spree, I would say the life of a WWII vet is worth putting him down.
  • It was, in fact, a cemetery. A quiet place where there will be very little people around, and few structures besides graves and statues. It was their best chance to get him down and keep casualties and property damage minimal.

• Okay, so after the Liberators' attack on America was crushed, Captain America told Nick Fury the Ultimates were quitting government sponsorship and becoming an independent superteam because they're presence abroad was the cause of the invasion in the first place. Setting aside the not-even-barely-concealed left-wing propaganda throughout the whole Liberators story arc, how is that even possible? For one thing, most of their technology and resources are SHIELD property. I could arguably see Tony Stark going independent since he built the Iron Man suit on his own, but how does Captain America get away with it? Once he quits government sponsorship, shouldn't he be immediately arrested as a non-sanctioned genetic mutation?
  • It's Captain America. The guy's a national icon despite his jerkass tendencies, and he and his team just saved everybody's hides from a group who wanted nothing less than to destroy the USA. All told, I'm sure the higher-ups would figure it acceptable to let them off the hook.
  • Screw the rules, the Ultimates have money, connections and supernatural powers, and they are doing what's right!

• Captain America's wildly fluctuating power level bugs me. In the "Ultimate Extinction" arc, Cap jumps out of a SHIELD heli-carrier from who knows how high in the air (but it had to be higher than the tallest building in New York) and freefalls straight down to slam shield-first into the herald of Galactus, with no apparent injury to himself. Even disregarding the obvious physics problem here, how do they square this with earlier and later stories where Cap doesn't demonstrate nearly this level of power? For instance, in the "Ultimate Six" arc where six of Spider-Man's villains attack the White House, Captain America briefly wrestles with Ultimate Spider-Man and they seem to be evenly matched.
  • 616 Captain America has at least once survived a 10,000+ foot fall from an airplane... by making sure that his shield hit the ground first and absorbed all the impact. Never mind that this makes no sense by the laws of physics as we know them, this is comic books, and there is precedent.
  • It doesn't really matter how high he falls from once he's high enough to reach terminal velocity. And there are records of normal humans surviving falls at that speed under certain conditions; it's not impossible to imagine that a just-barely-superhuman could manage that.
  • Well, Ultimate Spiderman can throw cars at people. Wrestling him evenly is a much greater feat than just jumping out of a chopper and not die...
    • Granted, but Cap has got to be at least twice Spider-Man's size and weight. Proportionate spider-strength or not, Cap should still be able to overpower him.
    • He could throw him around, but he couldn't do any real damage if Spidey were serious.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong but this version of Spider-man hasn't matured yet so he isn't nowhere near as strong as the original. He did hurt his hands punching Kingpin who didn't even flinch. Also, Cap knocked out the Hulk in their first meating.
  • Captain America's shield is made of a vibranium-adamantium alloy. Adamantium is Wolverine's "cuts through anything metal", and vibranium has the special property that it cancels out all vibrations of any kind, making it completely bulletproof, soundproof and impact-proof. So it's not that Cap himself is invulnerable, but his shield is; the "jumping from a high distance only to land unharmed by having the shield absorb the impact" is kind of a schtick of his.
    • The problem is that while the shield is perfectly invulnerable, it still decelerates from terminal velocity to zero as soon as it hits the ground... and so would Cap, as he lands right on top of it. He should thus feel the effects of slamming into an invulnerable patch of ground at terminal velocity. And the shield can't magically absorb all momentum directed into it (especially not coming from the side facing Cap) or else he wouldn't be able to move it, let alone throw it. The only way this works is if the shield has the ability to generate an inertialess field, selectively, under Cap's conscious control. IOW, it doesn't remotely work at all without writer's fiat.
    • That's basically how it works, in every incarnation of Captain America, the shield only absorbs momentum when you want it to and/or when the plot says so. I don't think it's ever been explained how this happens, they just Hand Wave it by mentioning vibranium.
  • It's canon that Ultimate Cap's shield can absorb falling damage like nothing. In The Ultimates first issue, Bucky states that Captain America always jumps from planes without parachutes, because these "are for wussies".
    • Bucky states this during WWII and at this point in the story he has his more traditionally shaped WWII shield. Also, I don't think at any point is Ultimate Captain America's modern shield expounded on in any detail. It might be fair to take it for granted that it has the same properties as the 616 shield, but this isn't stated outright.

• Nick Fury's initial claim that Spider-Man will belong to him upon reaching the age of 18 always disturbed me. He did muddle it enough to make it plausible that Peter would think imprisonment was imminent. This is stinkin' Nick Fury, the guy who basically runs the world, right? He should be eloquent enough to just outright say Peter will be an Ultimate the first time without any misunderstanding.
  • He should be eloquent enough to do that, but unfortunately Ultimate Nick Fury is an arrogant ass-faced moron. 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.
  • As it was seen when they clarified this at a later meeting, Nick Fury never meant for things to be understood that way. He simply chose the wrong words and was misunderstood. Yes, he "runs the world" and all that, but who can say with complete honesty that he never commited a similar mistake at some point?

• Putting aside the two year delay, irritating Star Trek references, inability to go two pages without a flashback and constantly rehashing the story from slightly different perspectives - Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine occupies a position that makes no real sense in continuity. At the end, Nick Fury is supposedly experimenting on Betty Ross to find out what she did to herself (which in itself makes no sense as the modified Hulk serum was made by Jennifer Walters, not Betty - who isn't even a scientist in the Ultimate continuity and hell, she's in the Ultimates PR department when the comics start and here, she seems to be in management). Yet, she shows no abilities in the finale of Ultimates 2 and seems to be surprised that Bruce is alive. Not to mention that both the end of Ultimates 2 and Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk establish Banner having gained some control over the Hulk... which is pretty much ignored by the Ultimate Hulk Annual.
  • "Hulk gets character development, character development gets rolled back next writer" is the perpetual cycle Hulk has always lived in.
• How about everything pertaining to the backstory of the new Red Skull? Even for a comic book, there's so much medical, military, and logical fail in this that it's headache inducing.
  • Take special note of the total idiocy of the reason he's the Red Skull. HE CUT HIS FACE OFF - even for a deranged psychotic mass murderer, that's crazy and stupid and above all - IDIOTIC.
  • I am 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?
    • It occurs to me that that may have been the entire point. Maybe they were alluding to the whole "superior ability breeds superior ambition" thing from Star Trek.
    • In a superhero comic book? The mind boggles.

• Ultimate Comics: Avengers is certainly an improvement over the disastrous Ultimates 3 but... we're supposed to buy that Tony Stark had a brother who is - according to Nick Fury - ten times smarter and totally amoral but no one ever mentioned him before and apparently the reason Nick Fury didn't use him before is because... he's amoral. Not generally an issue that Nick Fury would have. Not to mention the fact that he's apparently created an entirely controllable version of the Hulk in his spare time. You'd think that someone smarter than Tony Stark and without the imminent threat of an inoperable brain tumour, total lack of responsibility and rampant alcoholism might be useful when you're say... fighting the Skrull or Galactus or an invasion of the continental USA.
  • Hell, Fury should probably consider amorality a perk, considering some of his own actions. For that matter, I don't buy the supposed reason that Gregory Stark was never in the country (and, thus, somehow, we've never heard of him). If he is completely amoral, what the hell would a "gentlemen's agreement" matter to him? He'd break it for profits just to show up baby brother like he's so enjoying doing now.
    • 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.

• The big reveal in Ultimate Origins that mutants were all the product of trying to recreate the super soldier serum. Even in the crazy world of comic book explanations that are full of Fridge Logic and truck-sized plot holes, they never bother to explain how the government managed to disseminate the super soldier serum to every existing mutant across the globe in the Ultimate Universe.
  • It went airborne... I think... i could be wrong.
  • The government never did anything. Apparently, the mutation started spreading by itself for some reason.
  • This has now been answered: NANOBOTS!

• After all my favorite characters die in Ultimatum, the three remaining X-men I like disappear off the face of the earth. What happened to Rouge? Or Iceman? Them still being teenagers and known mutants would have been interesting. And then theres Colossus the one I would have loved to see develop more but was reduced to brute rolls in later arcs should have at least gotten a mention in a series that is focusing on Wolverine's son, And with Nightcrawler and Jean-Paul both dying in Ultimatum I would have very much enjoyed seeing him cope and grow as a character and see how he will work without Banshee but they decide to make Kate or should I say Jean the new leader to the new team of mutants. I would at least like to see Kitty back on a team... How could they not want to fix up the loose ends about all these charcters before they go and rebuild expies of the old team?
  • Iceman lives with the Parkers now (as does the Human Torch). As for the rest of your argument, I can't disagree. There's quite a bit that needs to be answered.
  • According to Ultimate X #5, Colossus and Storm are being held in a lab somewhere, and according to Ultimate Fallout #2, Rogue is on the run. Something tells me these things will be dealt with in the new Ultimate X Men stuff.

• The reveal in New Ultimates vs Ultimate Avengers that there was a Hulk before Bruce Banner, whose serum is actually a pill that turns you into a Hulk that has normal skin color, retains your intelligence and personality, and only lasts 24 hours, while still allowing for transformations between human and hulk. Oh yeah, and this version was actually completed before the "original" Hulk's. And no one during the whole Super Soldier race thought that this might be their best option, or at least a good enough one to stop experimenting with other powers? It solves all of the major issues, including the fact that anyone who went AWOL would now be a liability with powers.
• Did the Brits really not see any value in the ability to make people like the Leader? Sure, he's not a super soldier, and he can't walk, but super-intelligence does sound handy.
• What is the deal with Swarm? In Ultimates 2, she's a Syrian mutant who can control insects 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 Rape as Drama backstory and now has Janet's powers. 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. .
  • 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
  • It was never actually said that the new Wasp is Swarm. It is said that she was with the Liberators, but she claims her codename was Insect Queen. I always assumed she was a member of the Liberators we just haven't seen before for some reason.
• Why does Peter fight Osborn and his lackies unmasked in Death of Spider-Man, thus ensuring every member of Queens assembled at the scene learn his identity?
  • He probably stopped giving a sh*t, since it would be easier to name everyone in the Ultimate universe who didn't know Peter Parker was Spider-Man at that point.

• 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.
  • Status Quo Is God
  • Fury wanted to have his old job back. He simply exploited the context and Danvers' sense of guilt over it to achieve his end.

• 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?
  • No side consequences? Did you actually read the complete story?

• 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.
  • Xavier noticed it during the night, when everybody was sleeping, and sent them ASAP. Check back the first issues.

• So, the setup with the X-Men series confuses me. The mainstream team is supposed to be about fighting to get people to accept mutants, but with how Ultimate Marvel treats everyone with superpowers, it's practically saying that mutants should be feared and hated. I don't get it.
  • If you ask me, Ultimate goes against the whole freaking point: we're supposed to see mutants as a completely natural thing that should be accepted, not a failed government experiment!
    • Having Mutants be the products of experiments is closer to their original design than the Homo Superior talk (which really just serves to make the Fantastic Racism an outright Broken Aesop since both Magneto's attitude of warring on humanity and the hints that humans really are vile untermenschen who need to be replaced are framed as justified). Recall that they were called "The Children of the Atom" and were early on associated with atomic/nuclear science (meaning they wouldn't predate the 20th century). It was later introductions/retcons like Apocalypse being an Ancient Egyptian that threw it out the window.
  • Actually, a world where mutants are feared because of their powers and other heroes are treated like celebrities for the same reason is the main X-Men Franchise Original Sin. The Ultimate universe as a whole is an improvement over that, as people fears all superhumans equally, which makes more sense. The Ultimates are simply tolerated as a necessary evil, because Magneto and Norman Osbourne exist, and the US needs some reliable soldiers in case they want to start a killing spree at the White House again. As for the artificial origin of mutants, none of the big mutant heads pre-Ultimatum were even aware of it, neither was the public, so things played out the conventional way. When Magneto discovered this truth, he had the proper Villainous BSoD.
    • Also Ultimate Marvel tried to avoid Status Quo Is God. In 616, Mutants and Non-Mutants are eternally at war since it's needed for there to be comics with there being excuses like Sublime and Mutants being "destined" to replace the Homo Sapiens. In Ultimate, it's at least hinted that there's nothing about the natures of Mutants and Non-Mutants that means they must be at odds. Indeed, the rise in hostility against Mutants from Magneto's actions is obviously meant to be an analogue of what Muslims suffered from in the wake of the actions of Bin Laden (something undeserved, but not something that makes Western society irredeemable).

• A problem with the premise: superhumans are meant to be a stand-in for weapons of mass destruction, and are only in the hands of superpowers like the United States? But mutants are everywhere, right? So why is it that other nations can't employ mutants as part of their own Ultimates division?
  • There is some implication that that is happening, although out of sight for the public. Weapon X seems to have been a NATO program, China and South Korea are mentioned to have had 'genetic prisoners' and the liberators included a syrian mutant. Given the public perception of mutants, it's likely that such programs were kept under the board however.
  • In addition, there is a case of Depending on the Author going on in regards with mutant numbers. Millar's original run on the x-men was quite explicit in the number of mutants on the planet. 6 years before the start of the story, there were a mere 200. Afterwards the number rose rapidly, but still seems to have been in the low thousands (Xavier and Magneto optimistic speculations had 5000 mutants living in the savage land four years from the start of the series, and 500 five years before it. And they intended for the entire mutant population to live there). In addition, a very large portion of those were members of the brotherhood. Under those circumstances, a lack of mutant super-soldier programs made sense. Vasquez' run moved the mutant numbers closer to the numbers in the normal marvel universe (with millions of mutants), which caused the problem retro-actively.
  • As seen in Real Life, WMD may be a great tool of super power countries, but they are not the only ones to have them (just take a newspaper and check the international section). Same goes here. America has the Ultimates and the X-Men, but Europe has its own superhuman program, Britain tries to start a local one, and as seen in the Ultimate Captain America mini, there are superhuman-related political crises even at third world countries.

• What exactly has happened to Jean Grey? I mean, with Reed, he always had some dark aspects of his character, and other examples like Pyro and Elektra never really had any effect on the plot, they were basically insta-retcons, but Jean's waging war against her former friends without any defined reason or remorse is just insane. Come to think of it, what was she trying to accomplish anyway?
  • I'm going with God Save Us from the Queen! and Drunkwith Power

• If the whole universe was destroyed in Secret Wars, then which is the future that Cable and Bishop came from?