Jeph Loeb is done.  The man who was once comics royalty, who penned some of the greatest Batman stories ever written and created the cerebral and elegant "colors" series to showcase some of Marvel's great characters, perished along with his son.  What remains is nothing short of horrifying.  The Loeb of today is a destructive, tone-deaf, creatively barren ignoramus who isn't qualified to write a Marvel coloring book, much less determine the future of Marvel's entire Ultimate line.  Gone are the wit, the sensitivity, the mastery of mood.  All that remains is a small collection of brutal, primitive sensibilities that make every page of this book, and every book in the Ultimatum fiasco-event, almost unbearable to read.

To summarize what Loeb has produced here is a waste of time, and, moreover, cruel.  Anyone who cares about the Ultimate universe in any way deserves better than to have Loeb's offenses against that universe's characters, concepts and history repeated here.  Perhaps the best summary of Ultimatum has been provided by Loeb himself: namely, the sickening, gratuitous splash panel from last issue of the Blob (apparently a cannibal now) yanking the intestines out of the corpse of poor Janet Pym (apparently a caucasian now that she has passed on) and devouring them like a plate of sausages.  That is Ultimatum, ladies and gentlemen.  Jeph Loeb, with the full backing of the cretinous Joe Quesada, ripping open the belly of the Ultimate Universe and eating its guts, all the while grinning with maniacle joy.  He can't be bothered to learn a damn thing about the universe he's writing in.  He can't be bothered to ensure that character motivations remain consitant.  He certainly couldn't care less about the ten years worth of continuity that his hamfisted idiocy is destroying; it can be assumed that the powers-that-be have deemed it unworthy of preservation.

And the worst part of this entire nightmare, the ultimate insult, is that he's going to get away with it.  The tepid-to-positive tone of most fan reviews broadcasts loud and clear that for the consumers, even the patently offensive is acceptable.  Standards are gone.  Comic book fans, even those who apparently care about the Ultimate line, seem generally satisfied to accept whatever is fed to them.  Where is the outrage that was unleashed when Joe Quesada ruined Spider-Man?  At least that fiasco only effected one character, and one that had been going nowhere for decades to boot.  Perhaps it was the symbolic value: even if he was in a massive rut, 616 Spider-Man was still an icon, and Quesada was fried for messing with him (not that any of the fan outrage mattered one iota, but it was still a nice gesture).  Ultimate Spider-Man has no such sentimental value, and is thus fair game for Loeb's moronic interference. 

And speaking of Ultimate Spidey, I can't imagine how poor Brian Michael Bendis, who has crafted that character painstakingly for almost a decade, must feel about the undignified nonsense being perpetrated upon his creation.  I'm not even going to begin to talk about what an atrocity Ultimate X-Men has become.  Ultimates 3, the lead-in title to the "event" and Loeb's first foray into the Ultimate universe, was one of the most bumbling, cheap and hackish efforts in recent memory, a fitting prologue indeed to the current mayhem.  Ultimate Fantastic Four is the only title that will lose little in the crippling process of Loebification, as that dull piece of work was never compelling enough to merit real emotional attachment in the first place.  But even so, Loeb's meddling has now robbed it of any chance to grow or improve. 

Or perhaps not.  Despite the protestations of Loeb, Coleite and other members of the three-ring circus that oversees Ultimatum, there can be little doubt that a retcon will be in the offing very soon indeed.  So much damage has been done to core characters and crown-jewel teams by this outrage that Marvel will have little choice but to hit the reset button if they wish to preserve the Ultimate line as a viable asset.  This can either be done all at once, perhaps by dismissing the events of Ultimatum as a "what-if", or incrememtally, but clumsily concocting individual resurrections for each individual killed in Loeb's Folly.  Whichever route is chosen, it will happen.  Keep that in mind if you are still crazy enough to pick up Ultimatum.  None of this nonsense will matter in the long run.  None of it.  Having slapped fans in the face, Marvel will not even have the decency to stick to their guns and prove to us why this was so damn necessary.

In short: Avoid this book, all other Ultimatum books, and any and all tie-ins with the exception of the amusing Ultimate Hulk Annual.  Ultimatum is a toxic dump, an epidemic of failure that damages anything it comes into contact with.  Don't touch this junk with a ten foot pole.

Considering how unhappy I've been with the Ultimatum event, and the direction that the Ultimate Universe in general has taken in the last year, I didn't expect much out of this issue.  Silly me.  Instead of the same heavy-handed mutilation of established characters that I've come to expect from the imbeciles managing Ultimatum, I got a lighthearted and funny bit of fluff that reminded me why I like comics so much.  Zarda, who I was initially very suspicious of, is easily one of the most interesting characters to appear in the Ultimate Universe in a while.  She's much better off here than in the backwater pages of Squadron Supreme.  I actually found myself sighing with relief that Thor was languishing in the afterlife and that this snappy, arrogant and delightful sort-of-godess would be taking his place.  As for Hulk, he was in fine form: violent, horny, and spouting his trademark ludicrous dialogue.  I can't think of a more awkward, or funny, pairing than the testosterone-pumped behemoth and the snotty warrior princess.  Hilarious, raunchy and wonderfully unpretentious, this book is required reading for its entertainment value alone.  It has given me hope that the violent funk Jeph Loeb descended into after his son's death may be going away, and we may yet see him return to his glory days as one of the sharpest and wittiest writers in the comics industry. 

The time has come to assess the damage that Aron Coleite has done in just four issues of Ultimate X-Men.  He has transformed a series that was designed to be a refreshing break from the continuity-laden drama and plot-of-the-week pulpiness of the mainstream Marvel Universe into just another cheap, spastically plotted X-book.  Colossus and Northstar, who began his run as a strong and assertive gay couple with a bright future ahead of them, have been reduced to a pair of degenerate cripples.  The effeciency with which Coleite has demolished their characters and made a mockery of their relationship gives of more the a slight wiff of homophobia.  Wolverine has once again been boosted to a level of importance far above what his character merits, a change which can only be attributed to the writer's personal fanboyism.  This parallells a similar rise in Wolverine's prestige in the pages of Ultimates, again undeserved.  Rather than balancing out character relationships in order to tell a better story, Coleite and Loeb have returned to the tried and true 616 formula of letting a characters fan popularity determine his place in the plot.

Coleite's disrespect for Professor Xavier, and his ignorance of his role in the Ultimate Universe, are stunning.  Despite the fact that Xavier very nearly saved the world from Apocalypse only a few issues ago, and has always taken a deep and abiding interest in the needs of his students, Absolute Power finds Xavier vacationing on Muir Island for no apparent reason, blissfully unaware that his students are running amok and using illegal drugs, which were presumably bought with his own money.  In addition, it is shamelessly "revealed" that Xavier was actually behind the development of Banshee from Wolverine's DNA, which is so wildly out of character that it makes you wonder whether Coleite has actually read an Ultimate X-Men book at all.  Finally, Xavier remains happily ignorant to the fact that his ex-wife and host at Muir Island is not only peddling the drug to children, but is actually taking it herself!  It takes Coleite's pet character Wolverine to snap Xavier out of his little coma with a blast of testosterone.  Is this the man who defeated Magneto in Washington and fought Apocalypse to a standstill in New York, or is this a moronic clone substituted for him in some nefarious plot by anti-mutant forces?

After being tentatively hopeful about the appearance of Alpha Flight, I quickly realized that Coleite had no intention of using them in a meaningful way.  Given only an issue and a half worth of time on the page, and only a few panels of substantive dialogue, these poor characters have been sold tragically short by a cretinous hack who happily flaunts his ignorance of the Ultimate Universe.  And really, that last bit is the core of the problem.  Coleite doesn't understand the universe he's writing in.  The is Ultimate Marvel.  Unlike the main continuity, where any old tripe can be spoonfed to the fans and only the most egregious writing will be given a thumbs down, the Ultimate Universe actually requires a high level of quality control.  Telling long-term stories with well fleshed out characters and clever dialogue is what matters here, not needless violence, pet character wanking and "awww cool" power changes that only last half an issue.  Coleite, and his master in the Marvel editor's chair, have apparently forgotten that.  For my money, the Ultimate Universe has produced more quality writing and great stories in its decade of existance than mainstream Marvel has in its entire 40-year history.  Ultimate Marvel is fresh, clean, clever and sharp.  It is comics for the modern age and the modern mindset, and it is unapologetic in its contempt for the needlessly complex and self-satisfied continuity that has made Earth 616 such an utter bore.  That the powers that be at Marvel want to change that, and make Ultimate Marvel just another trough where readers can be fed mainstream slop, is incredibly disheartening for those of us who have been with Ultimate Marvel since the beginning.  With writers like Coleite on the scene, my outlook for the Ultimate Universe is not optimistic.

I came into this issue completely psyched.  After the crazy, out of control action that has dominated Ultimate X-Men for the last 15 issues or so, I fully expected the team to sit back, regroup and settle in to the new paradigm.  A few issues of character-centered stories with a few minor villains, maybe some more development of the Hellfire Club subplot that's been lurking in the background for a while...I was ready for anything, just as long as it wasn't another huge frantic mega-event right out of the starting gate.  More fool I. 

If this book established one thing in my mind, it is that Aron Coleite should never be allowed to write comics again.  In a single issue, he has taken a book that was notable for its narrative cohesion and strong sense of ongoing plot and cast it completely adrift.  Colossus is a drug addict now?  Jean is back from space having only just left, and now is completely okay with invading her teammates' minds without permission?  Jean Paul has been on the run from Alpha Flight all this time, but neglected to mention that fairly important fact to anyone?  Kurt has now changed from an emotionally twisted freak to a paragon of goodness and tolerance, while Colossus is an obsessive, dangerously violent deviant?  Good God, what a mess. 

This book reeks of the same sloppy territory-marking that Jeph Loeb is engaged in over at Ultimates.  Rather than doing what he can to preserve the style, tone and plotlines that Ultimate X-Men fans have come to know and love, Coleite has come barreling in with a pet plotline that has nothing to do with previous story arcs of the book, insults the readers intelligence and turns the vibrant, three dimensional characters that were so painstakingly developed over the last 90 issues into sniveling cardboard cutouts who violate all their established values and motivations in the name of plot convenience.  The fact that the entire "mutant drug" plotline is a shameless ripoff of the years-old Kick storyline from New X-Men is just the last nail in the coffin of this irreperable disaster.