Ultimatum #3

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.