I have avoided this after reading some awful reviews, but am trying to complete my Ultimate Universe collection, so I have just finally read through it.
Man, it's shit.
I quite like the art, but the script, the dialogue, the disjointed storytelling, the plot... all fucking abysmal.
This is the twat that wrote Ultimatum, yet this is even worse, one of the worst modern day Marvel series I have ever read.
Steam vented.
I'd barely gotten over how crap it was... you've awakened that gamma powered nerd rage.
Way to go Alski.
I have never liked anything by Jeph Loeb, even when he was "good". His work is appalling. If I hadn't read Guardian Devil by Kevin Smith, I wouldn't hesitate to call Loeb the worst writer in comics.
The TV Tropes take on Jeph is somewhat interesting. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JephLoeb)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/Jebdel/beeweapon.jpg)
Jeph Loeb may be the most gifted writer I've ever read; gifted not just because of his imagination, his energy, his originality, but because he has access to the unutterable, because he can look inside a person and discover the unique essence of their humanity. To read him is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.
So that's what happened to you. You were Loebed in your area.
It is really bad, isn't it? Millar comes back to do a couple of miniseries worth of Ultimate comics soon after that are woeful too. Particularly the one where they all turn into vampires and it's drawn by Steve Dillon. I think it took me literally 30 seconds to read an issue of it once. Talk about decompressed comics! Millar picking up the cheque there.
Quote from: Roger Godpleton on 11 June, 2012, 11:42:16 PM
Jeph Loeb may be the most gifted writer I've ever read; gifted not just because of his imagination, his energy, his originality, but because he has access to the unutterable, because he can look inside a person and discover the unique essence of their humanity. To read him is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.
* applauds * :D
Well, Loeb's turn is pretty terrible, I agree, but at least it's just a bad comic book. I've been reading Johnathan Hickman's apparently much better turn on the title these last few months and it's so far just a bunch of notions taken from the back of pulpy sci-fi novels and lots of men shouting about destiny and the power they wield, but it's done with such a humorless banality that it's impossible to empathise with anyone, and being set in the Ultimate universe and so reliant as it is on continuity of same, it's impossible to believe that anything of consequence is happening even when cities are nuked and heaven is burned down by athiests (which actually happens), which undermines the book's main selling-point of one-upping itself and what came before ala the impressive but ultimately hollow Dragonball Z.
Loeb's Ultimates at least came to an end, Hickman's in contrast feels like it never will.
God, I've tried with Hickman but it just goes on and on, and does it's best to confuse everybody.
I wish he'd wrap it up and let someone else have a play.
Quote from: Alski on 13 June, 2012, 03:57:40 PM
God, I've tried with Hickman but it just goes on and on, and does it's best to confuse everybody.
I wish he'd wrap it up and let someone else have a play.
I'm confused - when did we start talking about Fantastic Four?
Quote from: Alski on 13 June, 2012, 03:57:40 PM
God, I've tried with Hickman but it just goes on and on, and does it's best to confuse everybody.
I wish he'd wrap it up and let someone else have a play.
Pretty sure #11 was his last issue and Sam Humphries is taking over. Hickman is moving to 616 Avengers while Bendis appears to be going to X-Men.
I read this for free and still wanted my money back.
these are depressing reviews, but <*sigh*> i'll probably end up buying it anyway. I need help!
Yeah, Loebs run was bad but I gotta be honest, I preferred it to Hickman's
Ultimates, to me anyway, has always been a bit of a summer blockbuster type comic. Hickman's version feels a bit like Ang Lee's Hulk did. Can't get into his writing at all. I can tell it's good but it just feels so clinical and cold.
Nice, if VERY stylised, art on the Loeb stuff though.