Touching the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb (****)

[Ice]

From Wondercon news at Newsarama, Jeph Loeb had this to say when asked about his issues on the Ultimates 3 and 4:



Asked when readers might see his and Joe Madureira's Ultimates 3, Loeb joked that, in the interest of fairness, he had to admit that he was the one who kept calling Bryan Hitch and telling him to add more pages to issue #13 of Ultimates 2.

How much art is done by Madureira so far? Loeb: A lot, but I don't want to get into that. It's as famous for being last as it is for being a quality book, so I can tell you that when we have enough that we can ship monthly, or ever six weeks, we'll go. That may mean there will be a break between Ultimates 2 and Ultimates 3 as there was between the first and second series.

Loeb said that the break between the two is something he's come to see as an aid to the larger story, as there will have been roughly a year break between Ultimates 2 #13 and Ultimates 3 #1 during which characters will have left the team and joined it and other things within the team will have changed. Loeb said that he would like there to be enough time between the second and third series so that the third installment of the series is seen as its own story, rather than a continuation, and can stand on its own legs.

Loeb concluded by saying that he hopes to continue on with the characters past his already announced Ultimates 3 and 4, saying that he's like to do up through Ultimates 6 and 7 with Ed McGuiness.

 

[Joe Kalicki]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ugh. . . a year between series (in comic book time)?

Nobody cares about continuity anymore.

 

[ProjectX2]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ultimates 6 and 7? Jesus, see if Ultimates 3 works first.

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ultimates 6 and 7? Jesus, see if Ultimates 3 works first.

Don't slander them. Someday, Ultimates 6 and 7 will introduce my grandkids to comics.

 

[Lynx]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Don't slander them. Someday, Ultimates 6 and 7 will introduce my grandkids to comics.

Oh good, there might be a chance I'll be dead by then.

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Wait, U3 is supposed to be one year later?

Isn't UP after U3? Did someone at Marvel say that, or did we all just assume it would?

 

[Gideon Stargrave]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ultimate continuity is seriously starting to resemble 616 continutiy. Who, exactly decided that time skips were necessary?

Oh, yeah...

 

[Boleth]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ultimates 6 and 7? Jesus, see if Ultimates 3 works first.

Ultimates 3?
**** lets try and get Ultimates 2 done first.

 

[Gideon Stargrave]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Ultimates 3?
**** lets try and get Ultimates 2 done first.

Don't get your hopes up.

 

[Dr_Draco]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Loeb said that the break between the two is something he's come to see as an aid to the larger story, as there will have been roughly a year break between Ultimates 2 #13 and Ultimates 3 #1 during which characters will have left the team and joined it and other things within the team will have changed. Loeb said that he would like there to be enough time between the second and third series so that the third installment of the series is seen as its own story, rather than a continuation, and can stand on its own legs.

So basically, USM will forever take place in the past? It's gonna be like the period piece of the Ultimate Universe

Ultimates 3?
**** lets try and get Ultimates 2 done first.

Hell, I think the delays on Ultimates 2 is just to try and alienate the TPB readers into buying the individual issues... :roll: :cry:

 

[Ultimate Houde]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I think the delays in Ultimates 2 is just there because they changed the story after Millar saw Bass Manifesto, and wanted to change it so no one would know.

 

[Gideon Stargrave]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I think that the delays are because Bryan Hitch spends all of his time watching porn.

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Okay, I just read like seven pages of the Ultimate Marvel Timeline thread and Loeb did, indeed, say that UP took place between U3 and U4.

I believe we have several choices:

1. Unanimously declare Ultimate Power not canon.
2. Ignore everything the Ultimate authors say about the timeline.
3. Sing "LA LA LA LA" and pretend Peter and Kitty Pryde never appeared in UP and Reed said he was 22 or 23, not 18.
4. Decide USM takes place in a different universe.
5. Stop caring about this bull****.

 

[ultimatedjf]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

At first I thought this thread was called Touching the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

 

[Bass]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Okay, I just read like seven pages of the Ultimate Marvel Timeline thread and Loeb did, indeed, say that UP took place between U3 and U4.

I believe we have several choices:

1. Unanimously declare Ultimate Power not canon.
2. Ignore everything the Ultimate authors say about the timeline.
3. Sing "LA LA LA LA" and pretend Peter and Kitty Pryde never appeared in UP and Reed said he was 22 or 23, not 18.
4. Decide USM takes place in a different universe.
5. Stop caring about this bull****.

It's amazing that with four regular titles, these guys, the industry's top writers and editors, can't keep the continuity straight. Ridiculous. Wasn't that part of the reason to do Ultimate stuff in the first place?

Every month it seems more and more that Marvel has gone down the pan, creatively speaking, since Avi Arad fired Bill Jemas for being honest.

I think Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada were amazing together, and each on their own, is rather insufficient.

 

[E]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Every month it seems more and more that Marvel has gone down the pan, creatively speaking, since Avi Arad fired Bill Jemas for being honest.

I think Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada were amazing together, and each on their own, is rather insufficient.

Comparing Marvel from a creative standpoint between the Bill Jemas era and the post-Jemas era, I don't see how anyone can argue that.

 

[Joe Kalicki]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I hated the Bill Jemas non-crossover, no-costume lack of continuity era.

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I don't even know who Bill Jemas is.

My first real comic experience was a free copy of USM #1 on free comic book day. That and Usagi Yojimbo got me into comics. :cry: At least Usagi is still awesome.

Anyway, who's Bill Jemas?

 

[Joe Kalicki]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

He was Marvel's controversial publisher, prior to Dan Buckley who I've yet to hear a single comment from (that I can remember).

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

He was Marvel's controversial publisher, prior to Dan Buckley who I've yet to hear a single comment from (that I can remember).

What was controversial about him? Wikipedia doesn't go into great detail.

 

[Gideon Stargrave]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

What was controversial about him? Wikipedia doesn't go into great detail.

Um...because some people were in love with him and others hated him?

I honestly don't remember anything being controversial, but whatever. Someone else can answer.

 

[Bass]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I hated the Bill Jemas non-crossover, no-costume lack of continuity era.

Mate, when Bill Jemas got Joe Quesada as editor-in-chief of Marvel, the stuff those guys put out for three years - I remember I felt like I was buying almost every comic Marvel was putting out. I was getting Alias, Amazing Spider-Man, all the Ultimate titles, New X-Men, Black Panther, Punisher - I pretty much gave everything a shot, and a lot of what they were doing was really exciting. Each title was completely self-sufficient (that's what the non-crossover part of what your talking about refers to). I remember, I'd be buying one Spidey title a month and getting all the stuff I need, whereas I dropped Superman when I realised I was buying two Superman titles a month, and getting only half a story. Really, the quality level on the mainstream titles was really quite high.

What was controversial about him? Wikipedia doesn't go into great detail.

What was controversial was two fold - firstly, he and Joe Quesada got a lot of good talent into Marvel to do Marvel titles. He basically said to not care too much about what had come before but to just do the best stories they could. They got things like Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely to do New X-Men. This was really quite something. Basically, at the time, the X-Men books were unreadable. No one knew what the hell was going on. They were stories about other stories. It was so bad, that they realised that the X-Men movie came out, was a huge success, but no one was reading the comics. They set out to change that. Grant Morrison was at the top of his game having finished his run on Invisibles and JLA, and Frank Quitely was doing one of the biggest comics at the time, the Mark Millar-penned run of Authority. Quitely left Authority to do New X-Men. This was a big thing. And in three issues, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely revamped the X-Men.

That's not all - they created the Ultimate universe which was a huge deal back then. They got the editor of Axel Alonso to clean up the Spider-Man titles - and he did; he got J Michael Straczynski onto the title and he did a great job on it at the beginning. They revamped the Hulk. All kinds of new titles were coming out, for good or ill: Marville, Alias - there was even the Epic series line. Not all of it was good, but there was just this feeling of new stuff coming out... that there was so much to see. It was a kind of near-reckless overhaul of Marvel that was so controversial. They got rid of the comics code and came up with their own certificates for comics and invented the MAX line to publish adult comics like Cage and Supreme Power.

It was just this incredible influx of creativity, and this total, "No more nonsense. We'll do anything, we'll get the work done, and we'll surprise the hell out of you each month" that was controversial.

But the second controvery sprang from this - Bill Jemas, so eager to just get rid of anything that wasn't working, offended a lot of fans. He would often come out and tell fans to grow up and (famously) get out of their mum's basement. He was very much not interested in pandering to the fanboy community that kept Marvel afloat for 10 years.

Basically, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada realised that most comics were being sold to people who already bought comics and weren't selling anything to anyone else, so they decided to get people who weren't into comics into comics and that meant changing a lot. And if you didn't like/want the change, Jemas was candid about his feelings on the subject and went off and changed things more.

At the time, DC was completely at a standstill. Nothing was happening and Marvel was just pwning the market.

However, Bill Jemas' reckless pursuit for good comics did alter the franchises. This was what made it so exciting. But for Avi Arad, who was selling Marvel's licenses to Hollywood at the time, found it difficult to do so because the franchises would get altered and changed. He told Jemas to stop changing stuff. Jemas refused - I would hope because he understood that the Marvel universe was stagnant and milking the universe for franchises is poor long-term strategy. Avi Arad had him fired.

And ever since then, Marvel has declined into a quagmire. The Ultimate line is appaling, once great titles haven't changed but are now bland - Amazing Spider-Man for example. The most enjoyable Spidey title for me at the moment is Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. Where once, we didn't get crossovers but solid titles week in, week out, we know have enormous crossovers that tie-in everywhere that aren't worth following half the time. The same writers pour out the same stories all over the place.

I think Bill Jemas, on his own, would be a reckless force of chaos, destroying titles left and right. I think Joe Quesada, on his own, is incapable of getting the best work out of people who work for him. But together, those two brought out the best Marvel comics era in my life time, I think.

I think that the guys doing the jobs now are trying to do the best comics that they can, I really do. But I also think that no one is pushing them to do the best, and as a result, they aren't.

Helluva shame.

 

[Lil Brother]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Bass, I think I love you. <3

Company-wide crossovers are the suck, they need to die.

 

[ProjectX2]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Bass, I think I love you. <3

Company-wide crossovers are the suck, they need to die.

Yes, kill them with a rock or something.

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.

 

[E]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Wow. Great explanation. I wasn't aware of half that stuff.

 

[Foolsfolly]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I now know why there was a Church of Bass.

That was great! It wasn't until around last year that I started giving a holy **** to who was EIC or what they could actually affect. Looking back, I have to agree around 2000 there was a GREAT run of comics almost Marvel wide. I had never thought why, just that maybe the wrong writers were on the wrong titles.

I still can't hate Joey Q. I honestly believe he's trying his best here. And he does have a bad problem with over hyping stuff, but he's trying to sell more comics.

World War Hulk shouldn't be a crossover at all. Because the idea seems a bit weak for a crossover. It would work as a great Hulk arc, but for a crossover?

Nah.

And seeing those pictures with Hulk and the other heroes and aliens he's met...sounds a lot like the basic premise of Civil War...and Silent War. And a bit like House of M.

When are the heroes going to fight actual villains in a crossover and not each other?

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

I just looked at the Initiative special preview edition. The Initiative stuff is going on until World War Hulk. Spider-Man went from House of M to The Other to New Avengers to Civil War to Back in Black to One More Day without time to stop. (I think I might have got some of those out of order...) God, I hate events. I hate them like splinters under fingernails.

Y'know, events actually do change things. They change a lot of things. Sure, it doesn't last forever, but it leads into the next change and affects that. But they don't change things on the right level. Civil War made a lot of individual changes in titles, but those could've been made with self-contained "events", or just normal, well-written stories. Civil War takes place on a universal level, which means UNIVERSAL CHANGES. The politics and day-to-day life in the MU should change, not just the characters. That means tying in EVERYTHING. It pains me to say this, but even self-contained titles like Runaways need to change to reflect it (even though they don't need interact more with the rest of the universe). It should never have been done on such short notice, without a universal timeline or some kind of continuity guide that every writer would be fired if they keep to.

 

[Victor Von Doom]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.

POTATOES! :rockon:

 

[DIrishB]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Wow. Great explanation. I wasn't aware of half that stuff.

Indeed it was, but the only thing I need an explanation for is why Mad is WAY THE **** BEHIND ON A TITLE THAT'S BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR OVER A YEAR!

And before anyone posts and says I'm jumping to conclusions, read Loeb's remarks again about when we can expect to see Ultimates 3 (and try a bit of reading between the lines).

This creative team was announced so long ago I can't even remember the specific date (Ice? Anyone else with the encyclopedic comic knowledge wanna remind me?), and yet they can't even give a vague estimate of when we'll see this book...oh yeah, and its only six issues...

So with that in mind...IT WAS A REALLY ****ING STUPID MOVE TO CHOOSE MAD AS ARTIST ON ULTIMATES 3...

It has nothing to do with "the year break between stories" and them wanting to reflect that. Marvel knows Ultimates is a top-selling book, and will want it on shelves as soon as possible...if they can't even give us an idea of when it might start shipping (which from Loeb's remarks might as well be May of 2008 ), this just might become the next Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk or Spider-Man: The Evil That Men Do.

I'm getting really close to just dropping the Ultimate line, and selling it all on Ebay.

Seriously, its ****ing ridiculous. I've seen hobos act in a more professional and timely manner, for Christ's sake!

Sorry for the rant...I just can't take the constant delays on this title...at this point it should just change its name to "Ultimately Late" to reflect the true nature of the title.

 

[TwilightEL]

Re: Touching on the Ultimates with Jeph Loeb.

Indeed it was, but the only thing I need an explanation for is why Mad is WAY THE **** BEHIND ON A TITLE THAT'S BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR OVER A YEAR!

And before anyone posts and says I'm jumping to conclusions, read Loeb's remarks again about when we can expect to see Ultimates 3 (and try a bit of reading between the lines).

This creative team was announced so long ago I can't even remember the specific date (Ice? Anyone else with the encyclopedic comic knowledge wanna remind me?), and yet they can't even give a vague estimate of when we'll see this book...oh yeah, and its only six issues...

So with that in mind...IT WAS A REALLY ****ING STUPID MOVE TO CHOOSE MAD AS ARTIST ON ULTIMATES 3...

It has nothing to do with "the year break between stories" and them wanting to reflect that. Marvel knows Ultimates is a top-selling book, and will want it on shelves as soon as possible...if they can't even give us an idea of when it might start shipping (which from Loeb's remarks might as well be May of 2008 ), this just might become the next Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk or Spider-Man: The Evil That Men Do.

I'm getting really close to just dropping the Ultimate line, and selling it all on Ebay.

Seriously, its ****ing ridiculous. I've seen hobos act in a more professional and timely manner, for Christ's sake!

Sorry for the rant...I just can't take the constant delays on this title...at this point it should just change its name to "Ultimately Late" to reflect the true nature of the title.

Isn't "vaporware" what you call video games that are never released, like Duke Nukem Taking Forever?

I suggest a similar term be invented for comics.