Sweet! I, for one, look forward to reading it.
A taste, because I'm a shameless whore and it applies to the direction I feel mutants should go in the Ultimate Universe. The following speech by Dr. Strange Sr. in the late 90's at Empire State University would open my version of Ultimatum.
"In the opening pages of Common Sense Thomas Paine warned us about the blurred distinctions between society and government. 'Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one creates intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is our patron, the last a punisher'. We are rapidly approaching an unprecedented turning point in our history, where wants are negligible barricades to our growth and restraints of vice can no longer be suitably restrained. I see before me a generation of youth who have outlived the necessity of the social contract, yet who, out of benevolence and sympathy, still find unity and purpose in the shared community of being
...
We have spent generations finding ourselves yoked tighter and tighter, tethered to the rotting and bloated corpse that calls itself 'government'. For decades now, it has presumed itself to be the gatekeeper of our transcendence. It has placated us with words like 'superhumans', believing falsely that we do not know.
...
That we do not know this term is a blasphemy, a last gasp in the government's dying war against society; one final attempt to convince us that we are less than human, that we need those who are greater than human to govern us
....
They deride so many of you as 'mutants', as if that which arises naturally from our spirit is aberrant, a genetic fluke of nature; as if greatness only comes from that which is artificially engineered, from what their scalpels mold, from those that their few and chosen elect. It has tried to foster in our hearts that great lie which nourishes government and starves society: that we are born unequal, that we only earn equality through their approval; and they try to bait us through the promise that, through them, we can personally achieve something greater than equality. They thrive on competition, on the warring of individual against individual, fully knowing that competition itself will soon be an anachronism
...
You are all perfect. They would have you believe that "mutations" are merely the happenstances of random, natural selection. These are natural, but they are reflections of true, universal nature, a concept they can never fully understand, a concept they fear. Your powers, our powers, these conscious reflections of the mind, the soul, the personality, the motivations inside each of you, could not merely be happenstance. It is the willful manifestation of your very being. It is proof that our evolution, each and every one of us, is self-determined. Designations of above and below have no more meaning. Designations of structure have no meaning. It has become, merely, what we will it to be. When all things hold power, power ceases to be. When there is true equality, power ceases to be. You are stepping forward into a post-human world, where your limitations are only designated by how much you are willing to dream. These days are your chrysalis.
...
I'll leave you with prophecy, and promise. In the next half a century you will see either great war or great revolution - either war so intense as to obliterate the ground beneath your feet, leaving barren desert and suffocating order for time immemorial; or revolution so profound as to lift us all beyond our wildest expectations, to upend thousands upon thousands of years of precedent, stepping upward into a world post-economic, post-political, post-governmental, post-societal. Regardless, it will be a decision that rests wholly on the shoulders of your generation. They will say you hold the future in your hands, as they have said to every generation, and for once it will be wholly and unequivocally true. There is no mysticism in this omen, no sleight of hand, no magic. It is simply inevitability."
compound said:
Honestly, even if Marvel editorial would prefer to just skirt the issue of mutants' macro effects on society, there are *still* plenty of examples that can be used as models fro reviving UXM. For one thing, Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's DEMO is a perfect example of a "normal people dealing with superpowers" series. It uses a slice of life approach, largely avoiding the matter of "good vs. evil". Everything is varying shades of grey... which fits the overall ethical compass of the current UU quite perfectly.
Interesting! I'll probably pick that up when my first paycheck drops. Or maybe I'll get v.2 of Casanova first.
