MJ with powers. A lot of us called that, and then Marvel pretty much told us that in solilitions. I still don't like it.
Complete set-up for Peter and MJ getting back together. There's a reason Bendis has been creating problems for Peter and Kitty. Just too obvious.
I always saw it more of...Peter not taking well to authority. Not Nick being a villain. I see Nick as a hero in every other Ultimate title.
I never would have thought Pete was half justified in his hatred. In fact I hate it when Peter yells at Nick. He's just doing his job.
This just shows that while Houde sees the world in black and white, you see the world in shades of gray.
I'm a gray guy too. So I agree with your sentiments to a degree.
You mean him pretty much policing the entire world, abusing authority in the Ultimates, talking down to Xavier, having Wolverine kill people, arresting Captain America and Thor under false pretenses all don't qualify him as a villian? He's the best type of villian. He's doing what he thinks is right when he's dead wrong.
Is that really villainous or just misguided? There's arguments for both sides on all of those points.
Foolsfolly already listed some below, but as for Wolverine killing people, Fury's thinking of it as the lesser of two evils. Remember the mutant kid he had to kill because his mutant power killed everyone around him...what else could they do? Its one life versus thousands, maybe more.
As for Cap and Thor being arrested, he did it because they were framed quite well...not by Fury, but by the Liberators (who are the real "villain" in this book, however morally high-grounded al-Rahman thought he was). The evidence pointed in their direction, to save lives he had to eliminate the possibility. I wouldn't call that villainous. If thats the case, any court, judge, and jury that ever wrongly imprisoned someone, convicted or not, must also be villains. That just isn't logical.
Its not that he's wrong or a villain, but doing what he has to do to protect the country...which the Liberators invasion of just served to prove Fury correct on his zealousness.
I'm still trying to think up ways to save Gwen as a character.
Perhaps Richard managed to bond Carnage with her, (although that still leaves his motives pretty ambiguous - he could pull the I-Did-It-To-Save-Her-Life Card, but in all honesty I think he did just to see what would happen.) making it into a true symbiote instead of some strange nameless, (to them anyway,) parasite.
I have a million theories at this point, but all are simply theories. The only thing I'm riding on is Bendis recently stating that he'd like to see Gwen stick around for a while.
-Matt
Completely agree with your theory. And if Bendis did say that, it would be a perfect way to bring the character back into the book. It could also lead into plotlines about Gwen "struggling with the monster within" her. Though that could become really lame if Bendis puts his Ultimate Deadpool flair into it.
Random makes a good point.
I'm still not sold on Fury being a villain.
If SHIELD and Fury are villains, that makes Captain America and the Ultimates villains as well. And I find that harder to believe.
Richard Parker shouldn't have a moral high ground, he just walked into Pete's world and our world. Fury's been here from the beginning. And I cannot believe he's a villain.
Sure he butts heads with Xavier, but Xavier's not a saint either. And Fury was a supeior to Xavier. He can talk down to him.
As for policing the world, that's what America does. So...in that light Fury might be a allagory towards America the country.
Exactly. (See above)
I've always seen Fury that way, so I can't really agree with you. He's not a villian in the sense of Magneto, but he's not a good guy. He thinks what he';s doing is right. He's sympathetic. But, he's always been set up to be a bad guy. Hell, Millar reinforced that idea heavily in Ultimates 2.
Plus, the Ultimates always fought for the good of things. Fury pretty much does things just to have a stranglehold on everything. Hell, there were Ultimate X-men issues dealing with Fury basically controlling the President.
Fury controlling the President? I remember in Ultimate War and at least a few other places Fury being chewed out by the President or VP, and all other times being respectful but serious. But as for Fury controlling the President? I don't know about that. Maybe I'm reading that wrong.
Two Words. Richard Parker.
I thought it was Nick Fury...I'm going to have to go go back and read that.
I will say it's a bit refreashing to even have the chance in hell of Fury being a villain, I also don't like it.
But if Fury's a villain, he'll be one of the best villains in my memory. But...idk. Something doesn't sit right with me on seeing Fury as a villain.
An a$$hole yeah. But a villain? Idk.
The possiblity is nice for his character to be villain, like Xavier, does add more dimention to him. And now, thanks to you, I'm going to have watch him carefully. I never even considered Fury a villain. A little big brother and father knows best, but...
I have some issues to reread huh?
I don't know. I get the same exact impression of Fury.
Like I said, he's not a traditional villian. He doesn't see himself as a villian and he's been so convincing, he has you fooled. You'll catch it if you reread a lot of those issues.
Have to disagree, as I said above.
Actually, to be honest, Ultimate Dr. Doom reminds me A LOT of Ultimate Nick Fury. They're both very similiar.
That analogy is way out of left field. Again have to disagree. Doom, while a genius, is completely full of himself (justified or not). He's not doing what he thinks is right for the world, just himself. I can't say that about Fury. Not to say he doesn't crave more power, but as has been said before (in the Ultimates or some other Ultimate issues) he's probably already the most powerful man in the world as head of SHIELD and the Ultimates. That'll probably change as a result of the ending of Ultimates 2. But for now it holds true.
Like I said, Fury isn't an outright villian. He may indeed be the good guy here, I don't know. But he's not a good guy, like Captain America, Iron Man or Thor. He is a dark shade of grey.
That I can agree with.
I also don't buy Nick Fury as being a villain. He's a hardass, for sure, and he does whatever he needs to in order to do his job right, but he's still a good guy. This is the man who coordinated the attacks against the greatest threats to America and the world. With America under siege, it's one-armed FURY charging right through the middle of the melee to save the President. And regardless of whether he's been antagonistic to Peter, the jump to super-villain seems fairly arbitrary. I agree that the conflict between Peter and Fury seems more of an issue of Peter bucking authority than anything else.
Completely agree.
My only real gripe about this was the timeline of things.
In the panel where Richard was watching Peter play in the playground Peter couldn't have been any older than like 6 or 7. Ben and May are obviouly WAY younger. Then CIA guy approaches Ben and wants to talk to him. A few panels later it looks as if it couldn't have been more than a few hours later and we see CIA man ask Richard if he's ever heard of Fury. CIA man then goes onto explain all about Fury and how he wants to make a group called the Ultimates w/ Cap America blah blah blah.
There is no way Fury was a General back then. Or even a Colonel.
You're right about him not being a General at that point (that didn't happen until after Ross was supposedly killed in the UXM Weapon X arc), but he very well could have been a Colonel. It would have been after his time in Iraq in the Gulf War (seen in UXM #11, though I don't remember his rank at that time). It does also mention in the issue that "he's weaseled his way up the world government ladder..."; this could indicate he was promoted faster than usual. And there's nothing in continuity that says otherwise that he hasn't been working on the super soldier serum for close to a decade, for the sole purpose of forming
a team, which would eventually be the Ultimates. While he didn't do any recruiting for it until the first few issues of the Ultimates, he could have been securing funding, doing research, etc, for that long.
In 616 I believe he was in the X-men comics, I've only seen him in the cartoon he was one of the guys who made the sentinel, his name was also mentioned in the first X-men movie (the guy Mystique was pretending to be on the helichopter)
Gyrich was actually in old Avengers comics as sort of an overseer of the team for the government. He wasn't an outright villain, but he didn't like the team and so made life difficult for them.
The character was then appropriated for the X-Men cartoon and became the creator of the Sentinels (I think Trask was also the creator of the Sentinels in 616 continuity, thought I could be mistaken).
I was really hoping against all hope that Gwen was Spider-Woman; that she had bonded with Carnage and learned to control the suit. But her lack of memory to what happened was a strike against her and now clearly this issue dimished all hope. I think its safe to say that Spider-Woman is one of Peter's clones and HOPEFULLY Gwen sticks around and learns to control the suit. Then Peter, MJ (Firestar), and Gwen "Carnage" Stacy all fight crime together. Teen Ultimates. Yeah this is great. No seriously. Well not the Teen Ultimates part.
BTW doesn't Carnage seem like a super hero name that Gwen would make up anyway?? "I'm ****in' Carnage!", Gwen Stacy. I'm starting to feel like the Carnage/Gwen thing is genius and super clever.
HEY! Its Henry Gyrich! I was just talking about you.
Welcome!
He was in the game, remember this actually Carnage III technical aspects are fair game
Quite true.
The first version of Ultimate Carnage (chronologically speaking in the comic continuity, but second in appearance in our own) was Peter himself in the USM videogame. He was injected with the Venom serum mixed with something else and became the first Carnage. Venom absorbed the Venom cells in Peter's DNA, curing him of the Carnage whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and amping himself up to full power.
The second Carnage (but first we saw) was the one from the Carnage arc in USM.
This Carnage could either be that same character (though unlikely considering its demise at the bottom of a fiery smoke-stack) which somehow survived and was resuscitated by Richard, or the third version of Carnage, also created due to Richard's tampering.
I just got finished saying that on another message board heres the real problem Bendis has wrote fury as being a college student in India during this time.
What? Remember that the flashback involving Gyrich and Richard discussing Fury would have taken place ten years before (most likely the mid-90's). I think Fury attended college in India way before that. If I remember correctly its mentioned he was also in Vietnam as a young man, and he went to college after that. That'd put that around 20 years before the scene we're talking about.
It was an ok read. I'll give it a 2/5. Not terrible, but not as good as the Ultimates 2 #13 by far. My biggest gripe was it was advertised as a double-sized issue...which it was, but only 31 pages of that were actually a comic book...21 were sketchbook and series recap, and then letter pages and ads (which are to be expected). I'd have much preferred the other 21 pages been story instead of sketches and summaries, but oh well.
