As we last left our Ultimate heroes, Yellowjacket bit off the Blob’s head out of revenge and Wolverine found Nightcrawler lying amongst the poo-gas. Now we continue with the X-Men and see what Thor and Captain America are up to.

Those X-Men sure don’t give a shit about the millions of other people who died. Muties are so elitist. Yeah, I said it.

Thanks to ManiacClown for the usual assistance. I really only mention his name and bold it out out of habit these days. Maniac Clown, dudes.

Tomorrow we’ll get more Thor fun as well as Multiple Man.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

Yesterday saw various baseball games called off due to rain. Plus Human Torch and his dad drowned. Hey, if it means I don’t have to look at Johnny Storm’s ugly hair anymore, I’m for it.

Now, some more devastation.

ManiacClown was too busy with real-life work to help out, but he did insist on making a JFK Jr. joke in terms of Angel flying underwater. Not cool, man. Not cool. Though, to be fair, I was planning on referring to Ultimatum’s disaster as “9/11 and Katrina have a baby”.

Tomorrow it’s all about Reed and Sue with a little bit of Namor tossed in there for you.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

Yesterday was literally the calm before the storm, as we got to briefly check in with the Fantastic Four, the Ultimates, as well as Spider-Man and his amazing friends. You know, that’s pretty rare for a Loeb comic. We got FIVE single pages without the sudden, blatant two-page spread. It’s a start.

Now let’s push forward.

Huh. I didn’t intend this, but if you look at those thumbnails, it looks like Thor has suddenly transformed into a big, bald guy.

Thanks to ManiacClown. The second page was more or less his baby. Now it’s stuck in my head.

Tomorrow it’s time for the tragedy to begin. I mean tragedy in terms of the story. I mean… You know what I mean!

Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

If we are here not to do
What you and I wanna do
And go forever crazy with it
Why the hell are we even here?

When we stand here in a row
Looking like a bunch of heroes
I know that-ah deep inside
Nothing more but bunch of zeros

— “Ultimate” by Gogol Bordello

We couldn’t stay away.

After the job that ManiacClown and I did with Jeph Loeb and Joe Mad’s Ultimates 3, we decided that we would give the follow-up event Ultimatum a shot. When I say we’d give it a shot, I don’t mean that we were sure we were going to target it from the very beginning. More that we were going to give it a shot of being passable and leaving it alone.

As it got closer to the release, we knew that although it was nice to be generous, it was going to be all for naught. Between the Ultimate Captain America Annual that showed Ultimate Black Panther’s origin and the laughable X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover written by Loeb’s Heroes buddies, we could tell that the writing was on the wall. Loeb was referring to Ultimatum as the story that would destroy the Ultimate universe and sadly, he’s already been doing that. Ultimate Spider-Man remains the only thing worth reading.

The Loeb backlash has already started somewhat. He’s been axed from Heroes. From what I understand, those burned by the first six issues of Hulk have left in droves. Don’t they realize that Hulk, who has become Joe Fixit again for no reason, is fighting Sentry, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel because they’re sort of Marvel’s version of the DC Trinity? That’s compelling stuff! I’m not even sure how well Ultimatum will do in the long run, since it’s not really latching onto Millar’s Ultimates run’s success like Loeb’s last foray. And, you know, there are far better comic events going on with Secret Invasion and Final Crisis. Then again, now that he’s off Heroes he has more time to write comics. Stupid double-edge sword.

Enough rambling. Let’s get down to business.

Join us tomorrow for more exposition!

Day Two!
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!