Between enduring the holidays and following it up with Ultimatum Edit, I’ve been a bit exhausted. That’s why I haven’t been doing any updates. Luckily, hermanos has been doing well enough. Esther too, though hermanos has to overshadow her posts with comments that are twice as long. Jerk.

Oh, hey! The new What If issues came out over the past month. Not a great batch this year, but there were two really good issues in there. One is What If: Newer Fantastic Four, which is a sequel to the Mike Wieringo tribute, also featuring the Mini-Marvels conclusion to World War Hulk. Even better is the issue that came out last week, based on Doctor Doom holding onto the Beyonder’s power from Secret Wars. Beautiful art and a perfect ending.

When I finish the We Care a Lot series, I think I’m going to redo the Top 100 What If Countdown. Enough has come out since then to justify it.

We Care a Lot is on a slight hiatus. Nothing too drastic. After all, I need to get my installment about Hybrid up for Black History Month. It’s just that I’ve been spending the past week or so getting ready for another series of articles.

You see, hermanos just did his whole rap countdown. It wasn’t comic-related. So if he’s doing his series of non-comic countdown articles, then damn it, so will I!

It’s coming.

One last thing, I’m going to be checking out all three days of New York Comic Con. Which of yous guys can I expect to see there?

Previously, Hawkeye and Yellowjacket moved past their differences and saw common ground… I guess. Then Thing tried to comfort Sue, only to have her use her powers on him in her sleep.

Let’s continue with the Fantastic Four theme by checking in with Reed and Namor.

We’re not even really exaggerating on Reed’s behavior on those first two pages. The guy is really that dense within this story.

Thanks again to ManiacClown. I’m too tired to have anything witty to go with that.

Thor’s hilarious adventures continue tomorrow.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

This is several days late, but like I’ve said, computer troubles. Read it anyway.

Secret Invasion has come and gone. Skrulls are old news and now the more beloved villains are beginning to step forward, forming their own little Evil Illuminati. Fittingly, they all counter the original Marvel faction in their own way.

– Tony Stark is replaced by a more ruthless businessman/inventor in Norman Osborn, who shares similar ideals on unity among the powerful.
– Reed Richards is replaced by Victor Von Doom, his eternal rival when it comes to his intelligence.
– Charles Xavier is replaced by Emma Frost, who, while heroic, could potentially do some more underhanded things to help her race. Then again, look at who I’m talking about. Xavier’s done some shady stuff already. Bendis originally wanted Magneto for the role, but you know how it is for that guy.
– Doctor Strange is replaced by the Hood, the magical avatar of the Dread Dormammu himself.
– The enigmatic and overly powerful Black Bolt is replaced by the more enigmatic and more powerful Loki, now in a female form.
– Namor, once a proud king able to own the room with his regal presence, is replaced by a meeker, disheveled and more desperate shell of himself.

Norman puts together his own Secret Society concept and tries to sell it onto the others. The two main points of interest are the mystery man – which I will get to in a second – and the suggestion by Doom to Namor that this will all lead into some kind of massive supervillain Civil War in the future.

That discussion is for another time. Let’s discuss the mystery man.

“If you so choose as to even lift a suspicious eyebrow towards me and mine… you and my friend here will have some words. Emma, you’re a psychic, I can feel you poking around in my head now… You read minds… Tell me… Am I lying?”

“No.”

“Something for even a goddess of mischief to think about.”

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Remember yesterday when the Fantastic Four pushed a bunch of water back into the ocean and then Reed went after Namor? I don’t either.

Now Reed and Namor’s fight is heating up. Let’s see where it goes.

But first, a warning. You know how I’ve been replacing narration boxes with character theme songs? Well, funny thing, Dr. Doom doesn’t have a theme song. Not unless you count his Capcom fighting game theme, but that doesn’t have lyrics. I had to go an alternate route. Now enjoy the rest of the show!

ManiacClown actually did stuff this time, so I thank him for it. Speaking of he and I teaming up, I got some very good news.

Our Japoteurs iRiff page is finally up! Hells yes!

If you enjoyed Ultimate Edit and what’s done so far of Ultimatum Edit, please give it a look. If you’re a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, definitely give it a look. It’s only a buck and the riffing is embedded into the movie already. C’moooon! Do it!

Back to the Edit, tomorrow we finish up the week with Charles Xavier explaining it all.

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!

Well, here it is! The last day.

In the penultimate installment, Quicksilver sacrificed himself for his father by taking an arrow to the chest. The irony is that he would have been able to run in there in time to catch the arrow with his hands if he didn’t have that limp from being shot in the knees by Magneto back in Ultimate War! Good going, Master of Magnetism.

Here’s the rest.

And that does it. My eternal thanks to ManiacClown for writing this with me from issue #1. Thanks to hermanos for the site to showcase this and his never ending support. Thanks to the MightyGodKing himself, Christopher Bird, for his guidance. Thanks to Jeph Loeb, the Joel Schumacher of comics, for giving us such an easy target.

And especially thanks to all of you readers out there who enjoyed it. Even those of you who didn’t enjoy it. You gave it a shot anyway, so I can’t argue.

Now, will there be some kind of Ultimatum Edit in the near future? Hm… we’ll see.

BUT! I can do you one better. I’m sure many of you have heard of Rifftrax, the website second coming of Mystery Science Theater 3000, headed by Mike Nelson and the rest. Some of you may have heard of iRiffs, the new feature on the site. Now any moron with a microphone and time on his hands can put together his own Rifftrax selections for the public to purchase and enjoy.

I am one of these morons.

That’s right. Me, Nick “ManiacClown” Zachariasen and my old friend James Howard will be making fun of things video/audio-style. Here we’re just starting off with Japoteurs, a somewhat racist Superman cartoon from the 40’s. But we have a lot more in the works, so stay tuned once the iRiffs section is up and running.

Tomorrow or so, I’ll probably have some kind of annotations thing for Ultimate Edit up. So if you’re into that kind of stuff, check it out.

Again, thanks for reading, folks. It’s been a blast.

The December solicitations are on the horizon and what better Christmas present for me than a heaping helping of new What Ifs? I had heard a couple brief mentions of this year’s batch, but just today I finally got to reading what they’re all about. Let’s give it a look.

– What If? Spider-Man: Back in Black, written by Steven Grant: Rather than Aunt May, Mary Jane is the victim of the Kingpin’s hit. Apparently, this deals more with Spider-Man vs. Kingpin than anything involving Mephisto, which I’m glad to see.

– What If? Captain America: Fallen Son, written by Marc Sumerak: During the aftermath of Civil War, Captain America isn’t the one who gets assassinated. This time it’s Iron Man. If anything, I’m interested in this comic for the can of worms that it brings. They’ve pushed the idea that Iron Man’s been putting too much responsibility on himself to the point that once he’s dead, the world is fucked. Now we’ll see where that avenue would lead us. Plus it would be cool to see what kind of impact Cap could have on World War Hulk.

By the way, here’s the cover.

– What If? World War Hulk, written by Greg Pak: Hulk wins. Now what? I’m wondering if the tangent point will be the Sentry deciding not to interfere or just Hulk beating the crap out of him with no problem. It also is set to have several pages of a WWH Mini Marvels comic, which is always a plus. Despite that, Pak’s on board so it has to be good.

If they go for the depressing “everyone dies” ending, I’d love it if Sorcerer Supreme Doom just happened to show up out of nowhere at the end.

Speaking of Doom…

– What If? Secret Wars, by Karl Bollers: Remember when Doom stole the Beyonder’s powers? This is what happens when he holds onto it and moves upwards by going for the Infinity Gauntlet. The concept and the cover lead me to Boner Town.

– What If? Runaways, by CB Cebulski. Iron Lad comes back from the future in hopes of fighting Kang the Conqueror. He never does discover Vision’s Avengers fail-safe program and never goes after Patriot and the others. Instead, he puts together a team based on the children of the Pride. It does fit well, considering Iron Lad himself is a runaway of a different flavor. This won’t be a single issue, but will be told as a backup across the other five issues.

That leads us to one more…

– What If? House of M, by Brian Reed and Jim McCann. Replace “No More Mutants” with “No More Powers”. Considering the writers, I have faith in it, but at the same time, I feel a bit cautious due to the DC take. A few years ago there was an Elseworlds called Act of God where a black shroud covered Earth and took away everyone’s powers. Even guys like Superman and Martian Manhunter, who aren’t even human, lost whatever made them special outside of appearance.

While a good idea, the miniseries was worth reading because of how ridiculously dumb a lot of the characters reacted towards losing their powers. Superman and Kyle Rayner became the whiniest bitches known to man, leading to Lois and Jade leaving them. Wonder Woman immediately hit the Superman rebound (Elseworlds rule #6). Booster Gold and Blue Beetle had to fill in for the Justice League to the point that they were constantly exhausted. Steel was mankind’s most powerful hero. Aquaman had a buzzsaw hand and, my favorite part, Martian Manhunter changed his name to The Green Man and started using exploding skulls as weapons.

Not to mention, this panel.

I need to review this one one of these days.

What If THIS Was the Fantastic Four is a comic that nearly passed me by. For whatever reason, my comic shop didn’t even get it in until I got wind of it and had it ordered for myself. It’s a good thing it got on my radar, because it’s a classy issue and well worth the read.

It’s about the New Fantastic Four sticking together as a team, which has been done before. While that wasn’t a bad issue, this one goes in different directions. Not just the optimism and the opposite use of Dr. Doom, but the 90’s story barely included Ghost Rider at all, while here he takes center stage.

The true story of the issue is this: it was meant to come out with the other What If issues around December. Mike Wieringo, the artist, was seven pages into drawing Jeff Parker’s script when he passed away. Rather than leave the comic alone, many of Wieringo’s artist friends got together and finished the comic themselves. Art Adams, Stuart Immonen, Humberto Ramos, Mike Allred and many others help tell the story of four loners joining together in snazzy black and blue tights. Plus it has a Mini Marvels page about them at the end!

If anything, the comic gives me one of my favorite sequences in recent history.

Though there are a couple snags. Parker forgot that Daniel Ketch was Ghost Rider during the New F4 storyline and had Wieringo draw Johnny Blaze. They kept it that way so as not to mess with Wieringo’s art. Then we have a scene later in the book where Skottie Young depicts Dr. Doom’s face with his mask off. Last I recall, that’s supposed to be one of the big no-no’s in comics.

I really need to redo that Top 100 list. Probably after the next batch come out. They’ve really been on the ball with these lately.

I was in the middle of writing an article about this character in question and I couldn’t help myself.

I will tell you that this guy is as Silver Age as you can get and is really well overdue for a revival.

It’s interesting when you look back at some of Marvel and DC’s big villains from over the years. Having characters written by a hundred different writers over several decades and style eras lead to a ton of contrasts in character definition. It’s hard to see the humbled Magneto living in the ruins of Genosha as being the same dude who would go to a gas station just to brag about his awesome gasless car. Or that the Joker would go from fighting Batman and Robin on a giant piano to cannibalism for the sake of his own sense of grim hilarity.

I don’t know about you, but when you read enough stories with these villains, you get an idea of what you think they are really all about. You can’t just say that they’re simply evil. That’s lazy. You have to have an idea of what makes them tick. Why are they evil assholes?

I’m not saying I’m right on these or anything like that. This is just me making sense out of fictional characters based on stories and key moments.

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