After three months of peace, we’re back. If you’re new to Ultimate Edit or you forgot about what the hell’s been going on in those earlier issues, here’s the rundown:

In issue 1, Venom showed up for no reason and beat up everyone until Thor remembered that he was Thor and toasted him. Then Scarlet Witch got shot dead. Quicksilver was a sad mutant panda. Also, there were rumors at the time that Nighthawk from Squadron Supreme was going to end up in the Ultimate Marvel universe, thereby making him an immediate suspect for being Black Panther, but that proved wrong, so my bad on that. Then again, that speculation came from before we saw how blatant the hints were that Black Panther is Captain America.

Then came issue 2, where Hawkeye bullied Spider-Man around and the Ultimates got in an ACTION-PACKED fight against the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Magneto and Quicksilver left with Scarlet Witch’s corpse and Wolverine showed up because… to hell with it. I think I’ve exhausted every Wolverine/cameo joke there is.

He stuck around for the third issue, where he talked forever about his connections to Magneto’s family. A whole lot of them went to the Savage Land and Iron Man started beating on Wasp. Turns out that Iron Man is an evil robot.

Now back to the story.

Huh. So the late-80’s was so long ago that it’s depicted as being black and white? I feel old now.

Thanks again to ManiacClown for helping make the magic.

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

Time once again for another three pages of Ultimate Edit. Last time we checked in, Wolverine bragged about getting some witch booty. Now let’s go forward one generation.

Sorry for the pun on page two. I had to get that joke out of my system.

Thanks to ManiacClown for the help and thanks to muscles like this? for getting this stuff linked on Something Awful. In the next installment, I promise we’ll actually have scenes dedicated to the Ultimates. You remember them? The guys this comic was named after?

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

And… we’re back. Lots of wacky stuff in the last installment. Wolverine fought Hawkeye for little reason and the team bickered for a while. Now Wolverine is about to explain his part in the whole Scarlet Witch conspiracy.

Why, oh why, did MAD! feel the need to leave space to show us Wolverine’s shadowy, hairy ass?

Me and ManiacClown will be back tomorrow with another three pages of flashback. On the upside, Wolverine will have pants on.

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

Here’s our final round for the issue. Yesterday, Captain America and Hawkeye fought Sabretooth and Multiple Man to their hearts’ content. This story is going to have to move real quick if it’s going to wrap up in three pages. Good thing we have Quicksilver.

And that’s the end of that, at least for a couple weeks. As always, thanks go out to my imaginary friend ManiacClown. Thanks also to all of you who read this, enjoy it and make the effort to get others to read and enjoy this. Yes, Virginia. You can polish a turd.

Ultimate Edit Week 3!
Ultimate Edit Week 4!
Ultimate Edit Week 5

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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About a year or so ago, I recall explaining Jeph Loeb to somebody. The guy I was talking to only read Marvel, so he didn’t understand why I found Loeb’s writing so annoying. The only thing he knew of him was Loeb’s old Batman stuff, which of course, was very good. This was before Fallen Son, Wolverine and it’s not like he was going to read the then-new miniseries Onslaught Reborn anyway.

I explained it via Superman/Batman and how ridiculous it got after Jeph’s son tragically died of cancer. Loeb’s writing took a turn for the worse to the point that he only relies on his whole “Toss everyone into the mix and watch it sell despite quality” gimmick to get by. He still gets high profile comic jobs that will continue to do well based on both the topic and the great artists he’s usually paired with. No matter how bad his Hulk run is, it will capitalize on both the McGuinness art and the phenomenon of Greg Pak’s amazing Planet/World War Hulk epic. Wolverine was unreadable, but it’s Wolverine and the pages looked amazing.

My friend didn’t care much about Superman or Batman, so my explanation of why it was so bad towards the end of Loeb’s run didn’t work. To better explain, I jokingly came up with Jeph Loeb’s Spider-Man/Wolverine. A hypothetical comic where in one story they would face Doctor Octopus, who has for some reason taken over the Hand. Or a story where Ben Reilly returns with an adamantium skeleton. Or a story with Mary Jane becoming the new Phoenix. If anything else, I knew that there would be some kind of story arc where Venom and Magneto would team up. Such a concept makes no sense in any way, but that would never stop Loeb from shoehorning those two popular villains together for the sake of another epic crossover filled with random guest appearances.

I was only half joking when I suggested it, and yet here it is. Much has been said about Jeph Loeb and MAD!’s Ultimates 3 #1. Very few of it good. It’s nice of them to wait until December to release this, as we can be sure that this is really the worst comic of the year. In a year where Mary Marvel turned slutty and fought a demon made of dead babies who threatened to eat her poop, it was still toppled by this muddy comic that can only be considered the Ultimate line’s first great step into self-destruction.

This comic needs its own special take. Much like Christopher Bird‘s deservingly popular take on Civil War, I teamed up with Something Awful forum member ManiacClown to create Ultimate Edit. Speaking of Mr. Bird, he was gracious enough to help me find a font that doesn’t scrape the eyes. Nice guy.

That’s it for today. Join us tomorrow for the next three pages.

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

I took a long break from these babies to do the Wrestlecrap articles, but now I’m back with quite a collection of characters. Some are a bit topical, too.

CROSSBONES

Captain America #360 (1989)

The story of the issue is part of an arc called the Bloodstone Hunt. It involves Captain America and Diamondback taking on Baron Zemo, Batroc, Zaron and Machete over some gem. That part isn’t really important.

Though I will say that Diamondback’s appearance is sort of off-putting here. Her outfit is pink spandex with a series of black diamonds over her front and back. Considering she’s in the water for most of the comic, she hangs around some people in bathing suits, and the way the pink is colored here, it looks like she’s wearing a black thong that doesn’t cover her chest. That’s all well and good, but her costume is torn in places, so now it looks like she has some nasty-ass skin disease.

Anyhow, she and Cap get away with the prize. As they leave, we see that they’re being watched.

Crossbones is so cool.

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I feel kind of silly making this article since it was supposed to be done months ago. There are several things that kept me from finishing it, but I’m going to take the easy way out. All the time I usually use to write these What If articles was really used to pretend I was writing for Lost. I love writing Sam the Butcher’s dialogue the most.

Starting it off, here’s a series of sig images I made for the Batman’s Shameful Secret sub-forum at Something Awful. I guess they worked.

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Hal Jordan watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s his dream. That’s his nightmare.

Hey, now. Looks like it’s time for another installment of Ruining the Moment! Let’s roll.

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(edit: T’Shan was not BP’s sister. Shuri is.)

To our readers from When Fangirls Attack!– welcome! Check out the post and don’t be afraid to leave a comment, okay? Onward.

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you,
Without a strong rhyme to step to.
Think of how many weak shows you slept through,
Time’s up! I’m sorry I kept you!
–Rakim

Man, this article is crazy late, isn’t it? Just, uh, six months or so.

It’s late for a number of reasons. I’ve been trying to ramp up my writing career, which means more time writing about games, less about comics. Did it work? Well, I’m no longer living paycheck to paycheck, but talk to me in another six months.

The number one reason why it’s late, other than business and laziness, is that it is hard as crap to find good black female characters in recent comics. I mean, Monica Rambeau had a bit part in Black Panther and I’m not much for Nextwave’s portrayal of her, so she doesn’t really count. There was the great-granddaughter (grandniece?) of Jim Harper in Robinson’s Batman: Face-the-Face, but, uh, she had maybe nine panels of dialogue total, and that’s probably being generous. I’m not as familiar as I should be with Milestone’s work (beyond Static), so I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting any of those characters on this list. Bishop’s daughter in X-Men: The End has three strikes against her. 1) She’s Bishop’s daughter. 2) She’s in X-Men: The End. and 3) She’s Bishop’s daughter and is in X-Men: The End. Onyx is kind of cool, but I know exactly nothing about her and she got punked by Jason Todd so she’s out. Pantha, according to Wikipedia, is black, but, again, I know nothing about her. Thunder, from Outsiders? No thanks, hoss.

So… this is going to be a little different. It’s a top three because, frankly, there aren’t enough good black female characters out there. I’d include Glory Grant, ’cause she’s pretty awesome, but when’s the last time you saw her in a comic that wasn’t Civil War Frontline #10? (Nice guest spot, even if it was only a panel.) A better question– how many of you even remember who Glory Grant is? Monica Lynne is in the same situation. Charlotte Jones? Same deal.

I entertained the possibility of putting Monet St Croix on her, at least partially because I really enjoy her character. But, that’d make this a top 4 and these lists are traditionally either top three, top five, or top multiple of five. Four is right out.

So, a top three. But, I’m telling you, I better see some awesome black females over the next year or I’m going to do something reprehensible! I mean, black females in comics are like black head coaches in the NCAA!

zing!
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