Why I Hate the Ultimate Books (and why that doesn't matter)
The new “Ultimate” universe from Marvel was their first big drive in years to bring in new readers. Initially it was a push for younger readers, despite Joe Q. saying later that he didn’t believe kids even read comics and that it would be pointless to pursue that demographic. But I believed in the idea of trying to bring in new readers (hard to believe about a guy who writes a column called Advocating Comics, I know). So I decided to support these books myself from the moment I first heard about them.
I stuck with Ultimate Spiderman through issue ten and Ultimate X-Men through issue six before I dropped them both.
My first problem with these books, my main reason for dropping them was simple. They were not really new books. As I said last week, I like heroes with a twist, books that have new and fresh outlooks on the concept of the superhero. Though there were some twists in the Ultimate books, it’s true, they were twists on ideas we had already seen. It was simply a re-imagining of the same old, same old, dressing it up in new clothes and trying to pass for something else.
Also at times some of the Ultimate books felt too old for younger readers, like things might go over their heads or that the level of violence and sex in the books would be inappropriate for someone of a young age. Now I’m no prude; I read plenty of mature readers books from the big companies and the indies. But I know not to give those more adult books to just anyone. People have to be prepared for the material. In my opinion there’s a certain tone need to maintain in order to be friendly to anyone picking them up, and a book like Ultimate X-Men was a bit racier, more suggestive at times. It was very much like Millar simply wanted to tweak these old characters and twist them to the delight or disgust of the niche readers that already existed, the old audience, and completely ignored the new audience the book was supposed to bring in.
On the opposite side of the coin, other Ultimate books felt at times like they were trying too hard to be hip. Certain phrases or bits of dialogue struck me as smacking of desperation to fit in with the younger crowd, to capture their “voice.” Some time, if you’ve ever got an hour or so to spare, ask me about my thoughts on Peter Parker using the phrase “bling-bling” in his interior monologue over in Ultimate Spiderman. If you do ask me about it, be prepared to hear me rant for quite some time.
But you see, all of that, that’s what I’m expecting out of the line, my personal feelings on the books. And do you know what that’s worth? To quote the great Kurt Vonnegut: “doodley-squat.”
My opinion on the Ultimate books doesn’t matter. I can hate them with a passion or I can adore them unbendingly, and it doesn’t make a lick of difference. What matter is how they reach those new readers, the young crowd who see the cartoons or the films and think, “Hmmm. I want to try some of those comics.” Despite how I feel about them, these books have succeeded as entry-level comics. I must begrudgingly admit that, even though these books are not for me, they are good tools to draw in new readers. If I knew a kid in junior high or high school who wanted to try some comics, an Ultimate book is what I’d tell that kid to check out (or, even better, what I’d buy for the kid).
Now I must admit that I think Marvel’s more recent push for new readers, the Tsunami books, have more of an advantage in picking up new readers than the Ultimate line does. The Ultimate books might have higher name recognition, but the Tsunami wave have that freshness and originality missing from the Ultimate books, which in the end are simply retelling tales told before. The concepts are all new, as are many of the central characters, so new readers should be able to connect with them easily. The books in the end I think are a little bit better written in the Tsunami wave, simply because books like Sentinel, Runaways, Mystique and New Mutants recognize their audience is going to be comprised of newcomers and are written accordingly. Plus, if rumors are to be believed, these books will have smaller and more affordable TPBs than the Ultimate books, which is definitely a big plus in their column.
The only problem then with both the Ultimate line and the Tsunami wave is that they suffer from storylines that are a little too long. Six issues stories, in an individual issue format, do not make the books as accessible to new readers as they could be. Marvel either needs to recognize this point and start offering shorter stories or go straight to offering them only in the TPB format. Marvel seems to be leaning more towards the former option, which I think is better. The books might be available then as pamphlets, backpack editions, and trades, a definitely good thing for appealing to as broad a range of people as possible.
Also the Ultimate books are already starting to get a bit weighed down by continuity, the major barrier to new readers the books were started to overcome. Marvel needs to keep the books as fresh and open as possible for them to be true tools for comics advocacy. If they do that (and it looks like for once that they’re handling such matters well), then it won’t matter if I like them or not, because I’ll probably be buying them anyway… just to give away to others rather than keep for myself.
