Ultiwhatum?

I'm not a big fan of a lot of the stuff that goes on in the Ultimate U. Sure I'm not as dead-set against the very idea of the Ultimate line as I once was but something about it has just never set right with me. I think, finally, Ultimatum has summed up my feelings on the Ultimate line as a whole. I'm going to bullet point this sucker because I'm feeling kind of lazy. Here it goes...

What I Can't Stand About the Ultimate Universe

• The lack of originality.
• The senseless deaths.
• The unlikable characters.
• The sense I get that every deviation from the original creation or story is meant to be perceived as ground breaking, "modern", or "hip".

There is more than that but those are things that leaped out at me as I was reading Ultimatum 1 and 2. Having let the cat out of the bag as to my feelings about the Ultimate line I have to admit to following, and enjoying certain titles. I think Ultimate Spiderman is a good title. I like Ultimate Fantastic Four as well. Which is frustrating for me because I'd rather just be able to hate the entire line out right and demean it to no end but it does have some high quality titles. I even enjoyed Ultimates 1 and the second half of 2.

Ultimatum meanwhile, is equally frustrating. On one hand I feel like Jeph Loeb is actually turning in some decent work here. Some of the character bits have been good, the action is well scripted (or maybe that's just Finch) and the story, though completely lacking anything resembling originality, is moving along at a good clip. Plus, David Finch is probably my favorite young artist out there. I just love his stuff.

It was just announced that after Ultimatum the line will be undergoing a complete overhaul. I'm holding my breath that maybe we'll get a line-wide restructuring that mirrors what Bendis has been doing on Ultimate Spidey since the beginning. Turning in entertaining, fun stories that restructure an existing character's mythology. Though not perfect I really respect the story telling that Bendis is doing on Spidey. He gets it. Now lets see if anyone else will.

I'm trying to make sense of Final Crisis...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the series, most of the tie ins, and in general the air of weirdness that accompanied the story itself. However, there was stuff that, as I was reading it, made absolutely no sense whatsoever. But, its a Grant Morrison helmed event so I knew one reading wouldn't suffice and therefore I have gone back to the series, no taken as a whole, and am rereading the main book, Superman Beyond, as well as Submit and Resist.

Okay so I get the Darkside falling through realities causing waves stuff. I get the fractured time, space and reality stuff. I get that the entire multiverse is at stake.

I don't get how Barry is back. I don't quite grasp the bullet being fired backward through time but I'm willing to go with it. I don't get who, what or why this Monitor Vampire shows up (though I still have four issues to read so maybe its explained and on my first read through I just missed it) even though hes the main baddie in Beyond. Wasn't the big bad of FC supposed to be Darkside? Bam! Nope here's a cosmic Vampire god to confuse you! I don't get why Grant structured the sixth issue the way he did. I can go with his hyper style of writing but the sixth issue read like a six year old on a sugar rush had written it. I don't get some of the stuff relating to Batman. I get that the omega beams sent him back in time but not some of the other stuff such as how he put that gun together to begin with.

BUT, I like that I don't get that. I like it that I have to reread a comic to understand everything. That's rewarding after plunking down over a hundred bucks on this event and all its ancillary spin offs. Heck some how I ended up with doubles of every issue so I don't mind one bit that I have to reread it to understand everything. Its like Morrison has crafted the superhero equivalent of 2001 A Space Odyssey. Props to you sir!