The Ultimates: Grand Theft America - Part 3

[history79]

9.2 pages of 28

Comments

[trooper924]

"The Great Satan has been liberated."

Uggggh. People actually liked this crap? And why does Mr. Great Satan have Darth Maul's lightsaber?

[rainspirit]

Years ago, yeah. But then, I didn't read it in single issues.

[dc2houseofmystery]

Yeah, we did! Of course, with hindsight and a few years, it's poorly written with brilliant visuals, but way back when, The Ultimates was the coolest of titles.

And the Great Satan is America, not a Mister. I think it was simple the Colonel.

[trooper924]

Yeah, I know his name. I was just being flippant.

[reveen]

Well, yeah. Of course the sexy Russian spy lady was the evil mole who tricked Tony with her evil sex. What could have possibly given you an impression otherwise?

[mrstatham]

See, at the time I actively thought she was so obvious a choice that it HAD to be someone else, which I think was the entire point.

[mrstatham]

The only clever thing about this is that combined with Ultimates 1, it's actually a prolonged take on the first 616 Avengers story, with them taking down Hulk and then Loki, who was the source of the Hulk's problems in that story, as I recall. Less interesting was the fact it took them twenty-five issues to get to the point - considerably more than Bendis' pretty good update of Spidey's origin, which took seven in itself.

I'll also give Millar some credit in that I didn't see Black Widow being the traitor to the team coming - although it's not a story decision I liked, she was the most obvious choice to the point I actively ruled her out at first.

The dismantling of America ENTIRELY is also a little too quick, grand in scale and insurmountable to be cleaned up in the three remaining issues; the bad guys have the whole country at their mercy, but Millar's focus remained solely on Washington and New York, which.. No. Why bother invoking the rest of the country if you're not going to do anything with them?

[captainbellman]

Those are some really ugly, uninspired designs right there.

[walkingthroughforest]

It looks like standard Bryan Hitch work, which always looks great. Unless you're talking about the villains, which I agree with.

[captainbellman]

They were to what I was referring. Just hideous; from the pinched Darth Maul saber to the slacker-style Loki to the discount skinny-model Balrog to that weird...pointy dildo helmet.

Otherwise, I agree, Hitch is usually a pretty solid artist.

[thatnickguy]

Hitch is similar in some ways to Jim Lee: great art, but really bad at costume design. Lee makes a lot of silly mistakes. Hitch's are just...uninspired.

[bruinsfan]

The weird ankle/foot proportions are the one thing that's always kept me from loving Hitch's art without reservation. I mean, there are people whose bodies look like that, but not everyone is Ian Thorpe.

[thehood]

The villains? Yeah, though i don't think Colonel looks too bad.

[silverhammerman]

The plot of Ultimates 2 is such a perfect example of how Millar manages to simultaneously pander to and insult his audience. The story is critical of American imperialism and so over the top that it borders on satire, but it's also the ultimate (no pun intended) "America as persecuted underdog facing off against all of the political opponents whom it normal crushes on the world stage" power fantasy. It's just so fucking stupid that it would be almost be admirable if it were actually sincere, as it is it's just smugly nihilistic.

I actually think that as far as Millar's deconstructionist ideas go, the Colonel (the dude with that stupid Darth Maul lightsaber) is a pretty solid idea, and if he were being written by someone who actually gave a shit, he could be a genuinely fascinating character. But as with so much of Millar's work, he simply didn't care enough to use his ideas to tell anything but the most brainless blockbuster story possible.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Okay, so I recognize (I think) Crimson Dynamo, Loki (because he was named), and Vin Diesel of Asgard... okay, maybe not that last one.

Who are the rest?

[reveen]

I think Not-Thor is supposed to look like Grant Morrison.

[silverhammerman]

Clockwise from the top, you've got Perun (knockoff Thor), Crimson Dynamo, Schizoid Man (basically Multiple Man in all but name), Hurricane (a generic speedster), casual Loki, Swarm (who is sadly much less fun than the 616 Nazi bees version), the Colonel (basically the Iranian Captain America but with a lightsaber for some reason), and Abomination.

[dc2houseofmystery]

I thought the same thing-- the designs are very distinctive but I think the characters were identified once in a splash page and then inconsistently identified issue-for-issue.

The Liberators were... the Colonel from Iran, Abomination and Crimson Dynamo from China, Perun (evil Thor!) from Russia, Hurricane from North Korea, Swarm from Syria and the Schizoid Man from France.

[theflames]

Bryan Hitch's costume design is so dull.

[bruinsfan]

I don't know, I like the look of the Colonel and Swarm, and at least his Abomination didn't look as silly as the 616 version. Hurricane and the Schizoid man are pretty uninspired though, and Perun looks like he should be DJing a rave that Loki thinks he's too cool to attend since the records aren't played on a Victrola.

[beyondthefringe]

Ah yes. The glorious excess of the Ultimate universe. Marvel has a couple helicarriers? UU has a whole fleet of them. Marvel crashes one? UU destroys ALL OF THEM. AT ONCE.

And of course Black Widow is secretly evil and Jarvis is gay and then dead and Hawkeye has a family who are all killed off brutally.

This was where shit got real, yo. Yeah, younger me was impressed, but still...

[jeyl]

They try tipping over the Statue of Liberty by pushing underneath her feat, than we cut to the actual statue falling over from the base in which her feet are still attached? Come on, guys. It's like a movie where someone's bare feet are getting tickled and in the very next shot they're wearing shoes.

[jeremyp]

My first reaction to this is based on everything we know about intelligence gathering nowadays - and that is that it would be absolutely impossible to build, transport and activate an army like that without countries all over the world being aware of it way ahead of time.