Ultimates 2 #4

[history79]

8 pages of 24

Comments

[karthak]

So, how does Ultimate Thor compare to 616 Thor? Because if he's anywhere near as strong as the latter, I don't see any supers there who could stand against him for more than ten seconds.

[icon_uk]

Dunno, but if he's techno-enhanced rather than mystical, Iron Man might be able to do something.

[shadur]

And if Loki slipped them some "device" that will help "deactivate the technology"...

[mrstatham]

Spoilers for a ten year old book, but..






He's not actually tech-enhanced. He's actually the thunder god Thor, and calls down Odin at the end of this volume to banish Loki. The tech stuff's just Loki screwing with them.

[gnarll]

Well... the Loki is actually altering reality here. So from the mortals perspective both options are true. This also seemed part of Thors problem, because he did not inherit those powers from his Father. The Loki did. So from Thors perspective he also gets stuck in the reality where he is a mentally ill nurse reliant on technology, and faith in his own divinity is his only defense.

I never got where the name "Golmen" came from. Loki does look vaguely like a younger version of Gunnar Golmen, a Norwegian researcher though.

My fan notion was that they would turn the Lokis reality changes against him at the story climax, and reveal that since he had altered reality to the point where Norway had produced this kind of equipment, they'd quietly mass produced it.

[bruinsfan]

I vaguely recall some later Ultimate Universe story where Thor's powers actually were tech-based, some of the Norse gods (he and Balder, at least) had been reborn as mortals and had to turn to science to replicate their former divine abilities. Not that I like the idea, mind you, but it just continues the hatchet job on the interesting take from when he first appeared.

[silicondream]

I was hoping Stark could provide an expert opinion on whether Loki's technobabble explanation of Thor's powers made any sense, but I don't think he did so.

[silicondream]

He's not as strong as 616 Thor, no. He's also very equipment-dependent, at least at this point.

[thatnickguy]

I liked this version of Loki, where he could tweak reality to make people believe his lies. It also fit in great with the whole "is he actually a god or just a big whackadoodle?" story for Thor.

[silicondream]

So do we owe Millar & Hitch for introducing hip young not-obviously-villainous-all-the-time Loki, thus leading to Tom Hiddleston and all the fun stuff with comic Loki in recent years? (Not a rhetorical question; I'm just ignorant about who inspired whom.)

[filthysize]

You can credit Millar & Hitch for a lot of things in the movies. This book was the main inspiration for Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon. The scenes at the end here (and the fight in the next issue) is where Whedon got the Cap/Iron Man/Thor fight scene in the woods over Loki in the first Avengers movie from.

[cyberghostface]

I don't think Ult. Loki had much do with the MCU version honestly.

[reveen]

I gotta say I like Ultimate Thor more than any other interpretation of the character. I can get into a badass premodern warrior kind of character, but the "Verily thou" way he's usually written doesn't appeal to me because I don't find it down to earth enough. But nightclubbing liberal who's also a norse god? That works for me.

[rainspirit]

It's been my favourite interpretation of him for years.

Loeb threw it out with Ultimates 3. He brought back Olde English Speak and gave him Valkyrie as a girlfriend. He stopped being a conscientious objector and just became a bit character.

[locuatico]

I did not comment before, but i REALLY take an issue with the "hoho, Thor is a Hippie, can you believe him?" thing characters are constantly saying. Like... him believing himself a god, i get that.
but then he goes and shows clear understanding of his position in the Ultimates and the political benefits it has, makes it clear he is going to use them and takes advantage of them to further his own enviromental agenda, and yet everyone acts as if he doesn't know what he is talking about. Seriously, are they REALLY surprised that the guy who has been pretty open about his left-wing political inclinations and the power to follow through with them does something that is coherent with his left-wing politics?

[bruinsfan]

Also, since when did Leno speak up about things like protest marches? I have a vague sense that he's probably a conservative family-values guy, but I don't recall him ever taking a stance on developing political situations rather than just making fun of the foibles of individual politicians.

[junipepper]

Wow, that's one subtle panel there, Thor and his gigantic tool. ;-)

[nyadnar17]

This plotline never mad sense to me. If any country had the tech to manufacturer Thor on demand they should be running the ultimate universe.

Not to mention that Thor must have been subject to tons and tons of scans and no one noticed Thor's hammer was just a bunch of tech?

[walkingthroughforest]

Well it's all Loki's manipulation, right? None of its true.

[draganoche]

Not quite. The tech is real and was indeed the source of Thor's powers. Thor along with the other asgardians were reborn as humans after Asgard was destroyed. Loki was sealed away as a god while Thor was chosen as the member of the program which based the tech on his dna because fate and stuff. Then he remembered the stuff and was even the one to come up with the hammer in the design process but then some old nazi guy released Loki and this happened.

[mrstatham]

That was only plastered on by Hickman (I think?) much later on. For all intents and purposes, Millar's argument here, as I recall, was that Loki basically shuffled reality to such an extent that while Thor didn't change, the world around him did, meaning he just appeared as a crazy guy with ridiculously good tech... Despite this never being mentioned at all in the previous volume, which is a big clue.

[locuatico]

that's the big clue: it doesn't make sense

[gnarll]

Loki is changing reality. Maybe enough for Norways super soldier program to come up with that tech, or maybe just enough to make everyone believe they have.

But yes, they don't actually have the tech to manufacture a Thor. Except they do, because Loki says so, and he is a Son of Odin with the power to have the final say on such things, so the universe better go along with the new setup if it knows what is good for it.

My reading of it is that Thor does not have the power to change reality. He is a weather lord. That is a problem for him, because he is in a kind of quantum superimposed state, where he is actually a Norse god, but the reality is, he is a mentally ill nurse. Because Loki said so, and as far as reality is concerned, Loki gets to decide these things.

[leoboiko]

I can't stand this type of story where someone is falsely accused and/or no one believes them.

I'm not saying it's a bad kind of story, only that I, personally, can't stand them. It makes me anxious and sad. The effect in me is a thousand times worse than that of gore or torture.

[captainbellman]

Not to mention the weird heel turn the rest of the cast always face when mental illness is used as a plot point. Not a single person says "Wait, do we have proof of this claim?", or "Why don't we ask X to go through an MRI scan so we can see if they're really unwell?".

Nope, just "Oh, they're CRAZY! That explains it! Ready the rubber room, fellows."

[burkeonthesly]

I'm bothered by the way the accused in these situations seem to forget any skill they might have at argument and fall back on "you have to believe me!" Uh, no, they don't. They've been given enough supporting evidence to doubt you (dickish though they may be about it), and if you want them to believe you you're going to need to pony up some proof yourself.

[mrstatham]

To be fair, the Ultimates aren't exactly helping matters here, being the 'smack the shit out of something first, talk later' types, and the plot is kind-of set against Thor because 'Loki'.

[burkeonthesly]

Yeah, I agree, the Ultimates are approaching this confrontation in just about the worst way possible if their goal is to actually resolve things with their teammate or calm down a crazy person and persuade him to set aside the cyber-hammer and take some happy pills. They're tearing into him like a clique of sixth graders and somehow expecting that to calm him down and make him agreeable.

[captainbellman]

I remember reading somewhere that, par for the course, Millar instructed this version of Loki to be physically modelled on Neil Gaiman.

Except I have no idea why. Gaiman is neither a famous movie actor, nor someone reputed for trickery. Unless you count 'fiction', which would only fit by the flimsiest of interpretations.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"which would only fit by the flimsiest of interpretations."

Well, this is Millar...

[bruinsfan]

Perhaps Gaiman's stellar depiction of Low-Key Lyesmith running a long con in American Gods, which won the Hugo and Nebula awards the year the original Ultimates series came out?

[captainbellman]

You might be on to something there.