Ultimate Comics Ultimates #9

[history79]

Comments

[doodleboy]

I remember reading this arc when it came out and how incredibly politically charged it was. The title of the first issue was "The Republic is Burning", we have Obama taking unilateral action and then the white house itself exploding.

But I never really saw a point that Hickman was trying to make, other then making the book "epic" and making the villain threatening. I guess the first issue could be exploring how unpredictable international politics are. Ho any single superpower trying to "police the world" is impossible and how trying to do so will have unintended destructive consequences.

Or Hickman just thought it'd be cool, which is kind of eh... Sound and fury signifying nothing.

[captainbellman]

Hickman probably wanted to road-test the concept of "man in a leadership position presses The Big Button of Doom and then feels bad about it but is also noble because he Makes Big Decisions Like That" before he decided to devote an entire Avengers book to that concept and only that concept.

Considering he appears to be a fan of Doctor Who, I wouldn't be surprised if he cribbed it from the late RTD era.

[scorntx]

Yeah, that's Hickman alright.

[captainbellman]

I would like to know from which Bizarro World Hickman originated that he believes that there would be an uproar in congress over nuking an imminently dangerous cult of super-advanced terrorists.

Particularly pertinent that you post this just after Obama has visited Hiroshima, apologised and made speeches calling for the importance of peace, and had many of his own people (not to mention Trump) immediately leap to condemn him.

[scorntx]

Probably those no-good millennial peaceniks, wanting to "give peace a chance man" rather than letting SERIOUS MEN make THE HARD DECISIONS that they never could.
Or something like that.

[draganoche]

For some reason you seem to have ignored that the issue isn't nuking, since that was already tried, it's them firing every single nuke they have. Maybe it's just me but that seems like a slightly different issue.

[captainbellman]

Again, not something I can imagine the US Congress complaining about in these terms, based on past behaviour. Maybe complaining about using all of them at once and not have any left just in case, sure.

[tugrul]

So not only is Obama uncharacteristic, so is Congress. But this is not mainstream 616!-Obama that warned Osborn at the start of Dark Reign. This is Ultimate!Obama! And Ultimate!Congress!

[scorntx]

Yeah, Ultimate!Obama and Ultimate!Congress, who all seemed to have no problem with that law making just being a mutant completely illegal.

[jlbarnett]

he didn't apologize

[captainbellman]

Tomato, tomahto. It was still a historical event.

Meh

[7dialsmystery]

Blowing up Washington DC wouldn't "end" America. They've had plans for situations like this since at least the War of 1812. For a genius 1610 Reed Richards seems kind of dim.

Re: Meh

[captainbellman]

Any "genius" is only as clever as the writer who writes them...

Re: Meh

[shakalooloo]

And it's already happened once or twice before in the Ultimare Universe, even!

Re: Meh

[coldfury]

Ehhh...

It wouldn't end America as a self-governing country, no.

It would end America, the super-power meddling in the affairs of the world at large. At least in this particular incident, for the time being. Being able to blow up a national capital, with the remaining infrastructure going "Yeah, I don't know how they did it, how to stop it, they could do it at any moment in the future" would pretty much mean any remaining/replacement leadership would 'nope' the hell out of the conflict right away.

And given the context of events, the City would then expand, eventually consuming the globe's population, and thus ending America. So I think Reed is right in the long haul, barring the Ultimates come from behind victory!

Re: Meh

[7dialsmystery]

It would end America, the super-power meddling in the affairs of the world at large.

The Pentagon is still up and running. Ditto the CIA and the FBI. Trust me, America would be meddling more than ever if Washington DC and Congress blew up.

Re: Meh

[coldfury]

Uhhhh...

That's not really how it works. Someone not present would be put in charge, and they'd be gunshy about poking the bear that just blew up the last guy.

Also, with a blast that large I'm not sure if the Pentagon would have escaped completely unscathed, we're talking comic-book sized blast.

[tcampbell1000]

This is about as deus ex machina as it gets. It seriously wasn't enough to have Reed counterattack with the same people who killed the gods? We have to introduce this entirely new character whose story was barely hinted at in previous issues and oh by the way he's powerful enough to teleport into a city and nuke it on his own?