Is this the absolute worst, unredeemable event in capeshit history? It single-handedly ruined the Ultimate universe...

Marvel's bankruptcy in the late 90s. They brought in a new president and a new editor in chief (Quesada) who wanted to revitalize the brand and their IP's and make them more modern and accessible to new readers , but unlike DC Marvel doesn't do universe resetting Crisis, so they just created a new imprint with it's universe and continuity.

t. Linkara

Is he still around?

In before our autistic janitor gets upset and deletes the thread.

Unfortunately, Mr. GET.

Hey Holla Forums

user's not joking

The sword thing was because they couldnt resist making healing factors into absurd bullshit.

No, Identity Crisis was the worst. Instead of killing off an entire universe like Ultimatum, Identity Crisis reshaped DC's core universe into a grim and gritty nightmare. Didio took his silver age memories and smashed it together with Watchmen to create a world of costumed rape and murder that was completely oblivious to it's own ridiculousness.

Identity Crisis was the beginning of the dark times, where characters were gratuitously murdered left and right. Where every bad thing imaginable occurred. DC comics became a non-stop snuff film from 2004 until 2011.

It certainly did not, you could argue it ratcheted up after Identity Crisis, but DC had already been headed in that direction since Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Why not criticize the actual book? How is Identity Crisis written worse than Ultimatum or schlock like Atlantis Attacks and Convergence. The only criticism I ever see levied at Identity Crisis is "muh fridging womyn" nonsense from the feminist crowd.

I don't agree with user, because Ultimatum is just fucking awful, but Identity Crisis is pretty shit and for reasons other than wymyn cannon fodder. The writer basically tried to emulate the same story beats as Watchmen but clearly missed Alan Moore's point, made with The Killing Joke, about how your standard DC heroes aren't really meant to bear that kind of weight.

Also, they made Deathstroke insanely overpowered. Able to take on Green Lantern, The Flash, The Atom, Hawkman and Black Canary (with Sonic Cry) singlehandedly

This entire event made me drop capeshit ill never understand their need to nuke one of the best marvel universes like this. Early Ultimate Marvel still reigns king in my book anything new they try now is just plain shit.

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

I remember that. Did they explain how Sabretooth survived getting his head cut off by that sword?

Yes.

mostly they just made everyone else stupid

Post more dead capes, less talking.

No. DC was edgy during the early nineties, but from 95 on, it mellowed out into "actually mature". You got shit like Cassandra Cain Batgirl, Starman, the height of Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, and a lot of other really fun stuff. After all the grim and gritty crap, DC was coming into it's own.

However, come the 2000s, especially around 2002 on as Dan DiDio took power, all that shit got chucked out the window. With Identity Crisis, it got to be nonstop violence and bleakness that made the early 90s absolutely pale in comparison.

As for the book itself, it's basically a Watchmen rip-off without any of the nuance or commentary of the original. Sue Dibney is murdered by Jean Loring, the Atom's ex-wife, in a plot to get back with the Atom. However, in the process of all of this, we learn that Zatanna had be mindwiping heroes to forget all of the rape, murder, and near constant discovery of secret identities that occurred during their Silver Age adventures, one of which was Doctor Light's rape of Sue Dibney. In the process of the whole story, Tim Drake's father is murdered, Captain Boomerang is killed, Firestorm explodes, and the entire Justice League, except Batman who's the best guy ever, look like really shady shits. The entire thing is fanboy garbage to repaint the silliness of the Silver Age as dark and gritty, paving the way for the meat-grinder that was to come.

That fanboy thing is the key difference between what happened in the early nineties, and what happened with Identity Crisis. The early nineties was edgy for the sake of being edgy. Identity Crisis was edgy because fanboys wanted to prove their cape comics were "mature".

You left out the best part of that page.

But wasn't Ultimatum contained to the Ultimate line? It would lose "awful points" in that regard since it didn't infect the mainline, unlike Identity Crisis, which was/is DC canon.

Though, all horrible events are just evidence of how the mainstream publishers are eager to throw away years of hard work to chase a quick buck. Ultimatum trashed the Ultimate line. Identity Crisis trashed the DCU.

52 made up for this shit a little bit, but retconning it into oblivion was still the best choice. IDK if Ralph and Sue have shown up in Rebirth yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Yeah, but if you're going to talk about the strength of the event itself, whether or not it infects the main line is, in my opinion, irrelevant

It amounts to the same thing

And the guy writing it has the gall to call a love letter to the Silver Age.

Two good things that come from Ryan's death. Giganta killing Dwarf Star….and Convergence: The Atom where Ray brought Ryan back from the dead…at the expense of Deathstroke's hand.

One thing to remember is that the Ultimate universe was already in freefall. It started strong as hell, but shifting writers caused multiple issues. Their first big event was going to be Apocalypse. They even did a fucking fantastic job of building it up, making strong ties between Spiderman, the X-men and the Ultimates, and each, especially Spiderman, commented about a feeling of impending doom, which was obviously hinting toward Apocalypse.

And then X-men changed writers, who threw a fucking tantrum and decided he wanted to do Dark Phoenix instead, had Jean Grey just fucking hand wave Apocalypse away the moment he showed up and then do nothing of any god damn interest. Literal years of set up, pissed away instantly.

People just stopped caring about Ultimate X-men after that. They never cared about Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimates 3 took that line from badly hurt to mortally wounded. Only Spiderman remained as something people gave a shit about, and their immediate response was to fucking kill Peter Parker and replace him with Blaxican Spiderman.

The Ultimate imprint was dying before Ultimatum, Ultimatum was just the execution.

God damn right. The Ultimate line was so good. For awhile.

Oh, also, Peter was killed because the original idea for Ultimate Spiderman was to turn it into a 'slice of superhero life' comic, with Peter, Johnny Storm, Kat Pryde, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacey (who is carnage in this imprint), all living with Aunt May, doing wacky teen superhero stuff together.

Marvel, for some reason, decided it wouldn't work and just killed Peter instead. So, we went from getting a fun, quirky, 'Let's throw all these Teen heroes in a house together and do fun hijinx' comic, to a dead spiderman. They literally thought killing him was the better idea. I will never forgive Marvel for that shit.

Blaxican Spider-Man was after Ultimatum

Yeah that was my point exactly, as far as events go I find Identity Crisis pretty inoffensive, it's a fairly cohesive self-contained story, it doesn't require the reader to seek out half a dozen prequel books to understand the plot, and it doesn't inundate you with fucking tie-ins ("oh no you see X event really isn't that bad because all of your complaints about the story were actually addressed in Namor the Submariner issue 38-39 event tie ins).
I'm not saying Identity Crisis is great, but calling it the worst event ever when shit like "Amazon's Attack" exist is a pretty dramatic exaggeration imo.

If I remember correctly it was retconned to not actually be Sabretooth, Romulus had created an army of Sabretooth clones or some nonsense, and the one Wolverine beheaded was an early clone prototype.

Nah man. That event was uber shit. Bringing back Cho was as half-hearted and empty everything else in that event (save Shazam of course).

Shocking.

Short term sales, my man. Got to get that quick buck. It's the cancer of the industry.

Yup, that and editorial edicts although the two kind of go hand in hand. I'll forever be butthurt about Marvel ruining JMS Thor run in order to force Siege.

I know. My point was that Spiderman was the only thing people still cared about when the Ultimate imprint dove off a cliff, and their response to people still caring was to murder the main character.

I have no idea what the fuck Marvel was thinking.

I feel it's the main reason that western comics are losing against manga. Readers are looking for consistency now, not tie-ins.

The irony is that Ultimate was the universe that was having a consistent flow. Everything that had an effect in each of the comics was felt or reported in other issues depending on how large it was. It felt like there was a growing story between all the characters and it was often to see clean-up efforts after large battles and reports on it.

Then Ultimatum decided to fuck all of that and sink the entire universe with Bible-quoting Magneto.

Wait, that's why they fucking killed him off? As much as I enjoyed Peter's death and thought it was a great moment, that's a dumb fucking reason to do it.

They killed him off because Bendis has this odd fetish for black people. We really should have seen the signs before Miles. He made Ben Reilly black. The principal at Peter Parker's school was named Ross Andru. Guess what Bendis did? Made him a black guy. He made Ross Andru a fucking black guy. It's just non-stop blacks with Bendis

If Quads, Ultimatum was worse

Probably true, but I was actually pretty amped on the idea of a slice of life comic with that cast. And then, 'lol nm, Blaxican Spiderman'.

God Dammit Marvel.

Well, quads confirm it.

Well, I will say, DC retconned and made moot Identity Crisis eventually. Meanwhile the Ultimate line never did, not could recover from the bleakness Ultimatum laid upon it.

Comics are fucking stupid

No user, comics are not stupid. Stupid comics written with horrible ideas are stupid.

ok makes sense.

Ill never understand Marvels reasoning to killing their best universe they ever created literally almost every hero shined in Ultimate Marvel

true

Forgive me for what I must yabba-dabba-do.

OH YOU FUCKER

I didn't even notice it at first

Cheeky bastard.

Well played, sir.
Well played indeed.

They misunderstood their own fucking gimmick. People bought it because it was a well crafted series with decently setup events and a consistent canon that wasn't reverted every other storyline and they confused that for "CHARACTERS DYING SELLS BOOKS", and they ruined it.

Why the fuck Marvel is that retarded? Or it's just that they really love fuck with people?

subtle

They let a retarded writer in charge of their company.

...

I used to love capeshit until this event after it I just gave up on super heroes as a whole and stuck with cartoons its disgusting at how bad marvel fucked this up.

Metaphorical magic or actual literal magic? Don't really see the problem if it's literal magic: Plenty of monsters that would justify such an enchantment.

I don't even know, literal magic I guess.The legendary Japanese swordsmith Muramasa forged it from a shard of wolverine's soul or some shit.
The problem wasn't so much the sword, but the fact that it was a major ass pull from Loeb and is only ever used as a shitty deus ex machina and then conveniently forgotten about.

Thanks for reminding me about that, I finally killed my memory of that shit a couple years ago; thought the Ultimate Spiderman series would be a nice substitute.

Weren't most everyone in Ultimate major assholes?

You just can't catch a break.

I thought someone just scrapped off the bits where the sword sliced.

...

In my mind, 52 and the Booster Gold run that followed more or less offset any of the negatives of identity crisis. Even Ultimatum wasn't bad.

You want bad?

Avengers vs X Men. Horrible JRJR art, pointless story going nowhere, Xavier dies for nothing, Phoenix AGAIN, padded as fuck.

Convergence. Secret Wars ripoff with again a pointless story, a wierd focus on earth 2 characters and bringing back Parallax for nothing.

THAT shit's bad.

Let's face it, by the time Ultimatum came around the ultimate universe had already peaked. The later stories weren't that great. Plus I like David Finch art, even if he does kind of suck at doing distinctive faces for each character.

Secret Wars was at least good vs. evil. Convergence was a goddamn clusterfuck, with heroes fighting heroes FOR NO DAMN REASON. Right off the bat, DC was fucking it up, and only got worse the longer it went on. The main title was a such gigantic, frustrating mess that you can't get into it without having an aneurysm Demos becomes the big bad! FUCKING DEMOS!. The tie-in books, like the main title, were complete trash, shitting on the characters they were supposed to be celebrating. The entire event was a deadly cocktail of shit writing, terrible plots, character inconsistencies, and comic book density. Those last two need special emphasis, since Convergence somehow managed to be too obscure for casuals, yet too conflicting for the fans. Again, DEMOS!

Convergence should've been an easy slam dunk for DC. A fun event to pander to the fans while they move to Cali. Instead, it confirmed everyone's worst fears about the company: that they don't give a shit about any of their characters or the content they produce. It's why Rebirth had to happen and it's why Rebirth will fail.

But is it worse than Civil War?

Convergence also having a literally who co-writer (with Scott Lobdell) does not help.

Have to clarify that Lobdell is well-known compared to his Convergence co-writer.

irredeemable*

unequivocally yes.

I want to talk more about Deimos (which I misspelled), because the inclusion of that character represents everything wrong with Convergence IMO.

For those that don't know, Deimos was the wizard nemesis of "The Warlord" Travis Morgan, star a relatively obscure 70's sword and sorcery comic of the same name. It's mostly known for being featured in the JLU episode "Chaos at the Earth's Core".

Now, if you didn't know anything about Warlord, wouldn't know who Deimos is, what he's talking about, or what the fuck we're doing in the center of the planet.

Now if you did know all of that shit, you would still be disappointed, as Deimos looks nothing like his comic book counterpart, making the knowledge of him an empty reward since it's clearly not the same Deimos. Strike one for fan pandering. He also swiftly murders Travis Morgan, robbing you of a climatic showdown between these two enemies. Strike two for fan pandering. He also starts a retarded plot involving "DEATH MAGIC"(?) that ends with him being evaporated by Parallax. Strike three, and it's out.

As I said before, this event managed to throw off everyone. Deimos and the world of Skartaris was a bizarre inclusion to this event, especially considering how importantly it's featured and how badly it was mishandled.

Oh god yes. Civil War had a solid, if stupid, reason for the heroes to fight. In Convergence, all of the alternate earth heroes fight because Telos wants the strongest city to survive…for some reason. And the alternate earth's heroes just go along with it…for some reason. Yeah, all of those characters you loved for their heroism and righteousness just throw that shit away under threat of annihilation. It's disgusting, especially when they know that it will cost another Earth it's existence. Convergence drags everyone into a dirty sewer for NO REASON.

And then, halfway through the event, that plot ends, replaced with "DEATH MAGIC"(?), Parallax saving the day, and ultimately the off screen retcon of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. The entire event was a giant dump on DC's readership.

WeWantTheFemaleAudience.jpg

Learn to barbarian, pleb.

Real men aren't afraid to show some leg.

In the hollow Earth, men wear no pants.

This isn't a meme. He literally considers himself an honorary black man.

What, like Quentin Tarantino?

Wasn't Armageddon 2001 kind of a shit show? I know for a fact it fucked with Hawk and Dove. Something about an astral plane wizard possessing Hawk. Fake killing Dawn Dove and having her in a magic coma while pregnant by the possessed Hawk. I think it also tied in to why Don died and was replaced never to show up again outside of cartoons. It was fucking stupid and that was just for Hawk and Dove during this event.

Wasn't Monarch supposed originally to turn out to be Captain Atom, but there was a leak and they changed it to Hawk?

Yes. I don't know Armageddon '01 very well, but did know about the fuckery going on with it. Here's the wiki on it.

I wish I could say this was the worst DC crossover, but DC events are always clusterfucks.

Yep. Then Hawk died, Dawn woke up not pregnant with no memory. Met her half-sister or something and she became the new Hawk. Blackest Night happened and new Hawk got killed by black lantern Hawk. Later, New 52 started and Don is still dead because hoes before bros when it comes to duos.

I know Don was a complete pussy when it came to fighting but, he eventually got written to fight back to some degree. Maybe it's best this way. If he was still alive and Dove he would have been wrote as gay. Why? Because ya can't be a guy and peaceful without being gay.

And they're gonna be in the Titans live-action show. Is it me or is the costumes a bit on the shitty side?

I always wondered if Trigon's design was meant to be influenced by Japanese demons or something?

So was the comic made for the toys or the reverse?

Dove's cape looks a bit cheap. Looks about as good as you can expect from modern super hero adaptations. At least it's not another leather suit like the CW one.s

Looks like they belong in Batman&Robin

I think the suits look pretty good, but the photo also looks like it's been touched up a ton. No telling how bad it'll be in the show.

The only good thing that came out of Ultimatum is that people finally began to realize Jeph Loeb was not that great of a writer.
Even the Hush fanboys couldn't defend that garbage.