Ultimate Comics Doomsday

After the disastrous "ULTIMATUM" I stopped reading the ULTIMATE UNIVERSE comics. This book brought me back to the world of the ULTIMATES, bringing again exciting adventures and a pleasurable reading experience. I hadn't enjoyed the Ultimates and the Ultimate Fantastic Four in a long time. It was fantastic and with some totally unexpected twists and turns.This was the first Comic I bought using the iPad Kindle App and it was a great experience. The app allows us to zoom to dialogs when we find small blocks of text (horizontal pages, for example). Great comic. Interesting format. Highly recommended!

After seeing some of the reviews for this story I was hoping I'd see Bendis return to form after the quality of his work clearly dipped after he took on so many of Marvel's titles. I was a fan of his early work on Ultimate Spider-Man and what I've read of his Powers and Daredevil run I liked. However, I was disappointed by his Avengers run and the Disassembled event that he orchestrated, mainly because there was little emotional weight to what was going on, the scenes were jumbled, and there was too much talking to set up the very little action. The experience with Disassembled should have warned me to steer clear of Bendis' big events, but after being blown away by the fun and epic action of Invincible, I thought perhaps Bendis simply needed a similarly less restrictive playground to really let loose, the setting in this case being the Ultimate Marvel Universe. The reviews on this product proved to be the tipping point that led to the purchase, so I thought it best to provide a dissenting review to warn other potential buyers that Bendis doesn't deliver on this tale, and here's why:This is a story that either should have been expanded to included all of the Ultimate U or limited to the Ultimate Fantastic Four title. Bendis tries to go with the former by including Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Rick Jones, SHIELD, and Doctor Octopus but it's clear that the Fantastic Four are the anchor of the book. Therefore, we get a plot of Spider-Woman seeking revenge on the kind of genetic scientists that created her shoe-horned into the event and Rick Jones showing up empowered by the Watchers to remind everyone of how his ineptitude is the result of his young age despite the fact that pretty much every other superhero in this book are around the same age. Oh, and Captain Marvel is plugged in there but ends up essentially useless unless you count a blood and urine sample as a solid contribution. Basically, it seems as if these should have been guest characters on the Ultimate F4 title and their subplots should have just been given the classic asterisk explanation for what they've been up to and how it ties into the core of the story, but instead they chew up valuable panels by taking turns talking about how little they all know about what's going on.And probably the aspect of this story that makes it most apparent that Bendis should have zeroed in on the F4 is the villain. Now, I figured out the villain based on the cover and the story summary on the back of the coverslip. For those looking to avoid spoilers, you should have enough information at this point to decide if you're into disjointed and underwhelming events, so you can stop reading now. So who's the villain of the story? Well, it's the only member of the F4 missing from the cover: Reed Richards. I remember when the idea of Reed as the villain entered my mind and I was intrigued because he'd essentially be like Ozymandias in that here's this character who is supposed to be the smartest person on the planet, so when he stands in judgement of everyone, it should at least be interesting to see what their motivation is and how exactly the rest of the superhero community knocks their heads together to take him down. Should be fun, at least, right? Well, it isn't. I will admit that I haven't read Ultimate Power or most of the Ultimate F4 books, so I may be missing some background, but shouldn't the author dedicate more pages to characterization rather than characters who don't really have anything to contribute save for the big fight at the end? I mean, Reed's motivation is basically that he doesn't like the way science is headed in his universe, so he resolves to take out a bunch of other major scientists and look for dimensions who have done things better. Also, we get flashbacks of Reed being picked on or abused by his dad (who seemed way more well-adjusted in his previous appearances, btw), so there's a shallow Revenge of the Nerds tinge to his motivation as well. Unfortunately, Bendis chooses to focus on that second driving force more than the first, so we get all of this build-up of, "Who's doing this? Why's this happening?" only to see it's Reed throwing a universe-ending tantrum. It's weak-sauce.We even get a couple pages of Sue reflecting on her time with Reed after she discovers he's behind this mess and Reed starts to hint at his disdain for his dimension, but instead of expanding on that, we get a couple more panels down the road with Reed simply saying that this world is raping science without really providing any more background on that (which makes it more puzzling when one of the heroes simply says, "He's right.")The saving grace to this book is the art, which is surprisingly well done considering I hadn't heard of the artist before. The style, particularly the texture of the rocks and rubble, which there is aplenty, reminds me of Carlos Pacheco's work on the Camelot Falls arc of Superman.If Bendis had chosen to concentrate on this motivation, it'd be easier to justify the reviews that say this is a well-written villain. If Bendis decided to focus on the F4, there would be more emotion and characterization. And if these reviews hadn't led me astray, I wouldn't have bought this book.

This book answers so many questions and really builds up the post-Ultimatum Ultimate Marvel landscape. It's a brilliantly written and drawn series that sets up key aspects for Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates by Jonathan Hickman, a super series. In short, it's a title that I highly recommend for fans of Ultimate Marvel, especially those who didn't quite like Ultimatum very much. A serious breath of fresh air after the disasters of that event. Happy reading!

After several recent mediocre Ultimate stories, Ultimate Doomsday puts this universe back on top where it belongs! Brian Michael Bendis is at the top of his game and Rafa Sandoval's art is off-the-charts good. This type of story is the reason I fell in love with the Ultimate Universe to begin with.BUY THIS NOW. You won't be disappointed.

Awesome storyline and character depth. Reminds me of the first time I picked up Ultimate Spiderman: gripping, original, and unpredictable situations with familiar but distinctly different characters.

CONSIDERING THIS IS A MUST READ IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO FOLLOW ANY OF THE CURRENT ULTIMATES STORYLINES; THIS WAS NOT AS GOOD AS I HOPED. SURE IT GAVE A LOT OF BACKGROUND INFO BUT IT DIDN'T REALLY EXPLAIN WHY REED DID WHAT HE DID.

This is a Christmas present for my son. The Item was what I expected and it arrived quickly. I am happy with my order.

I purchased the Kindle Version of this book. It's a decent story...not a Bendis all-time great, but still a fun read for those who love the Ultimate Marvel universe.My big problem is that the pages are out of order in this version. You transition to the next page and suddenly you're looking at a panel that really doesn't happen for another 5-6 pages. Not only was it disorienting, but once I figured out what happened I still had to flip back and forth and piece it together without any help.

It nice to know that the Ultimate universe still has strong stories that have character development to keep the universe going...hopefully. Stuff like The Thing's rocky outer layer was a shell/cocoon, but for what? Its pretty awesome what was underneath the rock all this time. This is what Ultimatum should have been. If the Ultimate universe didn't have most of its series cancelled then this would have been the best cross over ever. But then again without Ultimatum this story wouldn't have what it needed to exist. Rafa Sandoval's art is great and really delivers the fight intensity. The only problem I have with this is its confusing timeline. After reading Ultimate Avengers and New Ultimates its confusing trying to figure out where this sits in continuity. Its just a couple things that you may or not notice. So all in all this collection is one of the best post-Ultimatum stories out there with great character development that could hopefully start Ultimate Comics Fantastic Four.