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Which was worse, Ultimate Marvel or the New 52?
- Thread starter DragonSJG
- Start date
The New 52 was worse because it was an unnecessary reboot that got rid of the previous version (except when it didn't)
The Ultimate Universe was a separate thing from the start, it was an alternative, not a replacement. People who didn't like it could just ignore it and still got their regular 616 fix, that wasn't an option with the new 52.
The Ultimate Universe was a separate thing from the start, it was an alternative, not a replacement. People who didn't like it could just ignore it and still got their regular 616 fix, that wasn't an option with the new 52.
Ultimate had some really bad stuff, but yeah, it was "extra". New 52 was all DC had for a while, and it took me out of DC comics till today
I never read Ultimate Marvel, but some of the lows I've heard seem worse than the lows of New52. New52 certainly had issues but also had some solid stories and interesting relaunches (loved the Animal Man/Swamp Thing stuff, stuff like Demon Knights was super fun, and Justice League Dark had a great premise but kind of an awful reality). The worst thing about New52 was that certain characters were knocked away from what made them work and it took way too long to get them back to normal. It also sucked losing Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain but I absolutely adored them getting back in Batman Eternal so at least they were brought back with a bang.
That's actually a great point. For both the quality is really all over the place. I did like new 52 a lot more at first, but it sure fell off a cliff. On the other hand I didn't like anything from ultimate except spider-man.
If we remove the bit where ultimate didn't replace things, then I'd say that was worse, since for every Spiderman they had a bunch of weird crap. On the other hand new52 had for me at least a bigger amount of cooler stuff, like Batwoman, Batgirl, Aquaman (the begining at least)
I don't think there was anything in the New 52 that was as bad as Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum but it was still way worse as a whole.
Agreed here, particularly with this version of Swamp Thing. New52 was pretty good, especially if you gravitated outside of Superman books.
Only speaking for myself but New 52 got me back into reading comics and I enjoyed the initial creative runs on Batman (Court of Owls and Death of the Family), Wonder Woman (Greek pantheon family drama), Swamp Thing and Animal Man (Rotworld was so cool). Batman & Robin had a really solid opening for me too, and I think I even liked it the most until about issue 15 or 16. I felt like Batman had genuinely good father dynamics going on to start.
Ultimate Spider-Man was the only thing that held my interest at all from Ultimate. The tone of Ultimate generally was rather unpleasant for me and I personally never got super into the general vibe of the creative voices of that era (Mark Millar in particular). For New 52, the larger crossover storylines were seemingly a big mess and figuring out what was and wasn't still relevant from pre-New 52 was not clear enough but I think the books that I chose to engage with were telling quality stories with the lite-reboot context. I ended up continuing to pick up comics until 2016 starting with New 52 debut — admittedly switched exclusively to indie and Marvel (got into Saga, Wicked & Divine, Hickman Avengers and Waid Daredevil) pulls by then but thought the aforementioned starting stories were good.
I went back to quitting comics entirely within a year of Ultimate launch.
Ultimate Spider-Man was the only thing that held my interest at all from Ultimate. The tone of Ultimate generally was rather unpleasant for me and I personally never got super into the general vibe of the creative voices of that era (Mark Millar in particular). For New 52, the larger crossover storylines were seemingly a big mess and figuring out what was and wasn't still relevant from pre-New 52 was not clear enough but I think the books that I chose to engage with were telling quality stories with the lite-reboot context. I ended up continuing to pick up comics until 2016 starting with New 52 debut — admittedly switched exclusively to indie and Marvel (got into Saga, Wicked & Divine, Hickman Avengers and Waid Daredevil) pulls by then but thought the aforementioned starting stories were good.
I went back to quitting comics entirely within a year of Ultimate launch.
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Yeah the Superman stuff was kind of weak, they also never quite figured out Teen Titans. As someone who stayed with weird stuff and Batman a lot of it was pretty fun, going in with the assumption that this was comics and things would go back to normal eventually.
There it is.
I think New 52 had some good stuff in it, but Ultimate didn't force a full reboot. It was simply an alternate universe.
New 52 started off strong and got worse the more i read. I mostly ignored Ulitimate Marvel, outside of Spider-Man which was great. I guess 52 is worse then?
Say what you will about either of them, but Ultimate Spider-Man is the perfect "modern" interpretation of Spidey.
Outside of Spidey and Batman, I don't have much knowledge of either labels.
Outside of Spidey and Batman, I don't have much knowledge of either labels.
You carry on a legacy of great first posts. Basically my feelings exactly.
Ultimate Marvel had incest Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver, Asshole Cap, and Ultimatum
Nu52 had a whole lot of shitty ideas that eventually got reversed but it's worse due to ruining a lot of old 52 runs and damaging characters with a bunch of shitty redesigns that are still a problem
Nu52 had a whole lot of shitty ideas that eventually got reversed but it's worse due to ruining a lot of old 52 runs and damaging characters with a bunch of shitty redesigns that are still a problem
I generally don't mind alternate takes and the highs of Ultimate were very high and the lows were morbidly fascinating to me.
Nu52 is just something I hardly ever think about.
Nu52 is just something I hardly ever think about.
This. I didn't like Ultimate at first but years down the line I binged Ultimate Spider-Man and really enjoyed it.
New 52 killed my interest almost entirely with buying comics weekly. I lasted I think for about a year after the reboot. I went ham at first and bought almost every new issue coming out but it just didn't do it for me. To this day I'm trade only now.
Ultimate Marvel got me into reading Marvel comics. I had variously tried to get into them but like my first foray was like issue 3 of the Spider-man Clone Saga and I was like "what the fuck is this, this is exactly why I don't read comics." Ultimate Marvel came around at the perfect time that I wanted to read something without all the decades of back issues and continuity.
It went to shit but wasn't always shit. I think they should do a side universe like Ultimate Marvel every 20 years or so.
It went to shit but wasn't always shit. I think they should do a side universe like Ultimate Marvel every 20 years or so.
New 52. Hated how DC basically threw away most of the legacy since that is such an important part of their universe.
I didn't like anything in Ultimate outside of USM and a few bits and pieces of UXM. But it wasn't a big deal because I could just hop to 616 to get my Marvel fix. Aquaman and Batman were the only parts of n52 I liked, and I was shit out of luck otherwise because that became the main continuity.
Ultimate had far lower lows, but at least it was a self contained alternate branding. New 52 legitimately killed my interest in comics for a while.
I love this first meeting of Tim and Steph's first meeting in Batman Eternal:
And we did get an awesome Steph moment:
But to answer the question it was Ultimate Marvel. Edgelord trash except for Ultimate Spider-Man and made me hate characters like the X-Men, Magneto, Captain America, etc.
New 52 straight-up deleted (for a while) almost all legacy characters except Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Barbara Gordon, and the male Robins. This included minority, LGBT, and characters with disabilities (Many of whom got replaced with their white male predecessors).
Also Barbara Gordon was better as Oracle than she ever was as Batgirl, and they should have just let Stephanie be the Batgirl of Burnside.
Plus their need to always have 52 titles meant there were often half-baked terrible titles just to fill a slot (and conversely, a tiny handful of hidden gems that got snuffed out too early for not meeting sales expectations, only to be replaced by more half-baked crap).
Also Barbara Gordon was better as Oracle than she ever was as Batgirl, and they should have just let Stephanie be the Batgirl of Burnside.
Plus their need to always have 52 titles meant there were often half-baked terrible titles just to fill a slot (and conversely, a tiny handful of hidden gems that got snuffed out too early for not meeting sales expectations, only to be replaced by more half-baked crap).
Its basically an answer between the one that was actually worse (Ultimate Marvel) vs the one that wiped out the post crisis continuity and then took years to get things back together
Are the comics where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver commit incest as bad as wiping out Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown.
Ultimate Spider-man was fantastic because it actually took advantage of the whole new Marvel universe to create a new spin on things and not create stupid ideas. Well except for when they killed Gwen Stacy, then brought her back and then Iron Man basically shows up to say "We are not treating this as a clone of Gwen Stacy, we are treating this like Gwen Stacy never died in the first place"
No it didnt, it rebooted the post crisis continuity which had been in place since the late 80's, Crisis on Infinite Earth was an even bigger reboot in the 80's as that wiped out the multiverse and caused numerous problems in terms of backstory since they decided that Superman was the last Kryptonian.
Read the Death of Superman where your knowledge of Supergirl comes from the Supergirl movie and then this happens
Are the comics where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver commit incest as bad as wiping out Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown.
Ultimate Spider-man was fantastic because it actually took advantage of the whole new Marvel universe to create a new spin on things and not create stupid ideas. Well except for when they killed Gwen Stacy, then brought her back and then Iron Man basically shows up to say "We are not treating this as a clone of Gwen Stacy, we are treating this like Gwen Stacy never died in the first place"
No it didnt, it rebooted the post crisis continuity which had been in place since the late 80's, Crisis on Infinite Earth was an even bigger reboot in the 80's as that wiped out the multiverse and caused numerous problems in terms of backstory since they decided that Superman was the last Kryptonian.
Read the Death of Superman where your knowledge of Supergirl comes from the Supergirl movie and then this happens
The one thing I actually regret liking in my past is Mark Millar's Ultimates, just so much stupid shit like the massive amounts of post 9/11 jingoism, the incest, the overall way characters are treated like Hank Pym being a massive piece of shit, or Iron Man's alcoholism being treated as a joke.
For some reason l really love Ultimate Namor's introduction. I never read Ultimate from beginning to end but I've read a few things and generally enjoyed it.
Not to mention Ultimate Marvel gave us Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury and it didn't replace the main universe either like others have said
Ultimate Marvel had its moments... Spidey and some of the earlier stuff especially was pretty good (well, for the most part) and some of the changes to the characters would then be used in the movies/comics. Ultimate Spidey was a good series in its own right, and also gave us Miles Morales, which is at least enough to push that awful Blob/Wasp cannibalism moment from my head... Ultimatum was fucked up...
Ultimate Marvel was just a relative handful of titles that served as an alternate take on 616. Some of its ideas ended up being used in the MCU (like Sam Jackson as Nick Fury and Hawkeye as a SHIELD Agent) or have already pushed into other mediums like video games and movies (Miles Morales). Outside of Spider-Man, it was absolutely 2000s edgelord, which definitely aged poorly. But you weren't confused as to who was who and what was what.
The New 52 was a complete line-wide reboot (except when it wasn't) and a total mess. There were some good comics (Demon Knights is a personal fave) but a lot of it was a total mess.
The New 52 was a complete line-wide reboot (except when it wasn't) and a total mess. There were some good comics (Demon Knights is a personal fave) but a lot of it was a total mess.
The new 52 sucked ass and erased most of the good stuff. Ultimate sucked ass but didn't erase the good stuff
A lot of the pre-Ultimatum Ultimate Marvel was really, really good. Some of it excellent. Ultimatum and some of what came after were terrible. New 52 was mostly mediocre. I'd rather have the highs even if they come with some lows than just a baseline "meh."