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The Ultimates 3: Who Killed The Scarlet Witch? (2009)

by Jeph Loeb(Favorite Author)

2.36 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0785122699 (ISBN13: 9780785122692)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Marvel

series

The Ultimates trade paperbacks

review 1: You know, I read (and re-read many times) the reviews from other people on this site, trying to get a feel for this book and decide if I'd spend (or waste) my time reading it. Well, I took the plunge.It... could've been so much better (as all the 1-star and 2-star ratings confirm). Perhaps five issues was not enough to properly flesh out the story & the characters involved. Let me elaborate:Jeph Loeb throws some ideas (bad ones & good ones) out there that are barely touched upon again in the book, if only by way of being mentioned, but remaining unexplored. Some of the stuff could've been left out, to give room to expand upon the points actually relevant to the story. Here are a few examples:Right from the FIRST PANEL of the story, we're thrust (pun intended) in the middle... more of the supposed sex scandal caused by the release of footage with Tony & Natasha having sex. Um, what exactly was the point of this? It has absolutely NO relevance (or impact) on the rest of the story.SECOND PAGE: Thor gets thrown through the wall of the Ultimates' base by... VENOM? This was my first WTF moment when reading this book. I mean, Venom? This better be going somewhere. In the end it's just a reason to bring in Spider-Man into the story... even though, again, he ALSO serves no purpose by being included (other than for a brief tussle with Hawkeye, which also leads nowhere). The inclusion of Black Panther is also pointless (and it's not even really him!). Ka-Zar & Shanna also show up (naturally, as the story moves to the Savage Land), but they don't really do much. They could've played a more significant part and that would've been okay.The Ultron angle was interesting. What disappointed me was the reveal that Ultron itself is also only a pawn of Doctor Doom, so all the previous motivations for its actions and its "revenge plot" get somehow negated. Did Doctor Doom really need to be included at all? And if "yes", why wait until the VERY LAST PAGE of the book to do so?* * * * * * *There ARE some things that worked in this story:- Hawkeye is a darker character (following the death of his wife & kids) and sports a new costume.- Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are not only siblings, but also lovers. No surprise there, in my opinion: Millar had sewn the seeds of this particular situation in the first "Ultimates" series. - The Brotherhood of Mutants attacking the Ultimates in their own home was cool.-The Ultron angle, as mentioned previously, was interesting. The book could've been better if more time had been given to this thread, and if the Doctor Doom involvement had been non-existent. By extension of the Ultron plot thread, the "Ultron Ultimates" and the throw-down with the real Ultimates was fun. I just don't understand the whole "turning-to-goo" thing. What's up with that?With the "supposed" death of Quicksilver (and Magneto ending up with Thor's Hammer), Jeph Loeb got the stage ready for "Ultimatum". Which, I guess, was what "Ultimates 3" became: a prologue of sorts for the "main event". What is MOST disappointing to me is that the "Ultimates" franchise had been, up to that point, a gold standard in the comic book industry: Quality stories and quality art. The art wasn't the issue here. Sure, it was not Bryan Hitch, and Joe Madureira has a completely different style, but it's nice to get another artist's take on the characters. The actual story, though, could've been more polished, refined and streamlined to give the franchise its due.Too bad, though...
review 2: I often find it hard to rate books that so mix the good and the bad, but generally this volume isn't as terrible as people have made it out to be. On the good: the mysteries of the story are quite compelling and the result is a very good Ultron story for the Ultimate universe, reminiscent of the original, but very different. On the bad: Loeb's understanding of some of the Ultimate versions of characters is bad; Thor is the only Ultimate who really stands out, but he's horrid. A lot of the foes just seem like carbon copies of their 616 selfs. The surprises of the volume are poorly foreshadowed, which is a pity, because they would have been great if Loeb knew what he was doing. Even afterward I still don't know what's up with the whole Black Panther plot. Finally, Loeb's dialogue on occasion is nails-on-a-chalkboard bad. less

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