Spider-Men II by Brian Michael Bendis ends with a huge twist (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

[CyclonatorZ]

That being the return of the Ultimate Universe, rendering the recent Secret Wars null and void. Lol, Bendis gonna Bendis.

[IMG]https://static2.cbrimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Spider-Men-II-Ultimate-Universe.jpg?q=35&w=864&h=675&fit=crop[/IMG]

[QUOTE]SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Spider-Men II #5 by Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, Mark Bagley, Elisabetta D’Amico, John Dell, Justin Ponsor and Cory Petit, on sale now.

Brian Michael Bendis is leaving Marvel next year, but the writer is going out with a bang. This week brings the conclusion to Spider-Men II which sees the final face-off between the webbed heroes and the Miles Morales of Earth-616, all while our Miles grapples with the power and responsibility of being Spider-Man.

***

Thought destroyed in the final incursion prior to Secret Wars, the Ultimate Universe collided with Earth-616, killing everyone on both planets. When Molecule Man remade the world as part of the Prime Marvel Universe, it was pretty much what we knew Earth-616 to be, with a few changes, such as Miles Morales and his supporting cast shifting dimensions, and characters like Old Man Logan falling through the cracks. We saw in the final pages of Secret Wars — and recently in Marvel Legacy #1 — that The Future Foundation has been travelling the Multiverse, recreating the destroyed worlds, but this is the first confirmation that we’ve got of the Ultimate Universe once again existing.

As the Prime Miles heads to meet the Ultimate version of his wife — and the two do hit off quite well — a fight breaks out on the street outside between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man. In a sequence drawn by Mark Bagley, Brian Michael Bendis’ collaborator on Ultimate Spider-Man for over one-hundred issues, we see that Peter Parker, the Ultimate Spider-Man, is alive and kicking butt alongside the Ultimates, which include his clone Jessica Drew, Captain America, Thor, Human Torch, Giant Man, The Hulk and an ultimate incarnation of another Bendis creation, Ironheart. Bagley even gives Spider-Woman a knowing look and a smirk to the reader as if to say, “Did you miss us?” before both heroes head off home.

[/QUOTE]

Source: [URL="https://www.cbr.com/spider-men-ii-ultimate-universe/"]https://www.cbr.com/spider-men-ii-ultimate-universe/[/URL]

[sir whoopsalot]

This is the kind of shit people mock comics for.

[Steel]

Ultimate Universe returns, Darkseid returns to full strength in Wonder Woman, [sp]Comedian returns from either the dead or whatever the fuck is going on[/sp] in Doomsday Clock, and [sp]Cyclops returns or whatever the fuck is going on[/sp] in Phoenix Resurrection. What a final 2017 Wednesday it was. But why is RiRi in place of Tony? Bendis gonna Bendis or did he read Ewing's Ultimates?

[Bob The Knob]

Can someone explain this to someone who's never read any of these comics even once but is slightly interested?

[Baconheart]

[QUOTE=Bob The Knob;53010011]Can someone explain this to someone who's never read any of these comics even once but is slightly interested?[/QUOTE]

They killed off entire universes but now they've all come back to life.

[27X]

[QUOTE=Bob The Knob;53010011]Can someone explain this to someone who's never read any of these comics even once but is slightly interested?[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.dictionary.com/browse/desperation?s=t[/url]

[Mister Sandman]

I'm more surprised that Venom b/w brown hair, a red suit and tits and iron woman are a thing

[Steel]

[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;53010046]I'm more surprised that Venom b/w brown hair, a red suit and tits and iron woman are a thing[/QUOTE]
That's Ultimate Spider-Woman and Bendis' teen girl Iron Man standin.

[maddogsamurai]

And people wonder why I only buy IDW comics. Plus Hank Pym died all the way back in "Ultimatum" in the ultimate "High stakes edgy kill-em all" arc that now has NO weight whatsoever.

[Hollywood SN]

Of course he shoves in Riri.

[Trooth]

[QUOTE=TacticalBacon;53010024]They killed off entire universes but now they've all come back to life.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like business as usual for superhero comics.

[Segab]

I don't understand what kind of people enjoy reading those endless stories of fan-service, retcons, and reskins of existing characters.
What are the stakes when there's no main hero and when dying means coming back a few months later?

[maddogsamurai]

[QUOTE=AaronM202;53010089]Of course he shoves in Riri.[/QUOTE]

Who's Riri? Why does she look like MJ?

[HumanAbyss]

Printed comics are a largely failing business these days. People don't buy issues, and the comic book store system that's in place largely doesn't work anymore.

And then you add stories like this, and the recent "Secret Wars" bullshit to the pile, and you can clearly see why comic book readers are not buying shit past the first few issues. Reboot all you like, you're hitting diminishing returns.

Writing is hard so I have sympathy for that, but this shit being published is just hurting the medium, the companies, and the highly enjoyable and deep fiction that is comics.

Dramatic choices that are quickly undone are meaningless and creatively draining. I don't like the idea of "oh this hero is just dead now" forever either, but there isn't a point to even killing a character off or let alone a universe in these mainstream comics. It just comes back.

[Steel]

[QUOTE=maddogsamurai;53010135]Who's Riri? Why does she look like MJ?[/QUOTE]
She's the girl dressed in the Iron Man armor.
[t]https://i.imgur.com/LNVFMAX.jpg[/t]
[t]https://i.imgur.com/D0FCvun.jpg[/t]
[t]https://i.imgur.com/WCWtwgQ.jpg[/t]
She's also great at literally everything she does.

[Vornmusion]

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;53010209]Dramatic choices that are quickly undone are meaningless and creatively draining. I don't like the idea of "oh this hero is just dead now" forever either, but there isn't a point to even killing a character off or let alone a universe in these mainstream comics. It just comes back.[/QUOTE]

That's why I never got into comics in the first place. Too many reboots and alternate universes/timelines/whatever. Nothing has any weight or meaning or finality because it will be undone later or they'll just start up a different variation to keep selling issues. I like my stories to end with canon endings that stay that way so we can all move on to something new.

If you keep changing the ending or the meaning of it after the fact, or retcon the entire story completely, then I may as well have just read fanfiction for all it matters.

[Swilly]

Some comic book series do well with reboots/alternates.

Spider man surprisingly is one of them, so is Batman.

The rest, [B]god no.[/B] A lot of them should've ended ages ago and new heros taken up the mantel but that'd require creativity.

[chunkymonkey]

[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;53010231]She's the girl dressed in the Iron Man armor.
[t]https://i.imgur.com/LNVFMAX.jpg[/t]
[t]https://i.imgur.com/D0FCvun.jpg[/t]
[t]https://i.imgur.com/WCWtwgQ.jpg[/t]
She's also great at literally everything she does.[/QUOTE]

I this was any more on-the-nose everyone in these panels would be literal giant noses.

[Mister Sandman]

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;53010209]Printed comics are a largely failing business these days. People don't buy issues, and the comic book store system that's in place largely doesn't work anymore.

And then you add stories like this, and the recent "Secret Wars" bullshit to the pile, and you can clearly see why comic book readers are not buying shit past the first few issues. Reboot all you like, you're hitting diminishing returns.

Writing is hard so I have sympathy for that, but this shit being published is just hurting the medium, the companies, and the highly enjoyable and deep fiction that is comics.

Dramatic choices that are quickly undone are meaningless and creatively draining. I don't like the idea of "oh this hero is just dead now" forever either, but there isn't a point to even killing a character off or let alone a universe in these mainstream comics. It just comes back.[/QUOTE]

It's hilarious that manga, a foreign medium, seems to be doing so blatantly better in the US than comic books are. I've never seen a youth buy comic books, just mangas. Which is fine with me because manga is tyoically better anyway
Even in my local nerd store the shelves are dominated with comics of Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Invader Zim, Lumberjanes, and various video game comics and manga as opposed to Marvel Superhero comics.

[Trooth]

[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;53010453]It's hilarious that manga, a foreign medium, seems to be doing so blatantly better in the US than comic books are. I've never seen a youth buy comic books, just mangas. Which is fine with me because manga is tyoically better anyway
Even in my local nerd store the shelves are dominated with comics of Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Invader Zim, Lumberjanes, and various video game comics and manga as opposed to Marvel Superhero comics.[/QUOTE]

Honestly I started reading manga about a year ago, and there are lots of advantages it has over the long-running superhero comics and shit we have in the US, some of which were mentioned in the above post. One Piece might be an outrageously fucking long series, but everybody who gets into it is able to do it from the exact same starting point. There's no disagreement on where to begin the series. I don't know if there are any spinoffs or side stories outside the main publication, but whenever shit like that exists in manga, 99% of the time people agree that it's not necessary to read.

But if you want to get into X-men, what are you going to do, read every issue that came out every week since the fucking 60s? You going to read every Superman comic starting from the goddamn 30s? It won't be long before too much story material exists in these franchises for a single person to read it all within their lifetime.

Another thing I like about manga is that, in most cases, one series is the artistic vision of one person. It's rare that one series has more than one writer, and hell, they don't even usually have multiple [i]artists[/i]. I know lots of them have assistants who do some of the illustration, but it's nice that a series has a single person driving it, and generally little outside influence, letting them make pretty much whatever the fuck they want.

Another advantage? Most of them END. As in, conclude. A complete story without abrupt cancellations or awkward reboots. Even fucking DBZ and Naruto ended after their thousand years in publication. Granted, we now have Dragon Ball Super and Boruto, but those first series DID conclude.

[Mister Sandman]

[QUOTE=Eonart;53010487][URL="http://opticbread.tumblr.com/post/169006992589/vonisv-i-was-thinking-about-why-i-prefer-to"]http://opticbread.tumblr.com/post/169006992589/vonisv-i-was-thinking-about-why-i-prefer-to[/URL]

Surprisingly, people prefer consistent universes and stories over whatever the fuck superhero comics do.
Whenever I see something I like with a superhero comic, I don't know where it's supposed to lie in everything, some canon or universe, or if I remember seeing a certain character die in another thing before.

When I see these things, I'm seeing the writer's story for the characters they've chosen to represent, but it's wrapped up in this commercialisation, and in the end isn't really a realisation of the character and developing them, but just one of many writers told to work on them to promote a certain kind of story to appeal to a specific fanbase but not necessarily a fanbase of that character, usually just the writers.

I have no interest because there's too much of it and nothing to make me care about a character inbetween stories.[/QUOTE]

Pretty much. It doesn't help that the original versions of most of these comics are [I]extremely[/I] dated, because they were drawn in the 50s and 60s.
I reckon MOST comic book fans are mostly going to be fans because they got in to it when they were kids and just started reading whatever because they didn't care. And comic books are still mostly aimed at children-teenagers. Trouble is that's unsustainable because children have better things to do than read comics now; they have readily available cartoons whenever they want which they didn't used to have, they have countless movie and cartoon adaptations of their favorite superheroes if they're in to that, and, oh yeah, they have fuckin' video games and youtube videos.
Manga, on the other hand, appeals to all ages. You want kid stuff? You got kid stuff, try Naruto or One Piece or whatever. You want stuff aimed more at teenagers? Black Butler and such. You want adult stuff? Try Jojo or Beserk or something. You want porn? Hentai. You want stuff for girls? They got stuff for girls. And in any manga franchise all you have to do is start reading 'Volume 1'.

Honestly if you asked me what I want out of the comic book industry to make me read comic books it basically wouldn't look like the comic book industry anymore. Here's a list of changes I would make to appeal to me;
[quote]1.No more big fuckhuge stupid comic book universes where 18 different franchises collide in one big clusterfuck superhero orgy you can't even keep track of what heroes exist in this universe or not (and are constantly wondering why they still have a villain problem with THAT MANY SUPERHEROES). Most franchises have to be self contained in their own universes.
2.No more reboots. Don't fuck up and complicate things to an extent that you [I]need[/I] a reboot in the first place, how about that?
3.Let dead characters die. I know the death bait-and-switch is because they make more money from "Superman is really dead this time you guys" but frankly that's an unsustainable practice. You shouldn't need to fake killing off a character to make sales.
4.Stop focusing so much on superheroes in the first place. Why is the industry so limited to this? The biggest comic to grab my attention in recent years has been Transmetropolitan, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with superheroes and more some fuckin weirdo gonzo journalist in the future. Hell yeah. Or Maus. Or Lumberjanes.
5.Speaking of Lumberjanes, quit making token efforts to appeal to minorities/the youth of today. Making ultra-minority supergirl isn't going to please many people, and it'll probably end up pissing even more off. And you won't get many more comic fans for the reasons above and also superhero comics with the same boring art the industry's been drawing for decades now don't appeal to the youth of today. Y'know what appeals to the youth of today? Shit like Lumberjanes, Gravity Falls, Adventure Time.[/quote]

The manga industry can give me manga about some 14 year old loser girl who desperately wants to be popular in high school but doesn't understand social interaction at all, or a comic about a 19th century aristocrat with a demon for a butler who owns the aristocrat's soul and intends to collect one day, or a manga about dragons with tits, or a manga about prohibition era gangsters, or a manga about vampire hunting but also bizarre spirits that fight for you with special powers and a story that spans generations in one family over the course of decades.

The comic book industry can give me Spiderman or Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman or The Flash or Green Lantern or Thor or Iron Man or so on and so on and [I]so on, endlessly.[/I] Change it if you want to appeal to me and many others. Make comics about things that aren't fuckin' superheroes, and get your shit together. Yes a change of this scale would piss off a lot of comic book fans, but they're a niche compared to what they could be attracting. Yes a change of this scale would not give immediate success, probably the opposite, but it'll take time to convince people who aren't fans of comics that the comics industry can actually cater to things that interest them.
It is not impossible, Japanese people are not using magic. Manga has proven that this format can work far better in the west.

[sir whoopsalot]

[QUOTE=Bob The Knob;53010011]Can someone explain this to someone who's never read any of these comics even once but is slightly interested?[/QUOTE]

Imagine if the season finale of The Walking Dead brought back every character who died in previous seasons all of a sudden.

[Not DuCT]

Just give Hickman back The Maker and let him finish what he started. Please. Evil Mr. Fantastic is one of the most interesting things done in the Marvel universe in a while.

[londonbeckett]

This is the reason I love Image. A lot of comics with one ongoing story, and those who die stay dead.

Saga, The Walking Dead, Copperhead, The Autmnlands: Tooth and Claw, Rat Queens, and so many more.

If I could reccomend one, read Saga. It’s space Romeo and Juliet on crack.

[ignhelper]

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;53010209]Printed comics are a largely failing business these days. People don't buy issues, and the comic book store system that's in place largely doesn't work anymore.

And then you add stories like this, and the recent "Secret Wars" bullshit to the pile, and you can clearly see why comic book readers are not buying shit past the first few issues. Reboot all you like, you're hitting diminishing returns.

Writing is hard so I have sympathy for that, but this shit being published is just hurting the medium, the companies, and the highly enjoyable and deep fiction that is comics.

Dramatic choices that are quickly undone are meaningless and creatively draining. I don't like the idea of "oh this hero is just dead now" forever either, but there isn't a point to even killing a character off or let alone a universe in these mainstream comics. It just comes back.[/QUOTE]

Back in 06 or 07, when I was a dumb fucking kid, I saw this ultimate avengers cover with Iron man and I thought oh cool and asked mum to get it for me.

Turns out it was halfway through one of the many comic book series, and then when I finished it was a wait what what the fuck I need to buy more.

It was like 25 bucks an issue or something. I'm not that rich as a kid.

Granted I had no clue about comics but it was the only marvel comic I bought. I had read tintin and asterix and obelisk and those were complete stories within a single comic book

My main issue is that there is no 1 single storyline in the marvel universe. Which one do I follow? The new or old one?

At least with the cinematic universe there is 1 plot line which was easy to follow.

[maddogsamurai]

Funny enough a writer from IDW is getting flak for the most recent issue of [I]Lost Light[/I] concluding a three issue arc (#10-12). People are saying it's great for not giving the audience what they expected and being downright shocking on how it ends and that several reads makes it even better. Then you have the other side of the argument claiming it sucks for NOT meeting their expectations and the swerve near the end is "for the sake of shock value." I have YET to see "The Last Jedi", but I feel like the reactions are similar.

One of my favorite things about the Transformers comics is when they do have arcs, it's usually 3-5 issues long and always sticks to one branch so that you don't have to backtrack to get the full scope of the story and its characters.

[Coldmute]

[QUOTE=Combin0wnage;53011369]This is the reason I love Image. A lot of comics with one ongoing story, and those who die stay dead.

Saga, The Walking Dead, Copperhead, The Autmnlands: Tooth and Claw, Rat Queens, and so many more.

If I could reccomend one, read Saga. It’s space Romeo and Juliet on crack.[/QUOTE]
I love the stuff Image does, but Saga just did not appeal to me at all. I read the first two volumes for it and while there was some interesting elements, I didn't find them making an enjoyable whole.

[Geikkamir]

Garth Ennis needs to make "The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe 2: This Time it's Canon"

And then all the Marvel heroes are actually dead

Forever

[Lowland]

If you ask me, Iron Man was always a bit of a female[url=http://puu.sh/yPA4K/3c371b3dd0.jpg].[/url]

[SirDrone]

Wasn't this pretty much known anyway? I thought a few survivors of the universe purge escaped but everyone else is still dead.