The Drop List- April 30, 2008
Ultimate X-Men
Read from #1 (2001) to #93 (2008)
It’s been a long time since Ultimate X-Men has been good. Since Robert Kirkman took over from Brian K. Vaughan a few years ago, the quality of the book has greatly suffered. And that’s coming from a Kirkman-apologist.
Kirkman had a few things going against him, though. He was originally just supposed to fill in while Bryan Singer got his shit together and wrote his Ultimate X-Men story. When Singer crapped out and Kirkman was given “ongoing” status, he was saddled with art teams that changed nearly every issue. See, I told you I was an apologist.
Ultimate X-Men by Robert Kirkman has not been very good, but I kept buying out of a love for Kirkman’s other work and because Ultimate X-Men was just one of those comics I’d always buy out of habit.
Now Kirkman is leaving the title. He’s being replaced by one of the writers from Heroes, a show whose quality has never been discussed on doomkopf.com as far as I can remember. Last fall before the writer’s strike, I realized that I didn’t like Heroes and was watching it out of habit and out of a loyalty to the genre. Sort of like how I don’t like Ultimate X-Men and only buy it out of habit and loyalty to Kirkman. Funny how that worked out, huh?
Dropping Ultimate X-Men also means that I’m probably not ever going to buy another Ultimate comic. I couldn’t stand Ultimate Spider-Man past the first issue. Ultimate Fantastic Four got really boring when Mike Carey took over. And Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira ruined The Ultimates. I bought Ultimate Six, Ultimate War, Ultimate X4, and the Ultimate Galactus trilogy. But Marvel’s never going to get another Ultimate dollar out of me.
Weird…I’ve never dropped an entire universe before.
The Immortal Iron Fist
Read from #1 (2006) to #14 (2008)
Immortal Iron Fist has been an absolutely awesome comic since it debuted a little over a year ago. The series took a character I’d never cared about in my life and made him interesting to me. It introduced an entirely new mythology to what had been up until that point another tired story about a mystical city. But what I consider to be the essential part of the formula is leaving the book:
Immortal Iron Fist #14 was Ed Brubaker’s last issue as co-writer.
Matt Fraction’s a pretty decent writer (me and the Eisners seem to agree on that) and David Aja’s pencils really gave the book a tremendous look, but based on his track record I find it hard to believe that Brubaker wasn’t responsible for most of what I liked in this series.
Besides, the next issue is another Tales of the Iron Fist story, which I didn’t really like the first time around. And after that is the very last Fraction/Aja issue before some guy I’ve never heard of takes over as new series writer.
Immortal Iron Fist has been a very good series so far. Brubaker, Fraction and Aja have made the character interesting to me, but they didn’t get me interested in the character. I probably would have enjoyed any collaboration between these three creators. The fact that it was The Immortal Iron Fist was really incidental. Without these creators, I have no desire to continue reading about Danny Rand.
Man, I was all ready to say “Keep reading it! Matt Fraction is awesome, and probably responsible for way more than you give him credit for!”
And then I saw the news that he’s leaving the book too. What a huge bummer. I was hoping this was one of those books that would keep its creative team forever.
There’s a pretty cool cover story on Fraction in the latest Comic Foundry (issue 2) if you like his work.
Also, I’m with you on the Ultimate U. I dropped it a year ago and haven’t looked back.
Matt Fraction couldn’t keep me interested in the Punisher, but then again I’ve never been terribly interested in the Punisher. But then again (again), I’ve never been terribly interested in Iron Fist.
I’m pretty upset about Fraction and Bru on Iron Fist as well. I hadn’t read any of the single issues, but just as I had about convinced myself to start I get this news. Oh well.
I pretty much agree on the Ultimate Universe. There was a time when I would eat up anything the Ultimate Universe would throw at me regardless of the quality. After a while though, I realized I was just buying X-Men and Fantastic Four out of habit, and I dropped them. By the time Millar *finally* wrapped up Ultimates 2, I realized I’d both come to be bored by the story and him as a writer. Ultimate Spider-Man is the only one I still currently read, and I’m on the verge of purging that one as well – I think I primarily read it out of nostalgia, as that was the book that really opened the floodgates for monthly books. Sigh.
To the Ultimate Universe. She will be missed.
-M
They should kill it off, since its fast-forwarded storylines-for-trades with little to no respect for previous writers (especially in Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Team-Up) has made it more bogged down in confusing continuity than the decades-old universe it sought to supplement.