After about 8+ months of being on a comic book hiatus I've started to catch up on things I've missed out on. The new Ultimates series being one of them.

Wow. Talk about a blow to the mommy/daddy buttons. Three issues deep and I'm wondering what went wrong with Joeph Loeb. After closing the book on issue three I was starting to wonder if he forgot how to write.

I can understand Hawkeye being a little bent about losing his family, but to the degree of becoming a sociopath... For a character with a target on his head he's really missed the mark. The bit with him pointing his gun at anyone who speaks to him is absurd. I'm starting to think they've switched Clint Barton for Myron Reducto from Harvey Birdman: Attorney at law. The only dialog that should be appearing in Hawkeye's speech balloon should be "BACK OFF!"

Thor and Valkerie. You're doing it wrong. Sudeenly Thor's speaking with a Shakespearian twist, and she's getting moist at the most pedestrian of actions from Thor, like so:

Thor: "Forsooth! Fortunate News! I hath saveth currency on thine's horseless chariot!"
Valkerie: "Thats hawt... PORK ME!"

Not buying it, or enjoying it. Over-kill on an already diluted plot.

Suddenly the Wasp is in charge. OMGWTFBBQ! I don't have a problem with that, but at least some kind of handing over the reigns would have been nice instead of having to take this at face value.

And for the love Jeebus can they turn down the volume on Cap's old-man-winter-from-the-50's rejection of modern life a bit. He defrosted into a time and place he doesn't understand and he's just a cave man frightened by our strange liberated women and sharp dialog. If they're going to keep up his man out of time schtick they may as well kill off Steve Rogers from a life-ending brain aneurysm while the poor schmuck battles with trying to figure out sending an email attachment. (This should be a battlefield condition). All the Red Skull would have to do is send him a PDF attachment and some poor S.H.I.E.L.D. agent will find Cap foamy mouthed and bleeding out the nose in front of his computer.

Oh, and Cap as Black Panther... have you lost your fuggin mind!?! I feel like they just built a ramp that gives them the right hight to achieve proper speed and distance to jump over the Fonz jumping over a shark tank.

Iron Man wasted is something I can never get enough of, but the degree to which he's wasted would probably give the Mighty Hercules psoriasis.

I can't wait for this book to end so another set of talent can take over and put what was once a great series back on track. Sadly, this probably won't happen until about 2026 with Joe Maduria doing the pencils. I'm amazed he was even able to push out three issues during the EIGHT MONTHS that I wasn't reading comics. Did his xbox get the red ring of death or something?

The whole thing feels like a nice grass-fed steak fillet properly seasoned and cooked to a perfect medium rare was just sent back to the kitchen to be "nuked" for 3 minutes on high. Overdone and without any distinguishing flavor.

Um... Hawkeye makes more sense if you realize Clint Barton isn't Ultimate Hawkeye, he's Ultimate Bullseye using the name Hawkeye.

Beyond that, yeah, agree with you 110%.

Yes, it's really a sad end to what was a beautiful run in the Ultimate Universe. So, so sad...

Huh? He is? I thought Ult Hawkeye was Clint Barton....Ult Bullseye was some dude Daredevil beat up.

I hate to be the naysayer, but Ultimate 1 and 2 were things of beauty....Ultimates 3 reads like Image Comic's Youngblood circa 1991 or so. The dialog and plot are quite awful.

Sadly I think I would take Liefeld's pickle-thighed people rendered over nebulous gradient backgrounds to the Ultimates version 3.

A friend of mine pointed out that they may try to turn Ultimate Hawkeye into Bullseye, I really hope not. I figured it was a nod towards Bullseye, but I was hoping it was just that.

I’m glad someone got around to throwing up another Ultimates 3 topic, as I’ve been waiting for an opportunity on this one. Originally, I was of the same opinion as GammaBomb and Peers, but now I’ve come to actually LIKE Ultimates 3 - not because of any semblance of quality, but simply because it’s so over-the-top bad, it’s as if it’s an unintentional ‘critique by excess’ of everything that’s wrong (or at least, what I don’t care for) in comics today. The game is played a lot like Buzzword Bingo – just check off the clichés as you see ‘em:

Lack of continuity (Wasp was Asian… and now she’s not, among other violations) – Check!
Gratuitous appearance by unrelated yet popular popular characters (e.g. Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man) – Check!
Tons of substance abuse to be ‘edgy’ (e.g. Stark, Pym) – Check!
Inclusion on non-mainstream sexual preferences to be ‘edgy’ (e.g. Wanda, Pietro) – Check!
Hard-boiled vigilante with a death-wish (Hawkeye) – Check!
Suggestion that Captain America is no longer relevant to today’s values or mores – Check!

Which is not even to mention the bad, bad dialogue, the whole Black Panther deal (I question whether that can have any sort of satisfying resolution when Loeb has telegraphed the ‘secret’ halfway through the series) and the fact that it seems as if he doesn’t have a clear ending in mind and is making this stuff up as he goes (and throwing in guest stars galore to distract the reader). But it’s effectively like holding Quesada’s Marvel up to a mirror and forcing the reader to take a good, long look. Sure, other comics may not have these clichés in the absurd concentration and to the excessive degree that Ultimates 3 does, but they’re in most books today.

Dude has a target carved into hsi forehead and escaped a super-holding-cell by chewing off his fingernails and spitting them at people to kill them.

He's Bullseye with a different name.

Yeah, good point....but Bullseye already appeared in Ultimate Daredevil!! Poor editor-ship ruined the Ultimates Universe!!!

Is it just me or do you think Cap is Black Panther?

Yeah, I dropped Ultimates from my pull list as I looked over issue #1 at the store. Ech.

Why can't we just have an anti-Loeb thread? That way I can say how much I hate his Hulk book but keep reading it because it's the only Hulk book available right now.

That's the conclusion I came to as well. All I can say is there better be a BIG swerve or a whole lot of character development to explain this over the final two issues, otherwise I'm missing the point of why Loeb created a second costumed identity for Cap and gave it away so early in the run in the first place.

I just assumed it was Cap and that this book was aimed at like 13 yr old's that will feel like big Boys when they figure that out.

I dropped it with issue 1. Unreadable garbage.

If he wanted to go over the top, he should have gone another way. I would have done "Authority" style over the top, a reality threatening menace. Maybe some sort of a new twist on Kang.

I stuck with it for two issues, one more than I wanted to just to be 100% sure I wasn't loosing my mind and that Loeb really had gone mad. He has.

I had the misfortune of picking up issue 2 and 3, but not reading them until picking up issue one off of ebay. Had I started from the get-go I would have saved myself some coin.