10 Times Marvel Went Too Far

5. Ultimatum

Rogue Ultimatum
Marvel Comics

The Ultimate universe had long since attained a reputation for being the edgelord middle school younger brother to the mainline 616 universe by the time Ultimatum came out, but its release crystalized that reputation and made sure that it would be etched into its tombstone, never to be escaped. Guess that's what happens when you make a comic that features one of the founding Avengers getting eaten alive.

Ultimatum is pretty much the perfect embodiment of everything that was wrong with the Ultimate universe when Jeph Loeb replaced Mark Millar on the main Ultimates title: over-reliance on gore, obscene content with nothing on a thematic level to give it any meaning, a frankly shocking hatred of women, and the overall tone of a 13 year old boy screaming obscenities online because that's what he thinks a badass looks like.

The whole book is one long celebration of pushing the envelope of good taste for the sheer sake of doing so, but the two moments that stand out are when the eponymous Ultimatum wave hits New York, drowning everyone in the five boroughs (including several X-Men and even Daredevil), and then of course the moment Blob cannibalises Wasp's corpse, prompting Hank Pym to retaliate by eating Blob in his Giant Man form.

Yuck.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?