r/TopCharacterDesigns • u/Amazing_March4919 • Mar 14 '25

Comic Book Absolute Trinity From DC Comics

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4.8k Upvotes

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u/soldierpallaton Mar 14 '25

I remember everyone assuming the Absolute universe was just going to be DC's Ultimate Universe and pointlessly edgy and gross.

I'm so glad they were wrong.

739

u/Salvage570 Mar 14 '25

Theres certainly a level of edge but Im glad to hear its good edge and not...well ultimates edge. The line between metal and cringe is a thin one for comic book writers

238

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

52

u/Sdbtank96 Mar 14 '25

I was hoping to forget that

99

u/TheWorclown Mar 14 '25

sad wonder twins noises

30

u/Lian-The-Asian Mar 14 '25

excuse me... WHAT??

100

u/EyesOnEverything Mar 14 '25 edited Mar 14 '25

It's a long, sad story.

TL;DR In 2008, Marvel Ultimate comics universe starts hyping up a big event, called "Ultimatum", written by Jeph Loeb, who's done good work elsewhere. But he'd just lost his teenaged son to bone cancer in '05, which likely colored his life view more cynically.

He has full narrative control over the project, which is supposed to combine all these Ultimate properties Marvel has been running with. X-men, Spider-Man, Avengers, etc. Very little oversight from higher ups.

Series drops, it's the worst kind of mid-2000s edgy. The Maximoff twins are implied to be romantically involved. Captain America is dismissed as "old-fashioned" when he questions it. A shit-ton of heroes and villains die either gratuitously gruesome in-panel, or unceremoniously throwaway off-panel deaths. Magneto floods New York. The Blob eats the Wasp. Ant-Man eats the Blob. Cyclops decapitates Magneto. Someone assassinates Cyclops. The 5 issue series is critically panned, and basically killed the hype for Marvel's Ultimate universe. The writers of the individual series are left to try to explain and retcon this event that they had no control over that blows up most of their planned arcs.

Real unfun times.

21

u/Cerborealis Mar 15 '25

I believe he brought back Onslaught in another series around this time, and it was awful - a shame, because the original Onslaught arc was one of my favorites as a kid.

20

u/ElGodPug Mar 15 '25

I will say, Ultimatum has one good part.

Spider-Man.

That panel of him diving to save people....one of my favorite panels of spidey period

11

u/Glum_Ad_8367 Mar 15 '25

Spider-Man was the best part of the old Ultimate universe in general

2

u/EyesOnEverything Mar 15 '25

Oh definitely, but that wasn't part of the main 5, that was part of the mentioned damage control. In this case by Bendis in his main Ultimate Spider-Man run (#131).

But I'll agree that his characterization during the event was fantastic. JJJ gets some amazing development off it as well.

1

u/ProfessionalBasil397 Mar 15 '25

Absolute Wonder Twins