Ultimates 3 #3 (OF 5)

Train wreck indeed: 90's style.

This book seems to capture Jeph Loeb at an amazing point in his career where his lack of subtlety (hell, he can't even maintain a Millar level), lack of creativity (the Hawkeye/Wolverine spat is abut 400 cliches stacked and held together with a thick mass of Rob Liefeld masculine gel), and inability to tell a story have reached all new peaks simultaneously. Now, there was a time when Loeb was my favorite writer inthe industry. I was just coming back to comics and Hush was the biggest thing around. Superman/Batman was superb. I ended up checking out the Marvel color series, etc., etc., all great. Slowly but surely he's been descending down to the level of plain unreadable and the first three issues of this series have been just that.

Let's look at this issue for instance: Wolverine tells everyone a flashback story about him in the Savage Land seeing Wanda and Pietro getting frisky and him in Wungadore almost becoming Wanda's father. The relevance of this? To send the Ultimates to the Savage Land.

Now, wait, I know what you all are saying. You've seen this storytelling method before.

Step 1: Steal Underpants (Wolverine Flashback)
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit! (Go to the Savage Land)

Three issues into a 5 issue mini and all we've learned:
*The Ultimates are under attack.
*No one's motivations are clear.
*Iron Man is a robert version of the vagina aliens from ID4.
*Hawkeye needs to watch his mouth. (or so I'm told)

To top off the over the top, incest laden, "no story" writing we have Joe Mad providing over the top 90's style Top Cow women and 400 pounds of muscle versions of the male heroes. Add in super dark digital painting and you have a muddled mess on a large series of pages.

And apparently this is going to be part of the core lead-in to the Ultimatum event. Awesome. A prelude of suck.