Mark Millar Shares His Thoughts On THE ULTIMATES Influence On MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS

Hopefully "The Avengers" will prove them wrong.

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but the Avengers characters were regarded by management as less commercial than the X-Men
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Perhaps CA, IM 1-2 and Thor already surpassed the X-men movies in total gross?

I loved the Ultimates. There were a few problems I had with it like how they treated the Hulk but overall it was a fun take on the characters.

@telavizion .... lol

Like comicbOOkguy I have always hated The Ultimates. The stories themselves were never the problem. The problem was the fact that the characters portrayed WERE NOT THE AVENGERS. If they would have simply given the book different characters I probably would have enjoyed the books.

Captain America was never an arrogant, quipping, kick you in the face when the fight is over, douchbag. Thor was never a peace activist, hippie, sent to Earth to save us, pacifist. Hulk was never a murderous cannibal.
They took the best thing about Hawkeye (his personality) and completely threw it away. Lets not even start about Quicksilver and Wanda's freaky, incestuous relationship. And although all they did to Stark was ramp him up like he was on cocaine, they took Marvels version of Alfred (Jarvis) and turned him into a sex freak drag queen.

Also, even though The Avengers had worked with the government many times over the years, in this book they now became the Governments puppet. I've said before and I'll say it again, all Millar did was rename Youngblood, The Avengers.

However, this movie still excites the Hell out of me due to the fact that it's clear from the previous films that the main reason for my taste of the books does not show up in the film. So far, every single Avenger we have met has retained their classic personality (save Stark). The characters on the team are the classics we grew up with not the twisted up versions from the Ultimates.

I can't wait.

@Hawksblueyes

Completely agree, well said. However, Stark in the movies is very similar to Stark in the comics during the late 80's and Early 90's. I'm pretty comfortable with the way he behaves as being 616 Stark.

@Just1Superguy

Wow, a typical DC fanboy rant on the Avenger movie; didn't see that coming.

Seriously, I enjoy DC comics as much as the next guy but I think you are being ridiculous to let your love of great comics like that get in a way of enjoying an event like this.

Right on, I loved the Ultimates, one of my favorite comics of all time.

I remember reading it and it seemed to be written and drawn very cinematically, like it was more of a movie then a comic the way the story was told and the visuals were portrayed, and apparently others felt the same way :)

Ultimates definitely paved the way for The Avengers movie

I'm glad they went with the ultimates avengers. The characters are more modern and relevant. As great as it would be to get the original Avengers on the screen their costumes and naieve good-guy attitudes would not do well in a movie.

Just imagine seeing that purple travesty that's hawkeye's suit, or visions green-and-yellow suit for that matter. These characters look great in comics but in real life they'd be laughed at. While people hate the paramilitary suits for the ultimates its what a hero would wear, so the characters are both fantastical and believable. Caps new suit still looks awful, though.

I'm with Millar on this one... for a change. And to hear him act humble for a change is also pretty neat.

monkeyballs- I have to disagree, personally at least. Of all the MARVEL produced movies I enjoyed everyone (even Iron Man 2 which people hate for some reason). The Fox produced gargbage that is X-Men and FF and Ghost Rider movies were done by outside production companies with full use of their licenses.

As for DC I only enjoyed the first two Tim Burton and the Nolan Batman films. The other two were not up to snuff. Green Lantern could have been great but ended up only adaquete at best. I also hated all the superman movies, even the first two. People love Donner but personanlly I really dont like his Sups. Luthor was turned from a brilliant and compentant villian to a bumbling moron. Margo Kidder as Lois Lane was meh. The little action in the movies was boring. Superman only got taken out in cheap ways. The spinning backwards time thing was attrocious and added one more ridiculous thing Superman could do to make things all right. Throwing the S, nuff said about that. Zod and the other kryptonians were okay but could have been a lot better (though I did like what Terrence Stamp did with the character) Reeves as Supes was the only high point. He did a fantastic job.

Hawksblueyes Well said. I didn't like the Ultimates for the same reason. I didn't mind the story as much as how they did the characters. It was just wrong. I wanted these characters to be the same characters from the regular universe. Which they weren't. I don't mind updates but these weren't the same characters. Period. I did like the sort of scope and cinematic way Ultimates was done though. Actually out of the whole books, the only two characters I liked was Nick Fury, and Hawkeye. But that's it. Glad that the movies have kept the same characterizations of 616 with the cinematic scope of the Ultimates. I couldn't be happier with the movies. :D

marvel movies.punisher1 bad/pun 2 ok/pun 3 not so ok/spiderman 1 good.2 good/3 ok/xmen 1 good/2 good/ 3 ok/dd ok/elec. bad/hulk 1 ok/hulk 2 good/ff1 ok/ff 2 ok/didnt see the blades/ironman 1 great/iron 2 good/thor good/cap a good.and ive heard nothing but good from the avengers (mostly)

Hawksblueyes...yeah that. That's also, by the way, one of the main reasons why Civil War didn't work for me: Millar was writing the Ultimate Cap more than he was writing the classic Cap.

Eh... Fiegie himself has already said the movie version took a little from the Ultimates, but the spirit of it is grounded very much in the original Avengers... and it's absolutely true. From the various interviews Whedon has given, it's clear that the kind of jaded deconstruction that Millar attempted (without making any kind of clear point, as others have noted) was exactly the opposite of what Whedon wanted to do.

Millar didn't offer a "blueprint" to anything. All of the stuff that's getting ragged on as "we've seen it a million times before" came from his adaptation. All of the heart and character stuff that is winning acclaim came from Whedon adapting the relationships in the original and aiming for old fashioned true heroics.

Alan Moore could learn a thing or two from this guy.