#ultimate comics

After looking back through the uktimate comics and ultimate spider-man: the series, I noticed that a good few of the villain designs in the show differ quite a lot from their comicbook counterparts. So I thought I'd have a little fun and compare some of the comic and show designs of the villains that differ the most, and see which ones I prefer.

Just a few things to get out of the way before we start.

1. I'm only gonna be analyzing the designs. The characterization and abilities of the the villains will be irrelevent to the discussion.

2. Two of these villains designs go through some drastic changes in the show. I'll be sticking to the primary designs of them as they differ more from the comics than their final designs. Just to keep things consistant and interesting.

3. If you disagree with my picks, that's totally valid! This is just my silly personal opinion, and it's heavily biased with my own personal preferences.

With that out of the way, let's dive in!

Doctor Octopus

Starting off, let's talk about the overracching antagonist of the show, doctor octopus. While the comic version's colors and the fact that the tenactles are one his stomach is a neat touch, i've honestly never reall cared for a physically fit muscular doc ock(which is also why I hate the final design of show doc ock but that's a topic for another day). I much prefer the show's more decrepit, withered, and ghastly look for the good doctor, ans the fact that the arms are something he needs to get around is a much more interesting design choice. Show doc ock is honestly my favorite doc ock design of all time.

Winner: Show

The Vulture

This is an interesting case as comics vulture and show vulture are two different people entirely, with comics being blackie drago and the show being adrian toomes. Also, these two have completely different direction with blackie having a flight-suit and adrian being a mutated were-vulture. And this case, blackie is the clear winner here. His design is fairly simple, but works very well for what it is. As much as I love a good bird creature design, adrian just looks terrible. The beak-chin-thing looks ridiculous, he has hair for some reason, the wings look wonky and awkward, his feathers are somehow green, and they made him a plantigrade! That's one of the biggest no-no's when making bird characters for me. I'm so glad adrian's design got revamped later on, it looks so much better.

Winner: Comics

The Rhino

Like with vulture, these two rhinos are different people entirely, with R.H.I.N.O.'s identity being unkown an show rhino being alex O'hirn. Also, like vulture, the show and the comics go in different directions with R.H.I.N.O. being a guy in a cybernetic suit, and alex being a human-rhino hybrid. This is a lot closer of a decision than before, cuz I honestly like the ideas for these designs, but alex falls short for one little problem: the face. The humanoid face just throws his design off and brings it down for me. If they made his face more rhinoceros-like, I would've called this a tie. But as it stands, R.H.I.N.O just looks such more more intimidating and imposing.

Winner: Comics

Shocker

Intestingly, show shocker's deisng takes on much more like his mainline counterpart than his ultimate counterpart, and while I generally like a full-body-suited shocker, here he just looks so...bland. like seriously, his comic design is so much more eye catching and cool looking.

Winner: Comics

The Lizard

The comcindesign for ultimate lizard is by far my favorite lizard design of all time. I love that he's not a generic green color, I live his sleek stealthy phsyique, and I abolsutely love that his design looks like a composite of sveral different lizards like basilisks, iguanas, monitors, and geckos. By far my absolute favorite lizard design. Now, in all fairness, there are aspects of show lizard that I like, such as his iguana spines and his long snout. But his wonky proportions, chicken legs, and getup make him look more like the hulk's scalesona than "the lizard".

Winner: Comics

Comics-4

Show-1

...personally I think Bobby could have walked that off just fine. I don't think the Ultimate X-Men ever figured out he could rebuild himself from a few drops of water, but he's bound to figure it out whenever he's put in a situation like this.

Is it true Nat ate Clint’s kids or is whoever mentioned that tripping?

well…I like the og ultimate comics but there’s A LOT of nonsense in them. I can appreciate a fresh, new take but a lot of the plot was just edgy for the sake of being edgy because it was post-9/11

however, the ultimate comics are incredibly influencial, especially to the mcu. the aesthetic of the first avengers movie was pretty much entirely taken from ultimates & ultimates 2, and many plot points were also taken from the ultimate comics.

for example, bruce became the hulk from a gamma bomb in 616 and ults bruce became the hulk via a botched attempt at the super soldier serum. sounds familiar, right? plus the ultimates members are basically just the mcu avengers with tony, steve, bruce, thor, clint, natasha, wanda, and pietro with the only difference being that janet and hank are also on the team.

clint having a family was also taken from the ultimate comics. and while natasha didn’t eat clint’s kids, she was responsible for their deaths 😬 not great, I know but at least she’s not a cannibal which is more than what I can say for other characters because one of the moments everyone likes to forget is blob eating wasp and saying she tastes like chicken, which is probably the cannibalism aspect you’re referencing.

plus bucky and steve were childhood friends in the ultimates, unlike 616 where bucky was a child soldier. here’s a post where I went into a bit more detail about ults steve and bucky: link

god, ults steve. what a guy. it’s probably an unpopular opinion but I love him. he’s basically john walker in the sense where he’s an asshole but also kinda earnest? he’s a fascinating character and personally, one of the highlights of the ultimate universe. he’s also unintentially very funny

but what everyone can probably agree is that ultimate spider-man was the best part. I know spidey being a teenager is overdone right now but it was fresh take at the time since peter hadn’t been a kid for about 35 ish or so years by 2000. USM turned out to be such a success that the ASM movies took plot points from that run and mcu spider-man is heavily influenced by the version. and of course, we also got miles morales from that comic run

and how can I forget ults reed richards, aka the maker, aka an absolute psycho and one of the best villains marvel has made.

but besides the positives, there are a lot of negatives. hank is straight up abusive to janet and it’s heartbreaking to see, wanda and pietro are in an incestuous relationship, wolverine is a pedo creep, cannibalism is present, and the overall jingoism.

LMAO Deniz Camp is SO funny.

Oh the Maker is DEAD