Upon reading the 3rd issue of Ultimatum, I can say with confidence that anytime you see Jeph Loeb’s name on a comic title you are in for an extremely well-written work. Then again, you probably already know that….

You would think that it would be difficult to shake up audiences with a riveting new storyline when the readers have been essentially following the same characters for YEARS. The trick of comics has always been following a particular formula or storyline year after year with the style of the narrative changing slightly in order to make it more appealing.

Look folks, virtually every Marvel and DC title from 1972 – 1990 dealt with a villain of the month. The stories were essentially the same, but the subtle differences allowed us to stay engaged. With Ultimatum, we are not seeing anything new in terms of the plot. Less than a decade ago, Batman dealt with a similar storyline in No Man’s Land. However, there are major differences. Namely, the devastation caused in Ultimatum is the result of Magneto going thoroughly insane and annihilating New York City.

In No Man’s Land, it was a natural disaster and an act of God that destroyed Gotham. In Ultimatum, a madman with the ability to alter the gravitational pull of the earth finally went off the deep end and unleashed a mutant WMD attack on New York City.

What is interesting about this is the psychology of Magneto and why he would so such a thing. More than just madness, it is the fact that Magneto believes in no morals other than his own. He justifies his anger and his hatred to the point he can slaughter millions and justify it as just because it serves his own alleged purposed of creating a better world for mutants. The fact that the killed thousands of mutants in the destruction of NYC meant nothing to him. Because, really, he did not destroy NYC for the mutant cause. He did this out of his own moral blindness and self-loathing, common traits of totalitarian dictators throughout time.