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| Like our spiritual liege [[Matt Ward]], Graham McNeill is a fan of the Ultramarines. While you would expect that this would be fail, McNeill's writting not only makes it tolerable, but down right awesome. What makes McNeill a better writer than Ward is a simple overriding principle: Graham McNeill does not write the Ultramarines as flawless [[Mary Sue]]s. In fact, Uriel Ventris, the protagonist of McNeill's Ultramarines series, has Uriel screw up massively in every book. His first campaign as a Captain saw Uriel release the [[C'tan|Nightbringer]] on the galaxy, which had fans assuming that the Ultramarines had just damned the entire galaxy to a slow, agonizing death. The revelation that the C'tan are now shards limits this somewhat, but Ventris still probably doomed most of the Ultima Segmentum to a horrible death. His subsequent actions aren't much better, what with stirring up a hornet's nest on Medrengard, causing the ghosts of victims of an Imperial Guard massacre to gain enough strength to possess mutants he brought to the planet and kill those responsible, and bringing down the wrath of the Iron Warriors on Ultramar.
| | He's taller and has less hair than Ward. Also, he wrote the Ultramarines from the perspective of a novellist, so they're more interesting. Ward's "Fuck Yeah, buy this shit kiddies, it's cool" is the sort of thing Design Studio have to write (in order to sell toys), whereas McNeil had more freedom, and thus wrote better stories. |
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| Even then, Uriel is not the only flawed Ultramarine. Cato Sicarius, the great and vaunted Captain of the Second Company, is portrayed as a borderline megalomaniac who is more interested in taking risks to become Chapter Master than for the Chapter. Perhaps the biggest shocker is that Marneus Calgar, everyone's favorite Mary Sue, actually lied to the Ultramarines about killing [[M'kar]] in 935.M41, instead binding him to the star fort ''Indomitable'' and claiming to "tear him limb from limb" as propaganda (with the implication being that all subsequent appearances by M'kar being equal propaganda)
| | TL:DR; McNeil's stuff is Herp, Ward's stuff is Derp. |
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| Throughout the series, Graham McNeill explores how adherence to the [[Codex Astartes]] can be both a benefit and a drawback. After the battle for Tarsis Ultra, Uriel is charged with violating the Codex and put on trial. First Captain Severus Agemman visits Uriel and explains to him that ultimately, the Codex isn't about being a good soldier, it's about how to be a loyal Space Marine. This makes a ton of sense in hindsight, as the [[Imperium of Man]] has routinely shown that it holds independent thinking as the first step on the road to [[Chaos]]. By the end of the series, the rest of the Ultramarines are starting to realize that blindly following the Codex is costing them in the war with M'kar and [[Honsou]].
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| Yet McNeill doesn't show the Ultramarines as completely flawed, either. Throughout the series, McNeill strives to emphasis that Uriel and the Ultramarines actually give a crap about the common people of the Imperium. At the same time, McNeill gives credit where it's due to other Imperial organizations, such as having the [[Raven Guard]] be able to sneak inside a ''Capitolis Imperialis'' vehicle, and even surprise Torias Telion simply be standing in the shadows. These things occur in ''The Chapter's Due'', which is basically [[Black Library]] trying to repair the damage ''Codex: Space Marines'' did to the Ultramarines standing in the fandom.
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| One must wonder how Matt Ward feels about this humbling and shockingly human portrayal of the Ultramarines. Does he agree and try to change his past writing? Of course not! In ''Codex: [[Grey Knights]]'', Ward blatantly and pettily ignores ''The Chapter's Due'' retcons about M'kar and instead inserts him into the creation of everyone's least favorite Mary Sue, [[Kaldor Draigo]]. At this point there is pretty much an undeclared war between McNeill and several other Black Library writers against Ward in trying to repair the Ultramarines image.
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| But we don't care. No fluff Matt writes is canon[This pleases him].
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| [[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] | | [[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] |
| [[Category:Writers]] | | [[Category:Writers]] |
| [[category:Black Library]] | | [[category:Black Library]] |
Revision as of 12:56, 21 November 2012
A writer for the Black Library.
Not Dan Abnett, but forms the Holy Trinity of Black Library writers with him and Sandy Mitchell, (Which makes ADB the holy child or something)
Wrote the Ultramarines novels and some Iron Warriors shit. When he's writing them, the Ultramarines are not just tolerable but actually awesome.
He's also written several Horus Heresy books, including A Thousand Sons, the first Black Library book to hit the New York Times Bestseller list, the infamous short story The Last Church. On the other hand, he did write The Reflection Crack'd, which had Fabius Bile rape Fulgrim with an iron rod. So fail there. Oh, and Codex: Black Templars.
Differences with Matt Ward
He's taller and has less hair than Ward. Also, he wrote the Ultramarines from the perspective of a novellist, so they're more interesting. Ward's "Fuck Yeah, buy this shit kiddies, it's cool" is the sort of thing Design Studio have to write (in order to sell toys), whereas McNeil had more freedom, and thus wrote better stories.
TL:DR; McNeil's stuff is Herp, Ward's stuff is Derp.
