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With “Ultimate Comics” now in full swing– new books are being added, and some have finished– I think it’s time for all of us to look back on the things that have happened in this series of comics, and see how it compares to its legacy, Ultimate Marvel. Granted, I’m still a little annoyed by the events of Ultimatum, and Ultimates 3. You may not be. You may have enjoyed the things that happened, and the upcoming books. Or you may hate it. The point here is that there are some interesting new stories– some– that I’m going to take a bit of time to talk about the ones I’ve bothered to read and my thoughts on them. If you happen to disagree with them, well, I have a comments section.

“Ultimate Comics” as I mentioned in my discussion of Ultimatum some 300 years ago, starts about six months or so after the events of that mini-series. Things have changed, we don’t entirely know why, and some things are starting to be uncovered in a way that makes it understanding. Sometimes we don’t really understand.

I’m going to talk about these in a few paragraphs, because they’re all very early books, so I can’t really talk about them at length.

Spider-Man

Right off, I dislike the art on the early issues. Parker’s head, in the mask, is eerily round and disturbing. However, I am certainly amused and intrigued by the introduction of Mysterio (though I thought he showed up in Ultimate Spider-Man Annual 3, unless that’s a different version) and the modifications made to his costume are something that I rather enjoy. The fire is, really, a lot nicer to look at than the fishbowl head. He also looks a lot more intimidating, and a lot more like a villain.

I’m not sure how I feel about the apparent death of the Kingpin, but he was never really the same threat that he was in the 616 universe, so I can’t complain too much.

The introduction of a new hero was something that intrigued me as well, though I really found the distinction that it was merely Kitty Pryde to be a little disappointing. Especially given the already Harem of Superheroes feel that UCSM is giving off in all of these issues. And while I love Bendis, very much, I am more or less done with the constant awkwardness between Mary Jane and Parker (this may have changed with the issue that arrived either this week, or the previous, however, I haven’t read it so I don’t know). I understand that shit happened during the break between books, but we don’t need it constantly referenced. That’s Loeb stuff, and I’m gonna complain about him soon enough.

Ultimately (see what I did there?) I’m gonna keep reading this. Ultimate Spider-Man has been a very refreshing and entertaining story for me, and I really do want to see where all of this goes. Plus, dude, Bendis.

Ultimate Avengers

I want to just type in big letters “Fuck Yeah Mark Millar” and hope that you get my idea. You may not, so I’m going to have to actually sit here and tell you just why I felt such joy reading all of the issues of this series. Aside from the fact it meant that Loeb was not writing this particular incarnation of the Ultimates/Avengers.

Simply put, as I mentioned in my initial discussion of this, everyone is back. The Ultimates books were books that engaged in needless violence, but in a way that was not so much vulgar as it was hilarious. Captain America, a World War II hero, yelling at people “Does this letter on my head stand for ‘France’?” and everything else, happening in a manner that is completely ridiculous and over-the-top, and probably one of the greatest stories I’ve read.

With Millar back, we have Captain America back from being the one-note “Golly, Miss” from Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum into something a lot more “I’m sorry that you suck so much, I’m gonna go punch people in the face. Have a nice day.” The man said “What kind of girl gets stopped by a bomb?”

Hawkeye has moved on from his dead family– at least, moved on enough to stop talking about them every time he’s in the comic. All of the characters have returned to their, not quite deep and meaningful, but at least not one-note incarnations. We’re also introduced to a new Wasp, a “Nerd Hulk” and a number of others things.

Also, the Red Skull is in this comic, and he’s Captain America’s son. He’s also about as much of a bastard as you’d expect from someone being called The Red Skull in the Ultimate Universe. He’s the perfect kind of villain for Millar, horrendously violent, sociopathic, and almost making murder into an art. It’s like “Kick-Ass” but somehow even more hilarious entertaining in how sheerly morbid the entire thing is.

I can’t stop reading this series, and I desperately want Millar to make more of them, right now, to counter act some of the other things that are going on in comics.

Armor Wars

I’m a needlessly huge fan of Warren Ellis. He’s probably one of my top-five favorite writers, and I immensely enjoyed his take on Tony Stark and The Hulk in the “Ultimate Human” mini-series a while back. So I was curious, and excited to see what he was going to do with Tony this time, as Ellis’ primary traits in comics seem to involve incredibly advanced technologies, sarcasm, and explosions. Just look at, well, everything he’s written recently. This is not, in itself, a bad thing by any means. Merely something that I’ve noticed in my readings. Actually, knowing that he has recurring traits like that, to me, makes it more enjoyable.

Anyway.

Armor Wars tells us the story of Tony Stark attempting to come to terms with the fact that not only does he not have as much money as he used to, but the plans for his Iron Man armors have gotten out onto other markets, and people are more or less using them to their own advantage. Something that upsets him. In an effort to quell as much damage as he can he attempts to go back to his buildings and get plans and everything else.

He meets, in this, Justine Hammer and the ultimate incarnation of Ghost. He also sees that the police in Britain are using modified versions of his armor in an attempt to maintain order and so forth, and becomes increasingly bothered by all of this and desperately wants to end all of this presumably to go live with Justine and have a lot of drunken sex.

However, we learn at the end that the actual person behind all of this stuff was Tony’s father, wasn’t so much dead as he was turning himself into a robot thing. Tony is rather distraught by this. His father tells him that he wants the inside of some box that he’s been going after, and whenever he opens it, he sees the head of Tony Stark in another universe.

Ultimate Tony tells us that this is from an alternate universe, obviously, and that one of the interesting things about it is that the head has a security measure where it shuts down the nanofleets inside people. This bit all ends with Tony indicating that he was safe, but a cut back shows that everyone else– Justine (who had been outed as a spy of Tony’s Father), his father, and various robots had all be dead or destroyed by the head.

Tony ends up being drunk, in Berlin. I was actually kind of depressed by how short this was. I knew it was only four issues, but I barely got a chance to properly feel sympathetic for Tony and his plight. I’ve always been a fan of this incarnation of Iron Man– he’s, well, nicer. And he constantly, like the other, gets shit on and attempts to make it through. I can only hope that Ellis writes another Iron Man book in this universe.

Ultimate Enemy

An ongoing mini series right now, there isn’t much to talk about with this one. We’re introduced to the remains of the Fantastic Four– Sue and Ben Grimm– and we learn that Ben has loved sue, but she doesn’t love him. Ben is still a part of SHIELD and that everything seems to going okay, except for this really weird monster thing that is showing up and causing a huge ruckus.

The only thing that’s really interesting about this book as that it looks like it’s going to be a Samuel L. Fury centered one, which I generally enjoy because Fury is always an entertaining character when written properly, even in 616. I’ve generally enjoyed how completely and utterly annoyed he is by everything that goes on, and the use of that looks like it’s going to be something that I won’t be able to get enough of.

I’m curious to see what this mysterious monster thing is, and where this series is going, however, it looks like it’s not going to be too much of a disappointment, given that the monster has some sort of connection to Fury, and whenever that happens, you know these things tend to be interesting.

Ultimate X

Of course, not all of the comics are good comics. Ultimate X is the first of two Jeph Loeb comics that are in the Ultimate Universe. This one specifically features someone who we more or less find off right away is Wolverine’s son. He has the same bone claws as Wolverine, and his healing factor. Though this kid, whose name I can’t be bothered to remember, features the ability to coat his claws in some form of metal that we can only assume is adamantium. So apparently there’s that as well.

The book, like the next one, is only on Issue #1, however, I’m already incredibly annoyed by it.

Specifically, Ultimate X feels like an incredibly convoluted resurrection attempt on the part of Loeb to bring Wolverine back– given the indication at the “burial” of Wolverine during… I believe X-Men Requiem that there was no DNA of the man left on there, so they couldn’t clone him. Given that he has a son, that’s sharing his DNA, that leads me to believe that Loeb is going to attempt, or at least be involved with, the resurrection of Wolverine.

And here I was hoping that after he killed off 90% of the mutants, I wouldn’t have to deal with this crap.

I am like to keep reading this series, at least reading it in the shops to determine if it’s even worth my time, but this is not, unless it becomes exceptionally better, a book I’ll be buying any time soon. Especially if we’re bringing back Wolverine.

New Ultimates

You know all of that praise I just had for Ultimate Avengers? Yeah, forget that. There isn’t really a lot of substance going on in the first issue, but it’s the first issue. One of the more interesting things to note is that Loeb is attempting to bring back Thor. Thor who has apparently stopped speaking in the really dumb Iambic Pentameter thing for Ultimate Thor. He’s always spoken in modern English until Ultimates 3.

We start off with Hawkeye going right back into “my children are dead and I am depressed” and other things that make me ultimately really not care about the character. Captain American reverts to his previous Loeb incarnation and the book really feels like a disappointment.

One of the only interesting things to find is that Tony Stark and Carol Ferris (the acting head of SHIELD, I guess) are involved in a relationship.

Of course, while Ultimatum and Ultimates 3 featured gratuitous amounts of violence on almost a 1990s scale– all of the cannibalism, and everything else– this comic decides to go the opposite direction and work something more like the beginning of Ultimates 3– needless amounts of sex. I really don’t need to see this random woman in Valhalla get all naked for Thor, nor do I need to see Carol mostly naked on the last issues with Tony.

I, being human, have the ability to infer things about people, which is something that Loeb seems to have forgotten as he’s moved to Marvel. Like with Ultimate X, I’m not really looking forward to these issues, but I’m reading them at least for the sake of understanding just what’s going on in the Universe.

Although, interestingly enough, Loeb seems to basically be completely disregarding Ultimate Avengers whenever he’s writing this, so I don’t really know what his plan is or anything.

In Summary

Read Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, and Ultimate Comics: Ultimate Avengers. You should also buy Armor Wars. Ultimate Enemy might turn into something good, so keep an eye out for that. Just basically ignore anything with Loeb directly attached to it, since it all just reverts back to Ultimates 3 level ridiculousness and not really anything worth reading.