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Ultimate Galactus Trilogy (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Darren

After spending the tail end of last year looking at the tangled inter-continuity crossovers at Marvel, I thought I’d spend January looking at some of the looser “out of continuity” tales at the major companies.

What does a continuity-lite crossover look like? I mean, a relatively self-contained comic book event that isn’t based upon years and years of events? Marvel famously launched their Ultimate line a decade ago to offer a chance to “reimagine” their classic stories – the Avengers became The Ultimates, and monthly issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four were available on the stands. The goal was to offer tales that would allow new readers to jump on board without having to worry about the weight of half-a-century (or more) worth of back story for the characters. Despite some minor crossover between the books – Mark Millar writing the Ultimates into his Ultimate X-Men run or Ultimate Spider-Man occasionally paying a short visit to the Baxter building – the line largely steered clear of the sort of bombastic big events that Marvel seems to love churning out month-on-month. So, what does an actual “big crossover event” look like when written for these characters? A bit like the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, I suppose.

He's got the world in the palm of his hand...

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Ultimate Spider-Man – Vol. 10-11 (Hardcover) (Review)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Darren

This represents the final volume of Ultimate Spider-Man, the relaunch of the popular character created by marvel as a way of introducing the iconic webslinger to the those who might be understandably wary of the backstory and continuity tangles the character has found himself in (did you know the character sold his marriage to the devil?). It’s been a landmark run, and a popular one and – by any measure – a successful one. There’s a reason that this ‘reboot’, to borrow a cinematic term, was famous for outselling the mainstream titles. So, as it winds down, what do we think?

What a Shocker…

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Ultimate Comics Iron Man: Armour Wars

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Darren

Iron Man has always been a character better suited to defining character arcs than to defining runs – which is arguably odd, when considered with most iconic characters. When we talk about Daredevil, for example, we talk about Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis; when we talk about the X-Men, we talk about Chris Claremont; when we talk about the Green Lantern, we talk about Geoff Johns. On the other hand, when we talk about Iron Man, we talk about Armour Wars or Demon in a Bottle or Extremis. Perhaps that’s a strength when releasing a big budget blockbuster like Iron Man 2 – it’s easy to flood the market with reprints of six or seven issue storylines, rather than having to deal with huge chunks of narrative. It’s also perhaps the reason that this particular miniseries – essentially a modernised continuity-light retelling of a classic story – seems like such a great idea. It’s ridiculous to suggest a retelling of an iconic writer’s tenure, but remaking a single iconic story seems much more reasonable and more than a bit smart – surely it’s a great way to bring readers into step with arguably the most popular comic book character in the world right now?

Par Armor...

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Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Darren

I’m on a bit of a Wolverine binge at the moment. I got the quite enjoyable Old Man Logan last week and am slowly working my way through the Wolverine Omnibus at the moment. I would have picked up Enemy of the State if it had a nice hardback version. But such is life. I figured I’d dip my toes into Marvel’s Ultimate line. Basically a shrewd marketing decision to launch all their titles from scratch – the hope being that the line could attract readers alienated by decades of continuity in mainstream comics. The experiment was a bit of a mixed success – Ultimate Spider-Man might be the most successful interpretation of the web-slinger this decade, but Ultimate X-Men left a lot to be desired. However, this continuity-free playground offered Marvel a chance to do two things: invite big-name film and television writers to handle their properties (such as allowing Lost scribe Brian K. Vaughan and Heroes writer Aron E. Coleite to work on Ultimate X-Men), but also to shameless release miniseries to capitalise on their big screen projects. Released between the big screen adaptations of The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine and featuring the work of Star Trek co-writer Damon Lindelof, this series attempts to do both. Does it succeed?

It's a game of two halves...

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Robert Kirkman’s Run on Ultimate X-Men – Vol. 7-9 (Hardcover)

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Darren

Ultimate X-Men is a tough title to get a read on. The fact that the run has been broken down into blocks by all manner of superstar writers means that there’s really no consistent underlying principle feeding through the eight-year life of the title. On the other hand, the fact that none of these big name writers like Mark Millar or Brian Michael Bendis could create a book living up to the series’ potential indicates that maybe there wasn’t a writer who could steward the book through its entire life cycle. Ultimate Spider-Man serves in many ways as a fulfillment of the promise of the Ultimate line, it’s almost a single, decade-long story of growth and development, the very evolution of a world of superheroes. Ultimate X-Men is very much the opposite, the constantly bending backwards over itself, jolting, starting and reversing as it seems unable to decide where exactly it’s going at any given moment. Robert Kirkman’s run is perhaps the best examples of the series’ strengths and ultimately (ha!) its weaknesses.

Somebody's been watching Terminator a bit too often...

Note: Some of Aron Coleitte’s work is covered in the Hardcover Volume 9 (with the rest of his short run spilling over into the Ultimatum Hardcover). If I can bring myself to pick up Ultimatum, I will run a review of his rather short tenure on the title. This review is only concerned with Kirkman’s run – up until the end of the Apocalypse arc.

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Will Warners Reboot Batman?

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Darren

My spidey-sense is tingling. Word on the rumour mill is that we’ll know next month if Christopher Nolan will be making a Batman trilogy, or simply leaving it at a duology. There’s all manner of discussion about what will happen if he isn’t back – but I think it’s looking increasingly like we may be moving away from the Zack Snyder’s The Dark Knight Returns approach, which means a new Batman movie relatively similar to the last two (because nothing succeeds like success). But part of me is wondering what the plan is beyond that. Are we going to see a direct sequel or a reboot? Would Warner Brothers reboot Batman so quickly?

Not only the director we deserve, but the the director we need right now...

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Ultimate Human – Ultimate Hulk vs. Iron Man

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Darren

Well, I guess the Ultimate line is supposed to be a vehicle for redefining old Marvel stories, so it seems appropriate that the Ultimate Hulk has been getting around knocking seven kinds of crap out of various heroes. He was the first opponent Mark Millar’s superteam faced in The Ultimates, he had this themed face-off with Iron Man last year and this year he squared off with Wolverine in the infamously delayed Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine series (in a fitting echo: Wolverine originated as a Hulk opponent). The book is an obvious attempt to cash in on Marvel’s two big summer blockbusters last year: The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man. Still, as cash-ins go, it’s reasonably diverting.

ultimatehulk

I quite like him when he's angry...

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Ultimate Iron Man

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Darren

The first member of The Ultimates to get spun-off into his own book, the ultimate version of Iron Man is also the only one to get his own miniseries (and he even supported another miniseries, Ultimate Human, last summer and has a new one, Ultimate Armour Wars, this year). Here we have all the ingredients for a great superhero saga – Andy Kubert as artist on the first six issues and Orson Scott Card as a writer – but it just doesn’t come together quite as well as it should. Though Card posits some interesting theries behind the psychology of Marvel’s current poster-boy, he doesn’t really deliver anything of interest on the story front, and really suffers from attempting to write rebellous teenage characters and somehow feeling required to craft his observations into something resembling a cookie-cutter superhero plot.

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Nice Suit...

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Brian Michael Bendis’ Run on Ultimate X-Men – Vol. 4 (Hardcover)

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Darren

Talk about a change of pace. Apparently it was originally conceived that Bendis would be in charge of both Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men during their run. Instead he’s spent almost a decade at this stage with the web-spinner, but he did migrate over to the sister title for a year at the end of Mark Millar’s run. The run is unfortunately too short to fully develop the potential of Bendis on the title, but it represents a massive upwards swing in the quality of the book from the crazy illogical and teen-angst-filled Millar run. It’s still far from a classic, but – read in the context of the entire series – it is perhaps a better representation of what Ultimate X-Men could have been.

And he still doesn't shave...

And he still doesn't shave...

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Ultimate Spider-Man – Vol. 4-6 (Hardcover)

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Darren

It’s probably hard writing the same comic with the same artist for the bones of a decade. Setting things up years in advance only to have them pay off down the line, trying to put a new slant on an existing mythology while updating it for a new audience. This middle section of the Bendis/Bagley run on Ultimate Spider-Man isn’t necessarily bad per se, but it lacks the energy and reckless fun which defined the start of the run and the sense of resolution that approached at the end of the run. It just is.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Your spidey-sense should be tingling...

Your spidey-sense should be tingling...

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