The reasonably self-explanatory first volume of Ultimate Annuals collects the annuals from each of the main comics in the Marvel Ultimate line-up. An annual, if you’re not familiar, is a extra-large comic published outside the monthly run, sometimes used as the climax of or opening to a major storyline but just as often not very relevant to the immediate continuity. Though, Marvel being who they are, continuity is generally king. The downside to these books is two-fold, in that 1) most of said annuals have already been produced in their respective series, and 2) one of them has not, so I needed the book anyway. Far easier than finding and sorting an actual comic in the middle of my graphic novel shelf, and probably not that much more expensive, used. So, that happened.

However, reading so much material I’ve seen before, and some of it recently, did free me up to pay attention to other concerns, such as the artwork and each story’s place in the arc. So, there’s a Fantastic Four story in which the Inhumans are shoehorned so that they can be seen, and I guess that is my problem with a lot of what I read of the Ultimate Fantastic Four run in the first place. The lack of consistent writer over any period of time made it so that a lot of what I read failed to engage me on a new coolness level, instead of the baseline “I recognize that!” level. Plus, in this case, the art was just distractingly bad. (Not to my taste, if you prefer.) And then there’s an X-Men story that checked in on Rogue, Gambit, and Juggernaut, and it was a pretty good one that did shift things around some and matter later, but felt maybe a little rushed. And then there’s a Spider-Man story that I read in literally the most recent Spider-Man book, and while the story itself was sweet and funny and seems like it will matter for at least the next while, the art was distracting there too, not for being bad, but for being even marginally different after so much consistency throughout the USM run.

And finally, the Ultimates story that I had not read before. By now I was already paying attention to the art, but I think I would have anyway, because it was so distractingly familiar. Finally placed it, same guy that did the art for the Preacher series. His style definitely fits the Ultimates, so that was alright. The story was Nick Fury unravelling a few layers of his ongoing plans, which mostly involve improvements to superhuman defenses and the political fallout from that, but also touch on his ongoing suspicions about Henry Pym’s loyalties and his worldwide search for evidence as to the life or death of Bruce Banner. ‘Cause, for serious, the Ultimates books have always been less “super” and more “spy/political”, and I once more avow my almost certainty of re-reading that entire sequence before I get to the build-up to Ultimatum, probably sometime next year?

Takeaway lessons: 1) Rereading comics can be pretty okay. 2) I allow myself to re-use words with distracting frequency, if I decide they have become thematic rather than merely indicative of vocabularic deficiencies. 3) That Ultimates series just keeps on delivering, but is somewhat more dense compared to the other series, and thus needs more contemplation. 4) Amount, quality, or newness of material have no particular bearing on how long I’ll keep nattering about them, and it’s mostly down to my writing mood when I sit down.