So, Ultimatum, right? I’ve been talking about this for maybe longer in real time than Marvel did when they were gearing up for it in the first place. Due to some extremely poorly hidden spoilers that even show up in the titles of graphic novel collections, Magneto is finally sufficiently pissed off at humanity to do something about us once and for all, the major upshot of which is that Manhattan is devastated by an enormous tidal wave, in exactly the style you have seen so many times before. And then, shit goes down.

And the thing is, that sounds pretty okay to me as a premise. The whole world is affected, sure, but New York gets the lion’s share of focus, just as Marvel has always done. But then they screwed up my experience by dividing the story between the Ultimatum issues and the issues of the various series they had in progress at the time. Still, I think I could have been okay with that too, except that the actual event issues, even after I disregard the poor ordering, were… tawdry. Largely, they were a series of strung-together faux-shocking events, one after another, designed for maximum impact predicated upon minimum thought. And even that I could forgive, except that solid chunks of the events have no explanation at all. What really happened to the Human Torch? Did I miss something regarding Quicksilver’s fate, or was it presented as a fait accompli with no prior reference? Does Namor actually have any relevance to anything in the entire Ultimate universe? And since I’ve actually read the entire sequence now, it’s not like I can pretend to myself that these questions were answered or even acknowledged as valid.[1]

Essentially, there were a handful of characters that had a story arc in the Ultimatum event, and everyone else was only present to be trimmed down or because we knew they’d be supposed to be present during a global terrorist event. For the record, Wolverine, Magneto, Spider-Man, and J. Jonah Jameson actually had interesting stories to be told. Oh, and, to my very great surprise, Henry Pym. Iron Man and the Thing did okay. And that’s really all. For the climactic event of a ten year series, that is not nearly enough.

[1] I lie, as I have not completed Requiem yet. But I know I’m right. And even if I’m wrong, making stuff up and explaining it a few months later? Unsatisfying!

Okay, just to get it out of the way: the Ultimatum storyline is poorly collected across three or four books. (I am hoping across only three, and that the epilogue book will at least have continuity[1] again.) I have read each of the three books in question, so I can say this with authority now, not merely the speculation that marked my last review. As a result, even Spider-Man’s take on the Ultimatum event is kind of disjointed. But here’s what I liked about it. While the other authors were stumbling past each other trying to figure out who could tell which part of whose story and in what order, Bendis got past the actual event as quickly as possible so that he could tell a smaller, more personal story about the immediate aftermath, and not incidentally about the nature of heroism.

The final issue of Spider-Man’s Ultimate run, #133, had the fewest words I think I’ve ever seen in a single comic issue. It may also have been the most affecting I’ve seen. And just to repeat myself, this in the midst of what has otherwise been a useless mishmash of tangled and rarely more than half-complete storylines. But, y’know, I should save a little vitriol for the next review, since this one deserves basically none whatever.

[1] The literary kind, not the years-or-decades-of-plot kind.

Even though there’s still one book left that predates the events about which I am now reading, it has yet to be released in trade paperback size to match all the rest of what I have, so apparently I’ll have to actually find out what’s up with this whole Ultimatum thing, now. Except, technically not quite yet, because despite the branding, March on Ultimatum is really just a handful of new annuals featuring mostly the usual suspects doing mostly the usual things. Still, there is a little big of a finger waggle pointing out that this whole Ultimatum thing is just over the horizon now, which since I’ve known that for months of my time as I’ve been reading along means it must have been excruciating waiting on these titles to release a month at a time, and all of them going on about the inevitable doom for a year or so.

The first pair of stories is the most relevant: the X-Men travel back in time[1] to prevent Reed Richards from doing something that has ruined[2] their future. Although this honestly doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Ultimatum, they at least mention it as an inevitable event in the near future from which these other problems sprang forth. But it’s okay, because I enjoyed the story on its own merits as well as for the characterizations of Ben Grimm and future-Sue Storm. Then there’s a Black Panther story which seems to exist only to retcon my racial concerns from The Ultimates 3. It I suppose accomplishes that, but at the expense of taking a pretty cool character and rendering him meaningless in the Ultimate universe, at which point, how about just not using him instead? Also, there’s a Hulk story that for some reason includes one of the Squadron Supreme character from Ultimate Power and (for that matter) that for some reason includes the Hulk; the less said about it, the better. (I exaggerate, in that it was mildly amusing. But mainly it was spectacularly unnecessary.)

The best of the bunch[3] was the Spider-Man story, which had no apparent tie to anything else at all and was just another large-sized Spider-Man story. It’s just, as usual, Bendis shows a world full of meaningful progress and understandable consequences while everyone around him is scrabbling wildly for plotlines from miserable futures or annoying side-dimensions or the drips and drabs of 45 years of bloated Marvel continuity. For example, the police? They have noticed that Spider-Man usually accomplishes things and are glad of his help. Will that ever happen in mainstream Marvel continuity? Not as of issue 91, I can state with great current authority. (And, okay, this third annual postdates a higher issue number in Bendis’ run, so I’m not being perfectly fair here. But I still don’t expect anything to suddenly change.) Bost mostly it’s a relationship story punctuated by the arrival of Mysterio[4], who plays such a small (and unresolved!) role that I fully expect him to matter quite a bit in the next full Spider-Man graphic novel, predictably named Ultimatum.

[1] Is it just me, or are future timelines just littered with X-Men possessing time machines? Time travel is never a mutant power, and one dark future is never described the same way as the next. Nevertheless, back they keep coming. Persecution complex, much?
[2] And while I’m on the topic of things that are just me: is it, or does Reed Richards destroy every alternate universe / dimension / timeline he gets his grubby paws on? That guy is just a colossal dick. (Though the younger Ultimate version is at least endearing about his galactic failures.)
[3] Prepare to feign shock in 5… 4… 3…
[4] In mainstream continuity, he’s a special effects wizard turned supervillain; here, it is way too soon to tell who he might be or what he wants. But I expect him to not be a mere villain retread, not this late in the game.

The most recent (and in a way, the final?) Ultimate Spider-Man book is based on a video game. That could be a death sentence in a lot of hands, but Brian Michael Bendis has, through years of solid effort, earned my trust. More troublingly, though, it’s based on a video game that came out in 2006, which by even the least generous of publishing schedules means that its events would be months or years out of real-time date from when these scripts were being adapted. So it was kind of strange to see, at a time when every other comic in the Ultimate universe was getting ready for the big Ultimatum conclusion to everything, the Spider-Man story jump back in time by a month or two for a pretty meaningful story-insertion (or, if you feel bitter about it, a big retcon).

War of the Symbiotes tells of what has been happening with Eddie Brock, trapped inside the Venom suit, or possibly it trapped inside him.[1] The problem of course is that I wasn’t all that interested in Venom the last time I saw him, and he’s only gotten iffier since. But in my experience thusfar, a mediocre Bendis Spider-Man story still makes for a pretty good ride on average, and certainly this one got better as it went along. The end result (courtesy of an additional, unrelated retcon) is a pretty big deal, like I said. I cannot decide if I approve or not; it depends on how it gets used down the line. But I have a feeling I’m not going to find out until after the whole big Ultimatum thing, which I am beginning to realize I will have a hard time taking with perfect seriousness; it’s been looming over my knowledge of the series for entirely too long. But I guess we’ll see!

[1] Even in video games, Bendis is pretty good about providing that minimal amount of depth / uncertainty, about just who the parasite is supposed to be.

I’m torn on this book, unlike the rest of the internet. (They seem to despise it, and I think it is only fair to calibrate expectations in that way.) But first things first: Who Killed the Scarlet Witch? is simultaneously the straight-forward murder mystery that its title implies and also a means of setting the stage for the upcoming Ultimatum that, so far as I know, I am only two books away from. I can’t think of a good way to add more to my plot summary that wouldn’t be extensively spoilerish, so I’ll move on to the controversy.

On the one hand, I really did enjoy the actual storyline. Both the pacing of the mystery’s unraveling and its ultimate denouement were satisfactory to me. And honestly I think even that, my enjoyment thusfar of the build toward this crossover event thingy they’ve decided they had to do, is a bit controversial. But so be it, some days I am an easy audience. Still, there’s that other hand, wherein a lot of the details went wrong. Like, wasn’t Juggernaut dead the last time I saw him? And was it absolutely necessary to drop in a Ka-Zar[1] cameo this many years into the Ultimate run, and this close to its end? And, seriously, the use of the Black Panther seemed racially insensitive at best. And none of those missteps was necessary to create the plot that I was happy with! So frustrating.

[1] He’s a Tarzan rip-off from the mid ’60s. Not bad as characters go, just untimely.

Note: I did not actually read The Ultimates Omnibus as my title and link might otherwise indicate; I just re-read the four volumes of The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2 that I have mentioned previously, but this seemed like the easiest way to get away with treating it as one project, so soon after I had read them individually. And in short, I want to say that I was right to go back and reread them, as seeing the Ultimates in their proper context over the evolution of that universe would have made a lot more sense than seeing everything at once right when I started, and then going back in time to see them interact with the rest of the series in progress as I variously caught up to “current”.

As for the books themselves, though? Still good, and they certainly do stand alone, if you wanted to ditch the rest of the universe to just read these. They’re by far the most adult books, both in theme and in prose. And certainly in plotting, where they occasionally seem to go above and beyond the adult theme cut-off just to show they can. But since almost every other main character in the Ultimate universe is mid-late teen in age, it makes sense for the one adult group to make a point of doing adult things. Anyway, it rarely seems to actually pander, which I guess is close enough for me. Also, the art is always good, though it strikes me funny that both the Wasp and the Scarlet Witch have violet eyes. The odds just seem implausible, is all I’m saying. So, like I’ve doubtless said in previous reviews that I don’t feel like digging up: if you like adult-oriented[1] globe-spanning events with real emotional and physical consequences, this is the place to get them. (Because Wolverine can’t be the star of every X-Men comic, and really, who else is there besides him and these guys to count as adult?)

[1] For the most part, non-pornographic.

I kind of feel like Ultimate Origins was a risk. Okay, the continuity had only existed for about nine years at that point, plus I think they already knew that they were headed towards an ending of sorts. But still, taking even a mere nine years of continuity and then going back and finding a way to tie it all together in meaningful and unexpected ways, without accidentally being ridiculous? It’s a fine line to walk.

But what am I talking about? It turns out that the Ultimate universe, about which I talk from time to time, has some important and unrevealed information from the World War II era that spawned the original super soldier project and ultimately Captain America, and also from the generation that precedes modern times / the current crop of superheroes and mutants. Information that has strong relevance to mutantkind and its imminent war on humanity. Information of particular interest to one Peter Parker on the topic of his dead parents, if only he knew it.

All the same, I’m pretty sure that, if it hadn’t been written by Brian Michael Bendis, it would have been ridiculous after all. So yay for the author they chose!

The majority of one-shots in the Ultimate universe have not been all that good. Of course, the majority of them have been about Daredevil and/or Elektra, and while those stories may be good spread out over years, I have yet to see the short term version do them justice, even though both characters work just fine as guest stars to Spider-Man. Ultimate Human, however, is an exception to that one-shot rule. Card’s Tony Stark retcon has finally taken hold, and the world’s smartest man seems like the best person for Bruce Banner to turn to in finally beating this Hulk thing once and for all. Over the course of four issues, the two men finally change the Ultimate version of Bruce Banner from caricature into a genuine character, while clashing with each other mentally and physically. And because one foe is never enough, a giant-brained person that you may remember as the Leader is waiting in the wings.

Oh, and incidentally? With an entire issue given to origin and backstory, the Ultimate Leader is exactly the kind of character reintroduction that the Ultimate universe does so poorly in general and should have been doing this way all along. I wish people who are not named Brian Michael Bendis could do a better job of accomplishing this on characters that I haven’t already seen elsewhere.