Tag Archives: Marvel

Ultimate Spider-Man: Hobgoblin

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Not only am I running out of ways to say that the Ultimate Spider-Man series is fantastic, I’m kind of running out of ways to say I’m running out of those ways. I’m not sure I’m even objective on the topic anymore; it may have turned bad and I simply failed to notice in a whirlwind of fannish obsession. To nobody’s surprise, anyhow, I really liked Hobgoblin. Harry Osborn, son of the Green Goblin, is not having the best few months. His father has turned into a beast that regularly stalks him and killed his mother, and Harry most recently witnessed his father’s apparent (or actual?) death at the hands of the Ultimates and his very good friend Peter Parker. As usual, though, Harry’s return to school and mental state is only a small part of the book’s story. The tragedies that have dogged the Parker household during the same months that treated Harry so badly are finally pushing Peter to the breaking point.

I know things have to turn around soon, since the Ultimate universe apparently has an expiration date that I might be broaching by late this year. But honestly, I’m not sure how at this point. Pete is a pretty moody boy lately, and with good reasons. And the more tightly the inhabitants of that universe are tied together, the more interesting the stories get. Nick Fury’s small role in this book practically guarantees that whatever comes next for Peter Parker, it will not be the sudden positive turn that he really deserves.

Ultimate X-Men: Magnetic North

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Historically, I’ve been down on the Ultimate X-Men titles as compared to the other ongoing series. I know there was a point, several books ago, when I changed that opinion. Magnetic North marks another such shift, as this is simply one of the best Marvel Ultimate titles I’ve read, period. Almost every minor and major event in the past several books is pulled together into one web of intrigue, surrounding the escape of Magneto. It is both too complex and too good a story to get into in more detail than that, and in all honesty, I think the title and the cover[1] revealed as much as I already have anyway. It has a cinematic plot, with almost as many story and character twists as there are pages to turn. I just cannot stop being excited over these books!, and more the further into them I get.

[1] at least, the cover of my copy, which does not match the one Amazon shows.

Ultimate Secret

Ultimate Secret continues the Ultimate Galactus trilogy in much the same fashion as the opening volume. That is, it tells a reasonably good story whose main flaw is feeling entirely too short. I mean, most of the Ultimate books have felt like discrete storylines in the lives of our heroes. The Galactus books, on the other hand, have felt very much like part of an (extremely incomplete) ongoing story. It is not particularly a flaw, except that it makes it hard to feel much excitement for the review; it’s as though I’m reviewing thirds of a book, instead of three books.

Another way it matches the first volume is that it uses the Galactus story to talk about other characters entirely that had not yet been drafted into the Ultimate universe.[1] In this case, the fight is against the alien Kree who are sabotaging mankind’s space program, in the hopes that when Gah Lak Tus arrives, the planet will have no survivors. The story was decent, it just wasn’t what I was looking for. Again. I’m really relieved this is only a trilogy, as I’m not sure I could take much more pushing back the payoff.

Except for the lack of character continuity, what this has most reminded me of is the old G.I. Joe event weeks when they’d present a five-part series in which Cobra and G.I. Joe were crossing the world in search of parts for a doomsday machine, and inevitably Cobra would manage to get all the parts, fire up the machine, and then lose anyway. The continuity meant that each episode had a series payoff feel, unlike these books, but there’s still definitely a race across the world in search of clues feel. (Does anyone but me remember those episodes fondly? I mean, clearly there’s a movie studio that hopes so.)

[1] Captain Marvel? Really?

Ultimate Spider-Man: Superstars

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I have to admit this, right up front. Superstars tricked me. Despite the disclaimer around the initial two-issue arc that the writer knew full well it was over the top and not to be taken seriously, when I saw Peter Parker and Wolverine in the middle of a Freaky Friday knockoff, I rolled my eyes hard and internally kvetched about how this kind of thing is exactly why the Ultimate Marvel Team-Up series was mostly flawed, despite its quality moments.

But, okay, there were the disclaimers. But after that, the additional two arcs featuring first the Human Torch and then Doctor Strange meant more bad times, yeah? In fact, no! Instead, the first story introduces the canonical Ultimate Fantastic Four into crossover territory and gives Peter a chance to recover from the emotional wounds inflicted in Carnage. And the second story, well… I don’t like to say more because of spoilers, but it is a Spider-Man book, so you can probably guess.

The shorter version of all this is, you can still trust Brian Michael Bendis to write some of the best comic on the market. Even his fluff-piece breaks are still entertaining and verging on excellent in their own rights.

Ultimate X-Men: Hard Lessons

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The one thing that sticks out to me about my most recent X-Men book, Hard Lessons, is that there really weren’t any. There were several bridge stories placed to catch us up on characters that haven’t been around lately and to remind us about bad guys that will probably pop up again soon, but lessons? Nothing apparent to me! This doesn’t bother me all that much, but it is a little weird.

Instead of lessons, there are these stories. What’s up with Professor Charles Xavier? He’s maybe out of money courtesy of old enemies, and he’s also held hostage at a bank. And he’s a devious son of a bitch, which is one of those things I like about the Ultimate line. Yay, layers and shades of grey![1] What’s up with Storm and Wolverine? The one is looking for (and, okay, has just found) the other, and their pasts are about to team up to bite them both in the ass. What’s up with Rogue and Gambit? They’re about to face the return of Juggernaut, who, um, I kind of forgot had been in a previous book? Anyhow, all three stories produce incremental plot shifts that indicate to me big things are on the horizon, even if I can’t get the shape of anything but their inevitability. Which in some books might be an annoying delaying tactic; but in the hands of Brian K. Vaughan the stories are every bit as good as the future glimpses are.

[1] Well, deeper layers and more shades of grey than at least Marvel in the 1960s. I could be underselling later and modern Marvel due to ignorance, and I clearly was underselling the early Marvel catalog, which itself had a lot of depth. Especially for the time.

Ultimate Nightmare

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With my first foray into an Ultimate universe crossover series, I find myself wishing for the first time that I was reading these approximately as they come out instead of all jumbled together and out of order. One of the first thing I noticed about the Ultimate Galactus trilogy (or at least about its first volume) is that several of the characters have evolved well past who they were when these books were written. Specifically, both Wolverine and Nick Fury’s reactions to the X-Men seemed entirely uncharacteristic with my current expectations. But, on the bright side, I continue to make good progress and will eventually catch up.

The aptly named Ultimate Nightmare chronicles an unexpected worldwide multi-spectrum signal being broadcast from Tunguska, site of a century-old meteor strike that has been science fiction fodder ever since. Among the reactants to the images of an alien culture being destroyed while a mysterious voice repeats certain doom over and over are select members of the X-Men and of the Ultimates[1]. For the most part, the meat of the story purportedly being told lies in the future. This book was largely an excuse to visualize several bit character villains from Marvel’s past, in the guise of decades of Soviet experimentation. Luckily, as in the case of footnote 1, the book was more than entertaining enough to support being a mere prelude to the Galactus story I have been implicitly promised.

[1] Including a character named Sam Wilson with whom I am wholly unfamiliar; pleasingly, he was interesting to read about.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: Salem’s Seven

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I’m not sure if it happens more often in some titles than others, nor whether I am noticing more often than I used to, but it’s definitely the case that some Ultimate storylines revolve around bringing back and/or reinventing heroes and villains from the original Marvel run. Sometimes this is fine, because it’s someone I want to see, and other times it’s iffy, because it’s someone I never have seen, but there’s an implication I should know all about them and resultingly a little bit too much character background is left out. Salem’s Seven was one of the best outcomes, however, wherein I’d never heard of them before, and yet the story they were brought into was entirely engrossing and entertaining.

There’s not much to tell plotwise that wouldn’t drift into spoiler territory, but this reminded me a lot of old school Fantastic Four, wherein all kinds of plot elements were thrown together just to see what would happen. You’ve got our heroes and their interpersonal issues, you’ve got a ridiculously sexy S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist on a mission to determine the viability of the Baxter Building and its many projects, you’ve got a new batch of superheroes out of, implausibly, Salem, Oregon, you’ve got the return of Namor, and you’ve got yet another world-ending threat. This is what the Fantastic Four is (are?) all about, yo.

Utimate Spider-Man: Carnage

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Carnage is yet another book I am not sure how to adequately address. Not, this time, because I have mixed feelings about it. Rather, because there are huge turning point spoilers. I can’t say I know how long the consequences will ripple forward[1],but this felt like the single largest event since Peter first came to terms with his powers, or at the very least since the Ultimate Six storyline (but really that one was/will be more of a delayed reaction consequence thing, without the sense of immediacy shown here). Anyway, the story starts off with genetic engineering master-minded by Peter’s very first reformed enemy, Dr. Curt Connors aka Lizard Man[2], and ends up with the Spidey suit having been put away… for good?

Okay, probably not, but I think I like the idea of that part sticking around for a while. Brief spoiler discussion fodder below the footnotes.

[1] There’s an Amazon review (which you should avoid reading by all costs, as they are less good about spoilers than I) that implies the consequences are few if any. I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe it, though, since the series has stood out so high above the pack to date. I’ll let you know, though!
[2] Lizardman wins![3]
[3] I mean, spoiler alert, Lizard Man isn’t even in this book. I’m talking about something else. Continue reading →

Ultimate X-Men: The Most Dangerous Game

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I’m having a hard time quantifying my most recent Ultimate X-Men book. On the one hand, The Most Dangerous Game is every bit of retreaded ground that its title implies. What, you say? Mutants are being hunted for sport, and that’s all dangerous to the hunters? Inconceivable! But it has things going for it, too, including a nice murder mystery and a chance to get some face time with the many new mutants that have joined Xavier’s school lately. I pretty much feel like I have a handle on all of them again, and that’s pretty cool. On the whole, it was a perfectly serviceable middle-quality storyline that would seem terrible in some of the other Ultimate series and pretty much the best thing written in the rest.[1]

Things I look forward to in the next book: the fates of several X-Men missing from this story, and also maybe for Magneto or the Sentinels or some other cool ongoing enemy to come back. ‘Cause, those dudes are sweet.

[1] That most of the remaining “series” I have in mind tended to actually only be standalone books instead is perhaps beside the point?

Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Volume 3

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This third volume marks the last of the Ultimate Marvel Team-Ups, and I cannot say I’m sorry to see them go. For every reasonably good story, such as Spidey’s encounters with the woefully underused Ultimate Black Widow or the Chinese storybook account of his meeting with an ultimate (as opposed to Ultimate) fighting guy (Shang-Li, or something, who I guess was relevant in mainstream Marvel continuity at some point, that point probably falling in the 1970s?), there’s a kind of terrible story about him running into Blade (Blade, for fuck’s sake!) and Elektra and the old-people version of the Fantastic Four[1] and a particularly bitchy Daredevil, all for no apparent reason. Yet even here, there are moments of good writing, such as when he has a conversation with Johnny Storm about power and responsibility as related to stable living, or when he gives a class speech about his research into a hero. The last bit, in fact, rose above every attempt by writer and artist alike to be cloying and overwrought, and I have to give mad props to the soul of the story for managing that in the face of such strong opposition from its creators.

Which I guess is my point in a nutshell. It really has been a very rarely bad series, but I’m so used to unadulterated brilliance from the majority of the Marvel Ultimate universe that something merely okay but with moments that shine still feels like too much work. So, I’m glad it’s over because I’d continue to go looking for those moments, and now I won’t have to anymore, secure in the knowledge that I’ll have them dropped in my lap by ongoing future titles instead, where the rhythm has already been perfected. (These three books were among the earliest written in the Ultimate continuity, in case you were not previously aware.)

Oh, and I’m also glad it’s over because the art kept changing, sometimes in the middle of the same story, and as annoying as that sounds, I also almost never liked any of that art. Would stable and bad have been better or worse than fluctuating and bad? This is a question I hope never to consider again.

[1] Who have since been replaced-or-retconned in Ultimate continuity, as you will no doubt be aware from my review earlier this morning, and from the nine previous ones.