Without this Cataclysm event coming up, I could see myself being extremely excited about the direction in which Bendis is taking Miles Morales’ story. …okay, that’s not fair. I still am excited about it, I just hate to see it get put on hold for a big giant event that he should by rights be at the fringes of (I mean, unless the earth is destroyed? That would change my opinion drastically and unpredictably), or even worse, get partially canceled / re-written. Perhaps what I am saying is, I wish Bendis was at the helm of the whole universe, so I could trust that this particular aspect won’t get railroaded somewhere dumb.

Anyway.

Stan Lee originally wrote this story (well, title) for issue 50 of Peter Parker’s run, published in 1967. Pete was tired of being Spider-Man because his life was always one terrible event after another, and something something Aunt May’s heart, and long story short, Marvel could not go more than 1/3 of the pages in any given comic without the hero being in costume, so you knew something would change his mind by early in issue 51. (In this case: Kingpin.) Bendis’ take on Spider-Man No More! is interesting to me for quite a few reasons, but chiefly because of the vast gulf of difference between Then and Now.

Miles went through a fairly major life event at the end of the previous book, as a result of which[1] he’s put away the uniform and the web slingers to resume a normal high school life. And then, boom, a year passes. A year! Because Miles, unlike non-Ultimate Peter Parker, knows how to commit to a decision.[2] Of course, it’s still a comic and the past always catches up with you, but unlike Stan Lee (however much I appreciate all that he’s done), this was handled thoughtfully, with false starts and denials before the inevitable outcome, and I do not feel that Miles is on a whiny pogo stick. I definitely think, as I already said back in that top paragraph, that he and Spider-Woman are on an excellent path with a lot of potential, and I hope I get to see how that turns out.

[1] I bet you could see this coming.
[2] Also because really a lot of events have been happening around the rest of the world, between mutant rights and new American civil wars and so on, and it’s nice to see that, if Miles is not going to be involved in those events, the editorial staff came up with a good way to explain why not. Plus, it’s good getting him a little bit older. Also, for those taking notes, this indicates that somewhere in the range of 2.5 to 3 years have passed since all the mutants and superheroes started appearing on the scene back in 2000-2001 when all this Ultimate folderol began. (Contrast: regular Marvel time, as checked against Peter Parker’s schooling process, has spent maybe 6 years of time between 1961 and 1979. So the scales actually match up pretty well!)

I’m very nearly caught up on Ultimate Marvel comics again, after my year-long hiatus to read about a shepherd with a sword. Which is really good timing, because The Ultimates: Disassembled makes a good go at tying up every loose end that has dangled since the Ultimatum[1], not to mention a few from the Gah Lak Tus incursion. Plus, the Fantastic Four are finally reunited?!

Unfortunately, it cleans up those loose ends in such a way that I’m still not sure if what’s been going on with Quicksilver for the past three years or so has all been this, or different authors pulling him in different directions. (See, I was going to say, “If you want to know what’s been up with Quicksilver, here you go!” Only, I’m still not completely positive I do know.) If you want to see another convoluted time travel story involving Kang the Conqueror? Cool, here it is! If you care about the Infinity Gauntlet[2], this is where you’d find the Ultimate version!

What is fortunate is that this felt like a story instead of the series of tickboxes I complained about for the last Ultimates outing. An exciting story, with more than a dollop of consequences, and a big albeit possibly premature glimpse at the upcoming, what are they calling it this time, Cataclysm I think? I’ll definitely take that. But I am kind of sad at implications that my excellent character analysis of Ultimate Reed Richards (available upon request in comments, if I haven’t already told you it in some other written or aural format) may have just been undone. Thanks a lot, Kang.

[1] If there’s one thing that does make me happy about there being a new massive crossover event that will kill off half the populace or more all over again, it’s that I can at least start referring back to a new dividing line between “then” and “now”.
[2] Plausibly, I will someday care about this.

If there’s one thing you can take for granted in any Marvel universe, it’s that while the mutants may have good days, they never, ever have good years. With this knowledge in hand, it was easy to predict how Natural Resources was going to go. Well, that and the knowledge that Kitty Pryde’s deal with POTUS has recently become her deal with the previous POTUS. And that’s before you take into account her array of other oppositions, foreign and domestic.

As spoilery as that whole paragraph feels, it’s all based on what has gone before. I have sincerely said almost nothing about the actual book in question. On the one hand, it’s really cool to see all kinds of plots coming together. Perhaps by the time I get through the next few books (one already published, two more out within the month), there will be almost no dangling threads at all, and I won’t feel like I’m wandering around lost and/or forgetful?

Ha ha, turns out that’s not speculation. The fourth future book is yet another comics-shattering event, after which I can expect another rebranding[1] and another contraction of what is being published. Well, sort of a contraction. It’s three titles, but since there are only three titles now (not counting one-shots), this may not count as anything especially impressive? Perhaps the goal is to have fewer one-shots. Due to there being that upcoming comics-shattering event, I will not reveal which titles are expected, since probably everyone not in them will be dead soon? (I have no proof, but Ultimatum is persuasive evidence as to how these things go.)

[1] Ultimate Comics NOW! The exclamation mark was not added by me, to be clear. Nor were the caps.

The cover blurb for Venom Wars talks about the measure of a hero being the quality of his enemies, and I do not disagree that Venom is one badass of an enemy. But it did make me realize that Bendis owes Miles Morales some new enemies of his own. Okay, the Prowler kind of counts, but I want to see enemies that have never existed in the Marvel universe before, just like Miles didn’t a few short years ago. Mind you, that has nothing to do with the matter at hand, it’s just a thing I’m thinking.

That said, there’s not a whole lot more to add here that wouldn’t be a spoiler. (And believe me, there are a few big spoilers available in this book.) Venom? Check. Lots of public and personal fallout from ace reporter Betty Brant’s determination to learn the identity of the new Spider-Man? Check. Continued respect for J. Jonah Jameson? Yep, although I kind of feel like he should drop back to the periphery unless he gets somehow directly involved in Miles’ life. Sudden turns of fate and plot hooks for the future and random hilarities? It’s a Spider-Man comic, so there’d better be!

Yep, that’s all I’ve got, basically.

So there was this big Civil War that happened in the Ultimate universe. I mean, not between superheroes, they just did that in mainstream, and boy howdy have I no idea when I’ll get there to see it. No, this was straight up a bunch of warring American factions as the country fell apart. Also, Hydra. (They’re a (let’s say) terrorist organization on American soil, fighting against, or for… something, I guess? At least in the ’60s, it was just plain old world domination. I have no clue what new Hydra actually wants, though. I don’t even know if that’s bad writing (probably[1]) or a clue about something I may learn someday.)

Anyway, there was a civil war. Thus, the next step, Reconstruction. Which basically consists of Captain America, in his new position, moving from crisis to crisis as Hydra, California, and other collections of basically terrible people try to take advantage of the still fragile situation for their own various, nefarious purposes. Other boxes being ticked off: the West Coast Avengers Ultimates, and Vision. You may think, no no, they already did the Vision, right? Someone disagreed that it was done on enough of a 1:1 correlation, is all I can say in answer. Well, unless I want to get impolite and say that someone thought it hadn’t been done derivatively enough? But that would make it sound like I hated this book, and I didn’t. I’m just very aware of its limitations.

Good news: the really bad idea of a job that Cap took? I think they’ve reset it back to status quo, so I’m hoping that fixes the rest of the problems by the time I read Volume Oh Good, We’re Back to 2 Again.

[1] In that they may just exist so someone can check off the “Did we use Hydra yet?” tickbox, and that someone failed to consider what specific goals / desires new Hydra should have. This book gives them a goal, but it is a reaction to something that happened after they were formed, so their original goal? Completely unknown to me.

I am really incredibly bad at reading this year. Perhaps I’ll be slightly better at moving? I’ve been pretty good at burning, and I’ve maintained my general high qualities of working and drinking, so at least I can point at where the time went? (Except the drinking, which usually includes reading, so I don’t know how to reconcile that part.)

The reason you care about all this is that I’ve been annoyed to be so close to caught up with the Ultimate Marvel series only to have it slip through my grasp again. But one is better than none, which brings me to Ultimate Wolverine: Legacies. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t Wolverine die? So, no, it’s cool, they haven’t started bringing people back to life. It’s more like, y’know, legacies. Which is to say, Logan’s son Jimmy Hudson (who I’ve possibly mentioned once or twice before while I’ve read recent mutant events) is on a quest to learn more about his biological father, instigated by an unexpected underlying signal in the holographic message Logan left for him.

Then, you know, *bam*, plot. Including more from Quicksilver, who we have not seen in too long considering what he was up to the last time we saw him. So it’s nice to know things are still happening with that guy. Unlike Jean Grey, who no longer makes any sense to me whatsoever. (She wasn’t in the book, I’m just complaining.)

First, a quick scheduling note: I know it’s weird that there’s no book in between the last set of graphic novels and this one, but I’m about to be off the grid for a couple of weeks, and I both didn’t want to start a new book yet when I know I’ll be taking a couple with me and especially didn’t want to take any of these out into the wild, so, here we are. (Also, nobody at all was actually asking this question, but on the off chance one person was? This paragraph is dedicated to you, hero!)

So, anyway, Reservation X? Although it opens with a completely out of left field premise that in the aftermath of America’s eight-way civil war, the new President has a cure for the formula that was used to create so many mutants over the past few decades, it quickly becomes the first story since mutants became outlawed that actually feels kind of like it’s the X-Men again. See, Kitty Pryde (the de facto leader of the remnant of mutantkind who did not opt for the cure) is offered a chunk of desolate land where her people can form their own sovereign nation[1], and where they must find a way to live in a world that once again almost accepts them as, y’know, people while dealing with internal power struggles and external threats and resentments and also still The City, which you will mostly not remember is where all the new mutants in the SEAR reside and where Jean Grey is still hanging out.

What struck me most about the book, aside from my footnote just now, is how every moment of the story felt like it was building toward the same schism between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr that marked the birth of mutantkind the first time around. Hopefully that does not sound to you and will not be treated by the authors and editors as trite, because in my opinion it’s nice to see some kind of familiar order imposed on the Ultimate universe. They won me over on Miles Morales, and now the X-Men has mostly stopped being a muddled, sprawling hash of a storyline too. I dig it!

[1] Um, wow. How did it take until I was reviewing this book to realize that the Ultimate mutants have been the Jews since like 2009? (Plausibly longer.)

The perplexing thing about Ultimate Iron Man is how really well he’s written in the Ultimates (and in any guest role he performs in other comics, usually Spider-Man), yet how mediocrely he’s written on any of the few occasions he gets his own title.[1] Continuing this trend (and the trend of really generic collection names) is Ultimate Comics Iron Man, in which Tony learns that a Chinese conglomerate calling itself the Mandarin is in the midst of a decidedly hostile takeover of Stark International.

It’s by no means a bad story, and in fact the “romantic” subplot is basically great. But it’s telling that I had to grasp for the preceding sentence, instead of working to try to hold back discussion fodder in case of spoilers. Oh, okay, I should also add that the Demon in a Bottle callback in the run’s unmentioned title is probably quite clever, a nice parallel but with 2013’s Tony being addicted to heroism instead of liquor, but since I haven’t actually read Demon in a Bottle yet, this seems like the kind of parallel I’m not qualified to confirm.

But man, mostly I’m just grateful to Robert Downey Jr. for showing me that at least someone can do Tony Stark right.

[1] Armor Wars was an exception, though not a bright shining one.