The upcoming big screen adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Thor has finally got a lead role. After months of speculation about who would be cast as the Norse Thunder God, 26 year old Australian actor Chris Hemsworth has been picked for the 2011 Movie.

You may know Hemsworth from his years spent playing Kim in Aussie soap Home & Away or more recently, his role as Captain Kirks’ father in JJ Abrams’ fantastic Star Trek re-boot last year. This comes after a long line of actors such as Brad Pit and Daniel Craig were linked with the film.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind Hemsworth for the five minutes he was on the screen at the beginning of Star Trek but Thor?!? For those of you who don’t know, in the Marvel Universe Thor is one of the most powerful superheroes around, second only to Hulk in terms of strength. Personally, i’d rather see the Rock play Thor than a young whippet. Unless Hemsworth beefs up considerably (which I can’t see him doing in the next couple of months prior to shooting commencing in Jan ‘10), the main character could turn out to be a joke.

Comics rarely make the transition to the big screen very well and the only comic book adaptations that I can think of that have been done well are  Jon Farveu’s superb Iron Man film and the 2008 Incredible Hulk movie. I can’t even rate the Spiderman films, pure garbage and total kids film cop-outs. The key to a good film is casting, and that applies even more so to comic book films. Edward Norton did a great job capturing the angst of Bruce Banner and Bob Downey JR is totally believable as Tony Stark but Toby Maguire as Spiderman? Kirsten Dish-Face Dunst? No thanks. The fantastic four films aren’t even worth a mention, the first film had me cheering on for Doctor Doom and they even managed to fuck Galactus up with the second effort.

I just don’t think this will be any good. It’s going to be directed by floppy-haired Mum’s favourite Kenneth Branagh(!) who has no experience whatsoever in directing an action flick and it also follows the weaker of the two Thor backstories. Rather than the Ultimate Thor story in which Thor is either a God or a madman, the film will go with the Earth 616 story that Thor is a disabled doctor who finds the strength within himself to become a God. Yawn.

I genuinely do hope that it’s a good movie, but only time will tell. Now all we need to do is sort out who will play Captain America….

Ultimate Spider-Man was a reboot of Spider-Man targeted toward a younger audience. It made sense. I grew up with Spider-Man, but my sons hadn’t. They didn’t understand everything that Spider-Man had gone through to get where he was. Plus, he was a married man. He was no longer a late-teen and twenty-something that they could better identify with.

So along came Ultimate Spider-Man. Spider-Man is still Peter Parker, but in this alternate universe, Spider-Man gets his powers at a younger age. His best friend is Mary Jane Watson, who he attends high school with, unlike in the regular Spider-Man timeline when he met her after he graduated high school. The basic story was the same except that Peter gets his superpowers not from an irradiated spider, but from a genetically enhanced spider. The spider’s bite give his great strength, faster reflexes and greater agility. Many of the villains are the same and even some of the story arcs are the same as Spider-Man, but they have a new, updated look.

The Ultimate Spider-Man comics ran from 2000-2009, ending with issue #133 earlier this year. It was one of four comics set in the Ultimate Universe. The others were Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four and The Ultimates (Avengers).

As a long-time Spidey fan, I enjoyed reading the stories, though I waited until they packed them into paperbacks.

Now, here’s the kicker. When Marvel ended all of the Ultimate comics, they were tied up with the mini-series Ultimate: Requiem. What happens is that Magneto uses his power to create a disaster that shatters the Ultimate universe as we know it.

Marvel then brought Ultimate Spider-Man back in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 2. This won’t be the same universe, though. I haven’t read these books yet, but I’ve heard that characters who still exist in the regular Marvel Universe are dead in Ultimate Volume 2 and new characters are introduced. I’ll have to let you know what I think of the new Ultimate Spider-Man in a few months.

Whenever I fly, I always make sure to pick up a new book or two. Most of the flights I take are under two hours, which means about an hour of each flight makes me electronicless, so I need something else to do. I recently got $50 to Amazon through my credit card and decided to pick up a few graphic novels I’ve been wanting.

Dynamo 5 Volume 3: Fresh Blood
by Jay Faerber, Mahmud A. Asrar, Yildiray Cinar, and Marcio Takara

For those that don’t know, Dynamo 5 is a monthly series published by Image Comics. I used to read it in issues but switched to trades for all my comics about a year ago. The premise of Dynamo 5 is simple: Captain Dynamo (this universe’s Superman) was less than loyal to his wife and fathered five children with five different women, each one of them gained one of his super powers.  After his sudden death, his widow sought out the children and assembled them into a crime fighting team to protect Liberty City.

The last trade left off with Dynamo 5 disbanding after their base of operations had been infiltrated by a group of supervillains. Without a group of protectors, Liberty City becomes overrun. This trade picks up with a new hero patrolling the streets: Vigil.

Through a progression of guilt, Scrap returns to the city and creates a new Dynamo 5 consisting of the newcomer Vigil and three established heroes: the mother-daughter duo both named Firebird and Quake. The story follows this groups new adventures against The Veil. I’m not going to give away the plot, but it’s a solid read.

Dynamo 5 as a concept is great and follows the ideas presented in other books like Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers. The premise of most of those books is how they are a family first but Dynamo 5 switches it up. They are literally a family only none of them know what to do. Faerber takes generic superhero comic cliches and twists them just enough to make them feel new. The villains are a great balance between a caricature and innovation. The Veil draws heavily from HYDRA but feels new. Bonechill looks like a blue Ghost Rider but works as a character. It’s not about how or why, the villains just are – something that’s been missing from mainstream comics lately. I started reading this during Civil War and it felt right: clear sides, good versus bad. Asrar continues to do great work, though he occasionally gets cheesecakey. I’d love to see him work on any book that involves Emma Frost because Firebird looks just like her.

As a trade, this is a great continuation of the story but you need to start at the beginning to understand it. The book’s recap page doesn’t do much for new readers, but this is one of the best superhero comics out.

Dinotopia: The World Beneath
by James Gurney

I first discovered the Dinotopia series before it was even a series. It was in either 2nd or 3rd grade when I first say the book in my school’s library and was instantly taken in by the captivating artwork. I vaguely remember seeing the second book in the series a few years later but couldn’t recall actually reading either of the books. But I heard last year that a new book in the series was coming out so I went online and picked up the first three books to read. Only two of the books ever arrived, but I bought the second book again to read this month.

Dinotopia is a four book series with amazing oil and watercolor paintings. The prose is lackluster at times but the art makes up for it. The first book is the journal of a father and son who survived being shipwrecked on the mysterious island of Dinotopia. The first book is the best written and the second book tries to be more story-y and that is it downfall. Gurney is clearly an amazing artist, there’s no doubt about that but his skills as an author are limited. The book relies too heavily on adjectives and a string thin plot. The art is exceptional and enough of the plot can be determined through looking at them. Characters are shallow and might as well be named things like token bad guy, token female who becomes love interest randomly and stuffy professor.

Astounding Wolf-Man Volume 2
by Robert Kirkman, Jason Howard, and Ryan Ottley

Another superhero comicbook series from Image Comics. Written by Robert Kirkman, known for Invincible, Walking Dead and writing an Ultimate X-Men series that didn’t make sense, Kirkman knows how to write. Astounding Wolf-Man follows a simple premise: there’s a guy who gets bitten by a werewolf and becomes a superhero.

The last trade left off with Wolf-Man being framed for his wife’s murder and he seeks the training necessary to avenge her. Being on the run, Wolf-Man ends up in some park where a large werewolf calls home. After some training, he learns to control his powers better.

The premise is interesting, well was interesting. The main character is a werewolf and his nemesis is a vampire. Twilight has ruined everything. The stories are okay but not Kirkman’s best work by any stretch. This is the guy who wrote Marvel Zombies – he knows how to do the supernatural. He also writes Invincible, which is probably the second best solo superhero book out there besides Ultimate Spider-Man. It just needs something more. Running from F.L.A.G. Agents doesn’t make for capitvating stories. The best part of this book was when it was an issue of Invincible, so read that instead.

Ultimatum
by Jeph Loeb and David Finch

Jeph Loeb is the reason I switched to trades for reading comics. His run on Ultimates 3 was absurd at best and absolutely awful the rest of the time. For some reason, the higher ups at Marvel thought the Ultimate Universe needs a big mix up.

Know what? The Ultimate Universe had enough for mix-ups. And everything in it lately that has been awful has been Jeff Loeb’s fault. The end of Ultimate Power? That was him. Ultimates 3? Him too. Ultimatum – yeah, Loeb again.

The first two issues aren’t bad. Magneto goes crazy and attacks the earth. Some nice destruction, a bunch of people die. Then Loeb confuses Ultimate Universe with “I can do anything I want because this isn’t in continuity!” He starts ignoring exisitng Ultimate Universe history that doesn’t work for him and just runs with it.

It doesn’t work.

After issue 2, the story falls apart and becomes more of a series of scenes so loosely connected I’m still not sure they are. Blob eats Wasp! Spider-Man’s dead! Magneto get’s KILLED BY WOLVERINE. Yes, Magneto forgot he had powers of magnetism. It’s beyond awful. Don’t read this.

Comics! and boy this week provided a whole slew of new reading material for me, none of which was the new Ultimate Comics line from Marvel.Those who know me might know that I have definitely read my share of Image and old Marvel stories but I am pretty dedicated to DC.I have read quite a bit of Spiderman up to the clone saga but everything after the “Ultimate” reboot in 2000 has me completely lost.

Well apparently the last couple of years there has been this whole Ultimatum story covering the marvel universe in which Magneto steals Thor’s hammer and causes a series of disasters that hurts a ton of heroes and kills Captain America, Daredevil, Valkyrie, , Dazzler, Beast and Nightcrawler. Xavier then confronts Magneto and Magneto states that the human race has been in constant decline and must be stopped. After Xavier compares Magneto to Hitler, Magneto kills Xavier. Thor sacrifices himself to save Valkyrie and Captain America from Hela (Thor’s now dead, they are not). Hank Pym bites of the Blob’s head for eating the Wasp. Doctor Strange dies. Angel is killed by Sabretooth, who bites off one of his wings. Magneto manages to kill Wolverine by ripping the Adamantium from his bones. Cyclops decapitates Magneto with his eyebeams. The Thing kills Dr. Doom, crushing his head in his hand. Cyclops is shot in the head by Quicksilver.

Basically everyone cool dies. The story got super bad reviews and now Marvel is trying to do another reboot of the entire Marvel universe with the previously mentioned Ultimate Comics. Today they released both Spiderman #1 and Avengers #1. I didn’t get a good look at Avengers but Spiderman looked laaaaame.

It looks like some Fox network Saturday morning cartoon crap. Hopefully for Spidey fans this is just this artist’s interpretation of the reboot and not a new direction the Marvel team is looking for.

I’m gonna go read some Blackest Night now, I’ll report back later…

Se c’è una cosa che odio è il lassismo letterario. Nel senso che non sopporto le buone idee poi scritte da cani, per mancanza di impegno e voglia di fare.
Dimostrazione recente è l’Universo Ultimate della Marvel. Qualche anno fa, alla Marvel, hanno deciso di rilanciare le loro testate e acquisire nuovi lettori creando un universo alternativo delle loro testate che ricominciasse tutto da capo. A trovare un proprio posto “fisso” sono state quattro testate: Ultimate X Men, Ultimate Spider Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four e gli Ultimates – versione alternativa de I Vendicatori. Le testate sono partite molto bene: fresche, aggiornate, scritte con brio, interessanti e, finalmente, divertenti.
Poi è andato tutto in vacca. Per sciatteria, per l’appunto.
La dimostrazione più “pesante” le hanno le testate degli X Men e degli Ultimates, che dopo un inizio bruciante ora vivacchiano su storie noiose e scritte malissimo, che esaltano il lato soap operistico del tutto. Specialmente la testata dei Vendicatori aveva messo in campo un’interessantissima versione del super gruppo, legata allo Shield e all’Esercito, con tutti i dubbi morali che ne derivano (se l’America ha al suo servizio dei super umani, cosa gli impedisce di lanciarli contro qualsiasi bersaglio gli sia utile?)
Ma, come detto, viene tutto perso appena Millar smette di seguire le testate e una manica di idioti ne prende il posto, facendo crollare tutto.
E infatti le testate Ultimates stanno per essere chiuse e sostituite da tre nuove testate, in un tentativo di rilancio.
Odio il lassismo letterario.

Last month, Marvel killed off Ultimate Peter Parker/ Spider-Man (There are multiple Peter Parkers/ Spider-Men in a number of different continuities. This is not the real Peter Parker/ Spider-Man, however it is the one I have found most interesting over the past decade).

I just got around to writing about it because I had been behind on my comics. School, the thesis, graduating, vacation, this blog and finding a job got in the way of reading my comics.

A few months ago I wrote about Marvel’s Ultimate Universe and it’s impending reboot -

http://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/%E2%80%9Cultimate%E2%80%9D-reboot/

The reboot is happening by way of an event story called Ultimatum. In no small terms, Ultimatum sucks. It has no redeeming qualities and I am only reading it because I have read every single Ultimate story that has come before it. I am disappointed in writer Jeph Loeb and Marvel for pushing this steaming pile of poo on the general public at $4.00 an issue.

But wait, there’s more!

Event stories are never self-contained. They spill-over into the regular monthly titles, and usually bring them down in the process.

As a result of Ultimatum, Brian Michael Bendis has killed off Ultimate Spider-Man. After nearly a decade of consistently good and interesting super hero stories (a feat in and of itself) Ultimate Spidey bit the big on in an issue devoid of dialog.

If you are unfamiliar with the title, it was famous for its dialog; it was the bet part.

To artist Stuart Immonen’s credit, the story is very easy to follow visually.

However, looking at the pages I am fairly certain that there is no dialog because putting words in the characters’ mouths would underscore how stupid this turn of events was. I can’t see how Bendis could have made the dialog anything but trite.

The Ultimate line was created so that Marvel could do things with the character that they couldn’t get away with using the “real”/ original versions. With that in mind, I will give them a little bit of wiggle room and hope that the reboot breathes new life into the Ultimate line.

That being said, the only Ultimate title that didn’t need improvement was Spider-Man.

I hope the folks at Marvel know what they are doing. If they screw this up, they will lose my readership on the entire line of comics… a reboot is a good place for new readers to jump on, but it is also a great spot for old ones to hop off.

“‘Nuff Said”

By Jeph Loeb (writer), David Finch (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Peter Steigerweld (colors)

Usually it is an ominous sign here at WCBR when we forgo our standard format when writing a review; and in the case of Ultimatium #4, this warning is well warranted. Before I tear into this dreadful piece of literature; this horrendous and hideous production, I want to make a disclaimer: I am not a hater. I don’t hate creators for their past work or their approach to storytelling. You won’t see me railing against a Grant Morrison or Greg Land for their unique styles, even if I don’t like them (BTW, I am a fan of the former). Rather, I do my best to review every comic on its own merit and for what it and of itself brings to the table. Therefore, I am not a Jeph Loeb “hater,” so what I have to say here is objective and directed to the comic at hand. With that said, let me be blunt: this is one of the worst comics I have ever read.

I can not see one redeeming aspect of this comic and seriously, I don’t say this lightly, but this is a complete waste of a tree. In fact, there is a tree somewhere screaming from its pulpy grave that its life was cut short for the sake of this garbage, vowing vengeance against the editors at Marvel.

The character work here is totally laughable and I have no idea if this is supposed to be a serious comic or if there is meant to be some 4th wall comedy going on here; where the reader and the writer mutually acknowledge that comics take themselves too seriously. Also, the way the heroes and villains are killed off is, well, kinda disrespectful. Not disrespect to the characters, because that would be the proposition of an insane person, but rather, disrespectful to the readers. Marvel has wrapped many readers into the Ultimate Universe for years and these followers have dedicated a lot time and money to buy this line. So to see characters that readers were meant to invest into over these years killed off in such juvenile, silly, and irreverent ways just so that the writer has some shock value to fall back on, is, as I said, disrespectful.

The way this story moved along reminded me of a factory line. Things have to happen for point A to get to point B and that’s it. No drama, no real dialogue, and definitely no logic. In my opinion, the cause of these problems is just laziness. Loeb doesn’t even try to make things click. There is actually a scene where Cyclops addresses a helicopter crew that is hundreds of feet overhead and he just talks to it, telling it to lay off, and somehow the pilot hears him and backs off. I’m not even going to address the return of Nick Fury and that whole scene, as it’s not even worth me firing whatever synapses control my short-term memory has in order to recall how tremendously and pervasively ridiculous it was.

The art also seemed lazy and careless. I think Finch read the script and thought to himself that there was no point in eventrying. There is nothing impressive about anything here and the over-the-top, sloppy, and grotesque death and violence. It all simply forced me to look away from many of the panel.s.

I’m serious when I say, that there is no point in Marvel releasing the conclusion to this mini. It is a waste all-around. Just move on with Bendis and Millar and their new Ultimate Comics projects and pretend this whole sordid affair never happened. I will most likely not be buying the next issue as there is no chance that I’ll ever reread this series again ever, ever, ever…

Grade: F-

- Rob G.

"Go check out the East Warehouse over at Lairdman Island."

I’ll be honest with you, when presented with a second choice of free comic for Free Comic Book Day, I was fairly indifferent.  I was even thinking of picking up a second copy of Blackest Night #0 just to be a tool and sell it on eBay.  But being the considerate guy that I am, I surveyed the stand to see if nothing else would catch my eye.  My eyes stopped on a familiar image:

Is that the first issue of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’?

I checked the corner of the cover art, and sure enough it was signed ‘Eastman ‘84′.  Sounds about right.  Looked at the back cover: ‘25th Anniversary 1984 – 2009′.  In my Sherlock-ian wisdom, I reasoned that okay then, this must be the 25th Anniversary reprint of TMNT #1.  “I’ll take it!”

Now, before I read this comic, I’d have proudly declared my intimate knowledge of the Turtles mythos.  I own 30+ Ninja Turtle action figures with weapons; the Turtle Van (or ‘Party Wagon’ as described on the box); four limited edition, fully-posable, hand-crafted Ninja Turtle figures based on the original comics still in their box; two copies of the Ninja Turtles Joke Book (which, you won’t be surprised to hear, is terrible); and a copy of their first (and best) live-action motion picture on VHS recorded from TV – NO ADS (it still hasn’t been released on DVD in Australia), among other things.  I memorised the ‘T-U-R-T-L-E Power’ rap!

I worked hard for my Turtles fandom.  When I was 6 years old and these mutant amphibian warriors set playgrounds alight the world over, my mother would not allow me to watch the cartoon because it was “too violent”.  So what did I do?  I watched it in secret.  Four o’clock, Channel 7, every afternoon after school.  I don’t even remember how I furnished such an elaborate lie, but I did, for an entire year before I was discovered.  After which, my mother, in her Sherlock-ian wisdom (which she has since passed down to her son), allowed me to continue watching it, as she deduced that I had not become (noticeably) more violent over the past year.  It took another year of wearing them down to get my first action figure.  In the meantime I had to settle on a handheld Game & Watch-style Ninja Turtles game (which I got a lot of mileage out of) “and that’s it”.

My parents' first Turtles concession - "and that's it".

Next thing I know, I’m 8 years old and I’m holding my very first Ninja Turtles action figure (Raphael) “and that’s it”.  This went on until I collected the whole set.  Eventually, I think my parents gave up.  They must have resigned themselves to the fact that Ninja Turtles and I were destiny.  They wouldn’t let me see the live-action film at the cinema because it was, well, live-action (you can watch the cartoon series, “and that’s it”).  When it aired on TV, my father recorded it for me and cut out the ads for me.  Bless his heart.  Bless both their hearts.  Hopefully now you have a fairly accurate picture of my TMNT pedigree.  Now, allow me to drop the megaton on you: I HAVE NEVER READ A NINJA TURTLES COMIC BOOK IN ALL MY LIFE. Until now.

This comic grabbed me, shook me violently, slapped me in the face multiple times, and rebuked me in a terrible, Shredder-like voice, “YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THE TURTLES FOUR!!”

When I read in words and pictures, black and white, the true origin of the Ninja Turtles, and their greatest foe, Oroku Saki, I was surprised by the marked differences between the comics, the cartoons, and the live-action film.  To their (and their characters’) credit, Eastman and Laird have been more than flexible, adapting their creative property with a clear sensibility for medium and audience, but by the same token, I empathise with the true Turtles fan’s impossible task: to reconcile these clearly contradictory continuities into a cohesive mythology.  I suppose it’s really no different to the task of any comic book reader (Marvel’s 616 Universe vs. the Ultimate Universe, DC’s pre-crisis Multiverse vs. the post-crisis Universe vs. the post-post-crisis Multiverse, etc.), but these continuities contradict and parallel each other to this day.  For me, it’s simply a case of picking and choosing the bits that I like, and willfully ignoring the parts that I don’t.  More ardent fans likely have to settle with juggling three or more separate Turtles universes in their heads at the same time!

To begin with, Hamato Yoshi was a member of the Foot clan in Japan, a guild of assassins by trade.  Secondly, it was not Oroku Saki who competed with Yoshi for the love of the woman Tang Shen (a surprisingly Chinese name), rather his brother, Oroku Nagi (that’s right, ‘Oroku’ is the surname, and it is spoken first as is the custom in Japan).  Oroku Nagi assaulted Tang Shen when she refused his love, and Yoshi in turn beat Nagi to death in his blinding rage.  Yoshi, disgraced for having killed a fellow clansman, flees to America with his wife Tang Shen, while Saki swears vengeance for his brother’s blood at Nagi’s funeral.  Saki becomes the Foot’s most accomplished assassin by the age of eighteen, and is sent to New York to found their new base of operations in the U.S.  As the Shredder, Saki tracks down and kills Shen and then Yoshi.  And the rest, as they say it, is history – Splinter sends out his fully-trained Ninja Turtles on their first mission to avenge the death of his Master.

That’s right, the Ninja Turtles fight and kill their greatest foe – The Shredder – in their very first encounter; in the very first issue!  That this one-and-done story spawned a series and a franchise is nothing short of amazing, and yet, at the same time, it isn’t.  Laird defends the hasty disposal of one of comics’ most notable villains in his opening letter, and rightly so.  It lends the story a raw power and urgency – as Laird confides, he wrote as if there was no second issue.  He also mentions that Eastman and himself simply wanted an opportunity to play on the same field as their heroes Jack Kirby and Frank Miller (an odd couple if ever I heard one), and the two influences shine through in this issue.  On the Kirby side of things, I could feel the energy and vitality of a story that may never be told again.  In the Miller corner, I could see the grim and gritty visual style; the heavy line-work; the fascination with Ancient Japan; and even the *suggestion* of an intersection with Daredevil’s origin story (could the ooze that transformed the Turtles be the same chemical that blinded and empowered Matt Murdock?).

Daredevil: The Secret of the Ooze.

It’s indie; it’s lo-fi; it feels like rare vinyl and vintage jeans.  The lettering and panel layouts are very rough, but all in all, I could really appreciate the inherent, visceral power of what is essentially a classic Japanese revenge tale.

Certainly the Ninja Turtles have since taken on a life of their own, larger than Eastman and Laird’s original vision, but damn if this comic wasn’t a great place to start.  Otherwise 25 years would have been a bit of a stretch.  Happy Birthday, boys!

Today we are going to talk about Marvel’s “Ultimate Universe” and it’s impending reboot.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with superhero comics, there is a fairly complicated series of “universes” that these stories take place in. I will probably write some posts in the future about the structure of these universes, but it will take a lot of time to write it and get everything correct (my memory of this stuff isn’t exactly encyclopedic).

To give you a quick point of reference, most of the classic Marvel stories, the ones that are subtly or overtly referenced in the movies come from the original Marvel Universe or the Earth-616. Over the course of the last five decades, the Earth-616 Universe became pretty unwieldy and bogged down in continuity (which it still is and probably always will be).

In response, Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in 2000 with Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men. In 2001, they launched Ultimates (the Ultimate version of the Avengers).

They started with issue one. No history.

While the ultimate characters frequently overlapped with the classic characters we all know and love, they didn’t have upwards of forty years of history, so the writers were free to do things differently and take the characters to new, uncharted territory. The goal was to make these characters accessible and modern, and grounded in realism (as much realism as you could have with superpowers).

Ultimate Spider-Man took a conventional yet fresh approach to Spidey. It was clearly Peter Parker, but the world around him was different. The art was vibrant and action packed. The writing was thoughtful and witty. The storytelling was superb and has pretty much remained so for the last nine years there were a few weak story arcs, but it was a consistently strong read. Bendis and co rarely ever missed a deadline, so the regular publishing schedule helped to make this an enthralling read.

Ultimate X-Men took a more cynical approach to the characters and the world around them. Mark Millar delved deeply into issues of racism and prejudice. His characters had a distinctly dark but still fun feel to them. Unlike Spidey, the X-Men had a number of writers, and the stories became progressively more inane and out there. This completely defied the “grounded” and “realistic” feel of the Ultimate Universe.

Ultimates was a completely different beast. The Ultimates (Avengers) were so ridiculously badass. They were deeply flawed individuals fighting for mostly selfish reasons. The stories were cleaver, violent, political, and very funny in a dark and twisted kind of way. The only real flaw with this book was that it was eternally off schedule. I’m not talking a month here, a month there. I started and completed college with a double major and a minor in less time that it took Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch to write 26 issues of this comic. I usually forgot what had happened between the issues because it took so damn long for them to go to print.

Ultimate Nick Fury looks Samuel L. Jackson because who else is the biggest badass in the universe going to look like?

 Other Ultimate titles came and went. They had Ultiamte Daredevil, Elektra, Iron-Man, a number of random mini-series, and the eternally delayed Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk.

Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the hit TV show Lost wrote the first issue of Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk back in 2005. After the first two issues of six, the book went on hiatus. There hasn’t been a single issue printed since. Allegedly the final four are written and going to press over the coming months. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Reboot

After nearly a decade, the Ultimate Universe has become somewhat unwieldy and with the exception of Ultimate Spider-Man, the quality has completely eroded from accessible, grounded, and intelligent storytelling to bad Saturday morning cartoon caliber.

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs for the Universe that got me into comics in the first place.

The line is being rebranded as “Ultimate Comics” and everything is starting sometime in the future with issue one.

Spidey will still be penned Bendis, Avengers will be written by Mark Millar, and Jeph Loeb will be the scribe behind Ultimates (I’m kind of worried about this one. His past Ultimate endeavors have been atrocious). There will be one more Ultimate Comic title, but it has not been revealed yet.

I hope that the reboot brings thoughtful and cleaver storytelling with it.

Danny, Art and Jesse sit down and talk about the Marvel’s Ultimate Universe.

Fourth Wall Special Edition – Marvel’s Ultimate Universe

By Jeph Loeb (Writer), David Finch (Artist), Danny Miki (Inker), and Steve Firchow (Colors)

What’s Going On: Think “The Day After Tomorrow” with super-heroes. We get one page each of the Fantastic Four, the Ultimates, Spider-Man, and the X-Men hanging around before a gigantic tidal wave swamps New York. This is the terrible event presaged in Ultimate Origins, as evidenced by one of those “Watcher” traffic lights hanging around Bruce Banner. At first, Reed Richards thinks it’s Namor’s doing, but a quick fight with the King of Atlantis convinces him otherwise. Doctor Doom appears in this issue, but it’s not him either. In the Ultimate Universe, Doom is a second stringer.

What’s Good: David Finch’s art is, as always, a wonder to behold. The only drawback is he has had to cram so many characters into the first issue that the story flow sometimes suffers, especially when the big wave hits: we never actually see it happen. One panel everyone’s looking up at the rain, the next the streets are under twenty feet of water.

What’s Not So Good: Reality check: What is Bruce Banner, whose alter-ego caused the death of 600 New Yorkers, who is viewed in the Ultimate universe as the moral equivalent of Osama Bin Laden, doing hanging around midtown?

What It All Boils Down To: Ultimatum #1 works pretty well, in a sacrificing-character-for-world-shaking-action sort of way. And that Uru trinket at the villain’s feet on the last page promises to make an interesting twist.

Grade: B+

- Andrew C. Murphy

A Second Opinion

Although a lot of fans don’t like Jeph Loeb’s writing, I tend to in general; feeling that he’s more hit and miss than most. I didn’t read Ultimates 3 but the consensus wasn’t good. Still “the end” of the Ultimate U is an interesting idea in itself. What’s frustrating about the book is that there’s too much setup of the universe and not enough for the story. Most of the book shows the major players and recaps their relationships. That’s fine, but one would have to assume that anyone reading Ultimatum would be up to date with these relationships. If I hadn’t read Ultimate Origins, I’d be clueless to what was going on, and I’m still not so sure. Generally I like to give an arc at least two issues before I decide to pass on it, and it’s a good thing here because it looks like the story won’t start till issue 2 . I agree with Andrew though, this story’s appeal is more on the event than the characters. But now, we have a broad-strokes idea of the world, so hopefully things can get spaced out a little better. That way Finch’s pencils can really shine and Loeb can show the better side of his talents.

Grade: C

-Ben Berger

I’ve never been a big fan of any Ultimate Marvel comic (apart from Spiderman) and i’m not sure whats been going on in all the other series but from this trailer i can pretty much gather that the Marvel world has pissed off Magneto in a big way. The trailer looks like this story is worth reading and is written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by David Finch so a star line up to boot. From what i’ve read of the spoilers for this series is that the ENTIRE Ultimate universe is about to change for good, there’s even talk of killing some big names too. Watch the trailer and feel free to tell me what you think.

By Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Butch Guice (art), Justin Ponsor (colors)

I love a good Captain America story, and that’s basically what we get here. After the big opening we received last month, I thought the rest of this series would just go through the motions of connecting the characters of the Ultimate Universe into a big tapestry. We don’t get that with this issue, and to be honest, I was hoping for more answers. However, the retelling of Ultimate Captain America’s origin is, in many ways, a romantic tale. The quiet moments we witness between Steve and Gail are sweet, and reminiscent of the sappy kind of romance you’d see from an old World War 2 movie.

The rest of the story plods through familiar territory, giving us glimpses of what Steve goes through with his injections until he reaches the culmination of Project: Rebirth. From here, we learn the fate of Doctor Erskine, Steve’s new found skill of throwing disc shaped objects, and the appearance of an ancient object that I can only guess is the Ultimate Watcher. I could be wrong, however.

As a whole, the story’s nothing terribly new or noteworthy, but it’s highly entertaining and well-paced by Brian Bendis. Having Butch Guice on the series is an excellent choice, and having him work on a Captain America story after his recent stint on the regular Ed Brubaker Cap series is a stroke of genius. Here, he continues to mimic Steve Epting’s style while injecting some of his own sensibilities. The result is an astonishingly beautiful book. There is one instance where “scrawny” Steve Rogers looks a bit too much like Nicolas Cage and there’s a few tiny panels littered about that just feel out of place, but otherwise this is a great looking book.

I’m wondering if the rest of this series will play out similarly to this issue. If it does, I can’t say I’ll enjoy the format. As a stand alone story, this issue’s quite good, but do we really need a series that just retells everyone’s origins? I’ll let you know when I have the answer. (Grade: B)

- J. Montes

A Second Opinion

While I agree with Jason on most of his points, I can’t possibly give this one the same type of score. The Captain America origin story is well told thanks to some great artwork and fitting writing, but since this is supposed to be part of an event mini-series, I find myself pretty disappointed. Too much of this issue is just a retelling of what is, at this point, an extremely familiar tale. New plot elements are introduced, but not really given enough time to develop properly since so much of the issue is devoted to retelling Cap’s story. While what is here works well enough, the Cap story may have been better off as a one-shot so that the mini-series could focus more on connecting the dots and telling a much larger tale. This is a good read, but disappointing given the context. (Grade: C+)

-Kyle Posluszny

A Third Opinion

I swear, if Brian Bendis takes this “decompression” business any further, I’m going to develop the bends.

Okay, I know that’s not fair. I know that this is probably a good issue, and that when the Ultimate Origins story is read as a whole, these 24 pages will seem well-written and well-paced, but it’s really just a recap of the origin of Captain America, which I’ve read once or twice or fifty times before.

The book opens with the Fantastic Four touring a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” style warehouse inside Project Pegasus. An artifact that looks something like a totem pole, but more like a traffic light, has started to glow, after being inactive for sixty years. We then jump back to 1942, where Steve Rogers is morosely watching a newsreel about action in the European theatre. A woman named Gail shows up with another guy, and it’s apparent from their interaction that at least part of Rogers’ desire to enlist is hormonally motivated. He goes to the recruitment office for the fourth or fifth time and is again rejected, but this time “Dum Dum” Dugan shows up to tell him he’s been selected for a special project. What follows is almost exactly the same as the origin of the regular Captain America.

How is the origin of the “Ultimate” Captain America different from the regular one? The artifact was there. That’s all. Honestly. He was being watched by a stick.

I’m intrigued by the artifact, which I assume is either alien or magical, but it feels like Bendis is coasting a bit here. Similarly, the art is good, but obviously Butch Guice isn’t working quite as hard this issue as he did on the first.

I have faith in Bendis, and I’ve got high hopes for this series, but judged as an individual issue I have to give this a… (Grade: C+)

- Andrew C. Murphy

Thanks to a source (which can not be revealed) we have a list of all the major event happening in the upcoming Ultimate Origins storyline taking place in the Ultimate Universe.

For those who don’t know, this series will answer a lot of questions left unanswered and will be a perfect lead in to Ultimatum.

WARNING: This list does contain spoilers so if you would rather not know anything until the book comes out turn back now!

Highlight the respective areas to see.

1. The Secret Origin of Wolverine
2. Cap’s hidden secrets
3. Cap’s origin and the origin of Nick Fury
4. The origin of the Hulk is tied to the tragic and untimely deaths of the parents of Peter Parker
5. The True Origin of Mutants
6. How Charles Xavier met Magneto and the falling out that may be the downfall of all mutantkind
7. The First Appearance of The Ultimate Watcher
8. The End of the Fantastic Four
9. Learn the never before revealed connection between the Ultimates, Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-man and Ultimate Fantastic Four
10. New Ultimate Characters
    

Speaking of Ultimatum, here’s what to expect from that.

MORE SPOILERS:

1. Two books will end their historic runs.
2. A major team will disassemble.
3. Major characters will die.
4. Everyone will be affected by these deaths.
5. And every title will be altered by these event’s.

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