The Ultimates 2 5 (June 2005)

How am I going to write a post about this issue? Nothing happens in it. The Ultimates beat up Thor, then Thor goes to jail, then Nick Fury decides to invade the Middle East (proving Thor right). Big cliffhanger!

The whole Ultimates concept–realistic superhero artwork–flops here because the fight scene is in the woods. Who cares about realistic forest artwork? Hitch is no Thomas Kinkade.

Then there’s the last few pages, post-fight scene. Millar teases Thor being nuts, but he can’t create any actual suspicion of it. No matter what Millar does–Hulk eating people, Giant Man beating up the Wasp, Ultimate Steve Rogers being Ronald Reagan’s wet dream–there’s no way Thor isn’t Thor. Not in a Marvel comic.

Speaking of Ultimate Captain America, I like the implication he’s more worried about foul language than he is about being used to invade sovereign states.

Crap issue.

The Ultimates 2 4 (May 2005)

So Ultimates 2 basically starts this issue. The rest was just finishing up the first series and getting rid of the Hulk. Now Millar’s on to the new story, Loki messing with stuff, and everyone too stupid to believe Thor.

I like how Hitch makes Ultimate Captain America look like a Nazi superhero on the last page. I wonder if that implication was intentional.

Sadly, it’s not a good issue. Millar’s putting in a lot of exposition and not much character work. Janet and Ultimate Rogers are a boring couple. She’s a terrible character and he’s apparently Millar’s attempt at mocking American strong men. At least I hope he’s trying to be funny. Otherwise he’s just totally unaware of himself as a writer.

There’re no big scenes this issue. Millar fills the emptiness with a bunch of lame Ultimate introductions; his dialogue is also weak. There’s nothing interesting going on….

The Ultimates 2 3 (April 2005)

“The Trial of the Incredible Hulk” isn’t much of a trial; having Ultimate Matt Murdock as Bruce’s defense lawyer feels forced too. But the issue’s solid.

Millar continues to sympathize with strange characters–wife-beater Hank Pym, for example–and demonize the good guys. Nothing with Ultimate Rogers this issue but Ultimate Nick Fury’s a big jerk and Ultimate Tony Stark’s just a drunken twit.

The finale, after an overlong funeral sequence, works out. For the first time on the series, Millar shows some sentimentality and actual engagement with the story. It doesn’t feel like hyperbole, it finally feels like sublime blockbuster storytelling. It’s actually a problem, because it shows what tone he should be going for with Ultimates and almost never attempts, much less attains.

There aren’t even any subplots working. It’s just a good issue, a couple bad moves aside.

Though Hitch’s art is still boring as dirt.

The Ultimates 2 2 (March 2005)

This issue’s a lot better than the first, though it takes a while to get used to Hitch. His composition choices don’t make any sense until one remembers there are rabid Hitch fans out there.

It’s a relatively quiet issue. There’s no big action scene and I think Iron Man’s the only one in costume. That little side adventure is just to introduce Ultimate Excalibur; something for the speculators perhaps.

Rogers accuses Thor of leaking a secret, Thor wonders why Rogers is dismissive of Asgard–there’s some subtext Millar doesn’t exploit enough about “real world” churchgoing. Even if people believe it, people don’t believe it will interact. Instead, he closes on Thor’s line, not Rogers’s reaction.

Wait, never mind. I keep forgetting Ultimate Steve Rogers is an idiot.

Millar’s handling of the scenes, the dialogue and the pacing, is quite good.

Reading it almost feels like a worthwhile time investment.

The Ultimates 2 1 (February 2005)

I wonder if Mark Millar intentionally paced this issue to finally get interesting a page or two before the finish. Seriously… I was just getting comfortable in my chair reading it and then the issue’s over.

Most of the issue is spent with Captain America, sorry, Ultimate Captain America–the difference being this Steve Rogers is a complete moron who probably tortures people when no one’s looking. Millar’s attempt to show him as an old timer has some problems… especially when it comes to the gossip. He’s upset people are gossiping about him and the Wasp. Because no one would have done such a thing in the thirties or forties? Clearly Steve Rogers was illiterate in the Ultimate Universe.

As usual, the only interesting stuff is with Thor. Millar’s attempt at convincing the reader Thor might be crazy fails.

And Bryan Hitch does his realism thing again. Whoop–de–do.

The Ultimates (2002) #13

U13

So all Millar needs is a double issue and he’ll take time?

Well, he doesn’t exactly take time. He writes an epilogue… lots of epilogues.

It’s a decent issue, a good popcorn read… though, wouldn’t eating popcorn while reading a comic book get your fingers greasy and damage the comic, reducing the value.

The positives come from the characters; again, Captain America doesn’t qualify yet and the Wasp does a turnaround on him and the end suggests some nooky (I guess he doesn’t know she’s a mutant yet… again, the hospital didn’t notice the little eggs?), so maybe next series he’ll have a character.

Great stuff with Thor and Iron Man, at least during the battle scene. However, Tony hitting on Laura Bush is, not surprisingly, weak. Millar really forces his “real world” humor and it almost always fails.

The Hulk saving the day, while neat, is way too easy.

The Ultimates (2002) #12

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And Millar brings it around… relatively. It’s a big huge fight scene with the fate of the solar system in the balance so maybe he gets some easy melodramatic points (he sure doesn’t score anything with the Captain America versus Nazi Skrull punch-out, not until the whole “A for America” thing, which doesn’t really sit well figuring Captain America’s from the 1940s and not a Neo-Con, but whatever… no one ever said Millar thought before he wrote).

The best moments of the comic–when the soldiers mock Iron Man’s sacrifice, for example–are sometimes quiet, sometimes loud. Thor, again, has the best lines in the comic. Millar never doing an Ultimate Thor series is his undoing, creatively speaking. For whatever reason, he writes him leagues better than anyone else.

I’m having some trouble with Captain America as a brilliant strategist too… shouldn’t have he won WWII earlier then?

The Ultimates (2002) #11

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Oh, good grief….

Have you seen Independence Day? Or any of the millions of Body Snatchers type movies?

Millar has.

I know I’m reading way too much into The Ultimates, but come on… Millar’s got thirteen issues and he doesn’t do anything with this one. Seriously, I don’t think Marvel can say anything bad about Jim Shooter, because Millar’s not much different (I do absolutely love how they’re Skrulls though, which means all Bendis did was recycle Ultimates for Secret Invasion). There’s nary an honest moment to be seen in this issue.

The end, the rallying speech from Captain America, is about as well written as Bill Pullman’s Independence Day rallying speech.

I think some of my… hostility comes from Ultimates being a decent concept–at least as far as an Ultimate Universe team book goes–and Millar faking “real world” with soap opera histrionics and mean-spiritedness.

Two left.

The Ultimates (2002) #10

U10

Sigh. An all-action issue. Not even an action-packed all-action issue. It’s a non-action-packed all-action double cross issue.

The Wasp’s twenty-six? Really? She’d have been nine when St. Elmo’s Fire came out, which makes it an awkward pop culture reference. It’s funny, but it doesn’t hold up to any thought whatsoever. Oh, wait, I just summed up the series.

The big shocker at the end of the issue is the Nazi villain Captain America used to fight is back. It’s weird how Millar doesn’t really give Captain America a character here, he just lets him be defined by his actions, never really having any thoughts.

Lots of vehicles for Hitch to draw this time. I think he digs drawing vehicles. It’s a decent scene, the sky full of S.H.I.E.L.D. ships. I don’t know… I can’t get excited at this point.

Nice Thor moments though.

The Ultimates (2002) #9

When did the Soviet Union fall?

Let’s check wikipedia. Ah, 1991.

So Hawkeye has been in S.H.I.E.L.D. for over eleven years, putting him in his thirties somewhere, I assume. Shame Hitch draws him in his mid-twenties.

Actually, if it hadn’t been for that last line about the Soviet Union, I was going to open with how unpleasant it is to read Hawkeye in Ultimates, since (I think) he just ends up getting tortured and killed anyway.

I don’t know what happens this issue. They get ready to go attack the aliens, Captain America strikes out with Janet. Oh, the fight. Captain America versus Giant Man. Once it becomes clear Captain America’s going to kick ass, the fight’s over. Boring.

Millar’s playful approach to Tony’s alcoholism is cute. It’s funny how that problem’s a joke, but spousal abuse isn’t (if Millar was really thinking, he’d have Janet beat up Hank).