Oct 17 2008
The Ultimate Review Week - The Story Thus Far
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Welcome to my comic book review blog - thanks for tuning in. Today is Friday, October 17th, 2008. Are you interested in a comic book but not sure you want to shell out the cash? Let me know and I’ll review it for you!
Today’s Issue:
The Ultimate Universe - The Story Thus Far. The Ultimate Universe is a “relaunch” of the Marvel Universe. It currently consists of 3 ongoing series - Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four - as well as a plethora of mini-series including Ultimate Origin, Ultimate Power, Ultimate Human, and 3 volumes of The Ultimates.
My Ultimate Story:
I know I’m doing something a bit unusual today - but I’m reviewnig about 250 comic books, so bear with me. When Ultimate Spider-Man (the first Ultimate title) first premiered I thought it was a terrible idea. I was like “Why would I want to read the same old Spider-Man stories again set in the present day?” I mean - I could see how that would appeal to new readers who hadn’t read the early Spidey stories, or to people just hopping on, but it didn’t appeal to me. I even read the first arc and thought - “Man, I can’t believe they’re taking 6 issues just to tell his origin! Let’s get on with it already!” Then Ultimate X-Men came out and I thought - “Man, they’re not even retelling the story RIGHT. WTF?” So I ignored the Ultimate Universe for years. Then, two years ago, came Ultimate Spider-Man #100 - The Ultimate Clone Saga. I decided to take a look at it, just to see their take on this classicly frowned upon Spider-Man MEGA story from the mid-90’s. In the back, it had a “The Story Thus Far” section, summarizing the first 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. And it was NOTHING like regular Spider-Man. Sure, the names were the same. And characters’ basic personas were in tact. But the stories were COMPLETELY different. That’s when I realized “relaunch” didn’t mean “retelling” but a complete re-creation of these characters and their worlds. I promptly picked up every Ultimate book ever published. Overall, I’ve been quite impressed.
Awesome Parts:
I like that this isn’t just a retelling. The fact that the various creators of this universe have been able to take the basic concepts of these characters and weave completely different narratives from what Stan & Jack & company told back in the 60’s is quite impressive. It also speaks to the iconic nature of these characters. The creators of the Ultimate Universe have also done a good job of creating a cohesive universe where all the characters interact with each other. Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and The Ultimates keep running into each other in all of their titles. Bravo. (I’m a big fan of crossovers. It just makes sense that ALL of the super powered heroes would be involved when something threatens the entire planet - you know?)
Un-Awesome Parts:
I’m not so much a fan of all of the mini-series. Instead of being an ongoing story, The Ultimates has been told as 3 mini-series. The Galactus story was told in 4 mini-series. A few of the Spider-Man stories were told as mini-series. That’s just kind of odd for me and makes keeping track of continuity and titles more difficult than I think it has to be. Finally, the universe has gotten so large now that a newbie just jumping in would have as much difficulty getting into this universe as a story in the regular Marvel Universe. I personally have no problems with this as I’ve read every Ultimate comic book - but it sort of ruins the point of the re-launch, you know?
My Recommendation:
I’m not going to say that EVERY Ultimate story has been good. I didn’t really like Ultimate Adventure at all. Ultimate Power had (in my mind) a crappy ending. But OVERALL this universe is awesome. It’s especially fun for someone who is familiar with the original characters to see what sorts of changes were made to fit these classic icons into a modern universe that is supposed to be more “realistic”. And in the beginning, this was definitely a great jumping on universe for people who didn’t want to get bogged down by continuity. So you know what I recommend? Start from the beginning. Every Ultimate story has been collected into trades which are easily accessible. Start with Ultimate Spider-Man #1 and Ultimate X-Men #1 and Ultimates #1 and then Ultimate Fantastic Four #1. See what you think of each of the series. I think most fans of super hero comics will get totally sucked in (the way I was) and will keep reading. If you find you don’t like one of the titles - then you can drop it and just keep reading the titles you enjoy. But I absolutely recommend to any fan of super hero comics giving each the Ultimate Universe a try from its beginning.
If you don’t want to spend that much time reading but are interested to know what sorts of changes have been made in the Ultimate Universe - then check out Ultimate Saga - a free comic which gives the entire history of the Ultimate Universe. I’ll be doing an official review of it tomorrow.
That’s all for today. As always - thanks for reading - see you next time. And don’t forget to let me know if there’s a comic book you’d like me to review for you!
-Searnold, SuperSearnold@yahoo.com
