I know this is supposed to be a review of the second (and I suspect final) volume in the Ultimate Annuals series. But it’s not so much a series as it is a collection of the oversized annual edition of each of the four major Ultimate serieses, and unlike last time, I’ve read most of these recently. Like, the X-Men story is I think the most recent thing I’ve read in that run, in which Nightcrawler goes from an unfortunately prejudiced dude who needs to have a good lightbulb moment to a disturbingly broken kidnapper who is probably on the verge of defection to evilness, over the next storyline or two. Or the Fantastic Four story in which Mole Man returns with a new plot to kidnap geniuses and harness them for his own uses. Okay, that one was pretty good, but I’ve already reached the end of the Ultimate FF run (save for the Ultimatum stuff), and it didn’t actually have the payoff it seemed like it should have had later on, so I am retroactively a little disappointed in it. Plus, the only story that isn’t collected in another book I’ve already read, in which Captain America and that Falcon guy from Ultimate Galactus head into the post-war American landscape[1] to fight an old Nazi menace? It kind of bored me. I think I blame this on it being the first Ultimates story I’ve seen that wasn’t written by Mark Millar. He’s good at those!

So, okay, yeah. Pretty disappointing book all in all, though I have given unfairly short shrift to the FF story. Except, y’know, Spider-Man. His story, which you may recall me choosing not to review when I read Deadpool earlier this week, is another clash between Peter Parker, Daredevil, and the Punisher. Except, right, I never read the original such clash because it was somehow left out of the three Ultimate Marvel Team-Up books in which comics-run it occurred. Luckily, someone eventually released a giant collection of that entire run in one book, making my three individual volumes obsolete. So, I read the three comics in question out of that, just to feel caught up. In short, across pages of annoyingly impressionistic artwork, we’re introduced to the Punisher, cop-turned-vigilante who hunts and kills dirty cops and dirtier criminals and spends most of his time in jail for said vigilantism, and Daredevil, blind lawyer with super-heightened alternate senses that allow him a better grasp of the world than any civilian and most superhumans. And Pete puts the Punisher back in jail while annoying the snot out of Daredevil for his happy-go-lucky attitude and his penchant for jumping into the middle of things first and asking questions later. (Which is I guess why Nick Fury is annoyed by him too. Also Blade.[2])

So, anyway, in this follow up meeting (Also including the Moon Knight (who I still have no kind of handle on), the Kingpin (still a magnificently realized bastard), and Kangaroo (uh…)), Daredevil still finds Spider-Man annoying and the Punisher still finds him detrimental. But none of that is really the point. The point is this: there’s been a long-term piece of plot involving the new[3] police captain, Jeanne de Wolfe, that I haven’t ever mentioned partially because it’s been largely in the background and partially because, well, any amount of detail places us squarely in spoiler city. But the thing is, as much time as I spend talking about how great the USM series is, right? This is just on a day-to-day basis. In the meantime, there are these deep undercurrents spanning something like half of the series to date that I’ve never even felt the need to mention. And of course there’s an inevitable huge payoff, that leads me to have to jump back into two paragraphs of review material just to explain how even an oversized single comic in this series is still so very cool. This is why I can’t stop gushing, no matter how hard I try to hold myself back. Because it’s just always this good.[4]

[1] Yeah, for serious, I really really need to do a quick reread of the four Ultimates titles that have been released so far, ’cause I barely have any idea what’s up in that quadrant of the Ultimate universe anymore, and I’m starting to reach the point where everything really does tie together. Maybe I’ll do one mega-review? Maybe not, depends on how it strikes me I guess.
[2] Yeah. The half-vampire guy. Seriously.
[3] The old captain was Gwen Stacy’s father, up until he was shot and killed by a guy in a Spider-Man costume. Good times!
[4] And the last page or two, in which Daredevil has a conversation with the Moon Knight guy? I’ve learned my lesson and mention it now, as I expect it to be the next major undercurrent.