The Ultimates 2: Gods and Monsters

61rnRASuyiLFinally, something good out of the Ultimates universe again! I’m reading the four series, and Spider-Man has been great for the teen set while Fantastic Four has been okay, and X-Men feels adult even though they’re all teens too, but it’s been the not-that-good cousin to the clearly adult and clearly good Ultimates. My point in all of this, aside from the subtle recap, is to express my relief; the last few books I’ve read have been iffy.

Not so God and Monsters! I mean, it starts off all soap opera with a recap of how the various government-sponsored superheroes have been pairing off, and how the remaining unpopular heroes have been doing. (Giant-Man has been having the kinds of marriage problems that do not result in paparazzi wondering who you’re being frisky on the beach with, and the Hulk murdered a lot of people, so.) But after all the stage-setting is in place, it immediately turns into Schrödinger’s plot, wherein one of two possible things is happening. Either Thor really is the Norse god of thunder, and his brother Loki is altering reality to torment him and Midgard in general, or else Thor is a delusional Norwegian hippy who has become incredibly dangerous because of his unbalanced ratio of powerfulness to sanity, and meanwhile the Ultimates are being gradually turned into yet another military arm of the United States government. For my part, I’m honestly not sure which possibility is more dire for our heroes.

Also, there’s a downright hilarious sequence revolving around a group of second tier superheroes of the type you’d expect to start crawling out of the woodwork in this kind of world, looking to feel special without any pesky powers or skills getting in the way. And the Ultimates contain a secret traitor! Maybe! (Like I said, it has a lot of soap opera elements to it. But I am okay with that kind of thing.)

2 thoughts on “The Ultimates 2: Gods and Monsters

  1. Pingback: Shards of Delirium » Ultimate Thor

  2. Pingback: All-New Ultimates: No Gods, No Masters | Shards of Delirium

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