I have previously pointed out that the current Ultimates run has been turning the dial to 11, and I think that has been true of the Ultimate series[1] in general since pretty much Magneto’s Ultimatum and on forward. Even the most laid-back of the current storylines, surrounding Spider-Man, has had a major character death in the not-too-distant past. Meanwhile, this particular episode has reached a conclusion of sorts, although not without multiple devastating nuclear strikes and a more-divergent-than-usual final outcome. And I’ll admit, however much I may have complained that the Ultimate line is working a little too hard to achieve the appearance of a full-throttle, all stories have major consequences! approach to things, it is nice to not be familiar with what’s coming next like I used to be during the first decade of that run.

As far as the current conclusion, I’m hopeful that something useful will finally be made of the main villain, whose identity I have been trying to keep quiet over the last few reviews; as things stand currently, all I have is a question mark about whether I’m expected to believe his beef with humanity (and the Ultimates in particular) is as straight-forward as it seems[2] and a smaller question mark as to what precisely occurred in his final scene of the book. Also, Tony Stark? Still cool.

[1] There is a definite downside, Marvel of ten years ago, in having one letter to distinguish between your current world-building / imprint and a team of heroes that reside within that world. I’m a little amazed I haven’t complained about this before.
[2] Because yes, I will be extremely disappointed if the most powerful Ultimate Comics villain since Galactus is only a villain because he was feeling butt-hurt and didn’t get over himself. That right there is a massive character shift with no provided explanation. (Ironically, if this were regular Marvel, I would completely believe it. That guy has always been a dick.)

I hate finishing the Miles Morales Spider-Man books, because I’m stuck the same place I’ve been for more than a year now, resenting the lack of Peter Parker. Why couldn’t he just have been a new character? And I want to say that the right answer is to just acknowledge it once and for all, take it as something that’s going to color all of my reviews, and consider the matter closed until and unless I change my mood on the topic. But then they write a scene where Aunt May and Gwen Stacy are trying to get on with their lives in Paris and see a newspaper announcing that there’s a new Spider-Man, and how am I supposed to ignore my plausibly unfair reactions when the writer of the story is right there telling me I’m not the only one?

All the same, it is getting old at this point, so I suppose I’ll follow my own initial advice and disclaim right here: I resent these books, so far, for not having Peter Parker in them. I also resent the comics industry in general for training me to believe that this is only a temporary situation, even though the Ultimate Comics line has been, if not perfect, at least very good about leaving dead characters dead. So I keep thinking, “sure, but this time is different”, and that thread of hope also makes it hard for me to commit fully to the stories about Miles the way that I should. The upshot of all this is that it’s an ongoing issue, and I know about it, and I’ll try not to mention it anymore. Just so long as you try to be sure you stay aware of it, because otherwise my potential future hemming and hawing may seem odd.

So, the kid Miles Morales who’s the new Spider-Man? He actually does have a pretty interesting life of his own, what with a criminal uncle who wants to exploit him, and his parents who have mixed feelings on the mutant-in-general and Spider-Man-in-specific phenomena, and his having been provisionally accepted by the official super-hero community, and especially by his being thirteen, which is just ridiculously young to be involved with all of these adults criminals and adult problems.

Of course, the aspect I am the most intrigued by is the mirroring effect, where Miles’ uncle is not only not the driving agent of positivity in his life, but may well turn out to be the agent of destruction instead. Which of course makes me pretty excited for the next book in the series, where that question is likely to come to a head.

It is frustrating to realize that the first volume of the Ultimate X-Men relaunch[1] is set entirely before Ultimate Hawkeye. (It is more frustrating to remember that this is a trend, with Ultimate X having been set before (and released well after) a certain recent Spider-Man storyline as well.) But except for timeline and mild spoiler woes[2], I am in the same position I was last time, grateful for a story that cuts the tension and doesn’t try to be everything. Which, when you consider that the driving force behind the current X-Men is the imprisonment or death of all mutantkind, is saying kind of a lot.

Anyway: in addition to giving me more time with Kitty Pryde, Rogue, and Iceman (and for now at least, Johnny Storm), there were hints that a good number of other folks are still kicking around, waiting to be re-introduced. And there were hints that this is a long haul story that will continue to focus on human interactions instead of that spate of “Look, this is big! And important! And explodey!” that I was just complaining about from the Ultimates yesterday. And since I know I can trust Bendis to keep doing right by Spidey, that means I should expect to like two-thirds of the current Ultimate storylines. I accept!

(Plus, despite my annoyance, the Ultimates are following a character I really want to see the next few steps from, so at least they have my interest, if not yet my entertainedness.)

[1] I cannot bring myself to say reboot because this is in no way a jettisoning of any continuity.
[2] And honestly, they may have each been written after the other events in the first place. I have no way (short of exhaustive and uninteresting research) to tell!

I think it is clear by now that I’m not going to be as timely with my updates as I used to be. It’s been maybe two weeks since I read the first volume of the new Ultimates series? And yet here I am, only now finally remembering that I ought to have reviewed it. (And I think I didn’t see a movie since then? I know I haven’t finished a book, but the lack of certainty is a very sad thing. Man, I miss the normalcy of just reviewing everything right away.) (But in the subsequent week or two since I wrote the rest of this paragraph, I have seen a movie and finished at least (and hopefully at most) two books. So you can see that this is really not going according to my master plan.)

But, so anyway, those Ultimates guys. They are having bad times, which I suppose is pretty much always the way, since they are Nick Fury’s protectors of Earth, like, the whole planet, rather than just fighting random supercriminals like Spider-Man does. In addition to the really crappy turn of events surrounding Hawkeye’s run-in with the latest batch of mutants and Captain America’s recent retirement into shame and seclusion, now it’s time to face a society in an impenetrable fortress who has come from nowhere with the agenda of smacking Earth’s mightiest superheros around like piñatas. To give you an idea of just how bad things are, the first thing that happens is an overwhelming assault on Asgard. You know, the one where all the gods that Thor pals around with come from.

If you’re not entirely clear on when everyone decided to accept that Thor’s divinity is real and not just a matter of cool tech and personal insanity, well, you’re not alone. But why should that stand in the way of amping everything up to 9,000? I, uh, I maybe miss the way the Ultimate universe was being written in 2004, it turns out. Except for Bendis, it looks like any hint of subtlety or human stories is well out the window under the Ultimate Comics imprint. But then again, maybe the first X-Men volume will surprise me?

Brian Michael Bendis has impressed me no small number of times over the past, what, four years? This probably isn’t the most impressive thing he’s managed, and it’s probably not the first time I’ve thought it might be. But you have to admit, winning me over on a new Spider-Man is pretty impressive!

It’s just, as I have certainly said before, I have a real attachment to Peter Parker. So, when he died as a part of the Ultimate Universe reboot of ought-ten, I was not, how you say, thrilled. But the editors and (in the case at least) the authors had earned enough street cred for me to accept that life is permitted to go on; so I’ve stuck around to see what happens next. And what happens next happened previously, too, as is only fair. (Bendis in particular has always played with flashbacks to fill in events that happened simultaneously with the meat of his stories, and rightly so. I had no need of knowing about Miles Morales’ unlikely rendezvous with an Oscorp spider when Spider-Man was alive and the direction it was going to go was still hidden from everyone, Miles most of all.)

So, here we have an implausibly young[1] mixed-descent kid from Brooklyn (I think), who gets bitten by a different spider and develops different powers, just in time to fill the impossibly large shoes of a hero. I can accept the coincidence because it’s a superhero world, where coincidence is dictated by fate. And I can accept Miles, at least provisionally, for, well, a lot of reasons. Different powers. Universal unhappiness at his initial attempts to fill the shoes of said really big hero. His own willingness to help and learn from Peter’s example.[2] And, perhaps oddly, perhaps as fittingly as it’s possible to be, Nick Fury’s reaction to his existence.

I still think this was a huge mistake, and I still think the Ultimate Universe has lost something critical, last year. But I also think that this subsequent story will be worth hearing, and I really wasn’t sure about that in 2011.

[1] Peter was 15 when he was bitten, and possibly as old as 17 when… later. Miles can’t be older than 14, and 13 seems more right.
[2] Seriously, I welled up again at his perspective of the climax of final last book of the original run. Which answers that Moiraine question, I suppose.

Like Ultimate X and Ultimate Fallout, Ultimate Hawkeye is serving as a bridge to the latest realignment of comics in the Ultimate universe. I don’t think of it as a reboot precisely, although perhaps I should, because no continuity has been jettisoned. (Well, that’s not entirely true, I should reserve judgment on the Spider-Man question.) Plus there’s just a whiff of backstory on Clint Barton, who really hasn’t had much happen to him (besides be a consistently reliable superhero) since his family was murdered one of the times the Ultimates were betrayed from within. Although I think I have been underrating this Hawkeye up ’til now, simply because it’s easy to do that to someone who isn’t flashy or wearing a weird purple costume in favor of just being predictably competent. Which is to say, I found a new appreciation for him in the book, and what more do you need?

But, and here’s where the bridge thing comes up. Because Hawkeye (along with some assistance in the second half of the story, but I won’t spoil things by saying from whom) is sent to a fictional alliance of southeast Asian countries who are being attacked by superhumans. You know, like happens kind of all the time these days. Of course, before you’re halfway through the first issue, he has uncovered a conspiracy to remove the X mutation from humanity and simultaneously create an army of similar folks (probably stronger if no less predictably powered) with a secret formula, only it blew up in basically everyone’s faces and is quickly turning into a big, world-changing event. And Nick Fury explains to him that (save the forthcoming assistance), Hawkeye is on his own, because there are two other, much bigger and more important, problems that he, the Ultimates, and the Avengers have to deal with instead of helping out with this thing. Details to come in upcoming Ultimate Marvel books, it is implied, but seriously? This is the sideshow nobody cares about? I fear I may be in for some major-league exhaustion from these stories, if they’re as all-action and no-time-for-character-development as I am reading in, between the lines!

Nominally, Ultimate Fallout is about the world’s (and especially the enhanced community’s) reactions to the death of Spider-Man. The nominalization is strong enough that the collection was put under the imprint of that particular storyline, in fact. And I’m okay with that, it was a big enough deal to deserve an entire one-shot run’s worth of reactions, much like the Requiem that followed the Ultimatum event. But it’s also (as partially evidenced by the multiple authors who not-coincidentally are the authors of the three concurrent ongoing series (Spider-Man, Ultimates, and X-Men) that are starting up next) the end of the bridge between the first and second runs of the Ultimate Marvel universe, and as such, there are a lot of things that happen. I mean, really a lot of thing. Pretty much, all the things happen in this book.

Just like Requiem set up the way the world was going to look after Magneto’s Ultimatum, Fallout finally ties together the randomly wandering threads of the last couple of years’ events and sets up a much tighter future. This guy Mike that I know called it a reboot, and while I wasn’t prepared to agree with him before I read the book, now I’d say that everything between the Ultimatum and now was a glacially slow reboot that has finally been realized. Because, like I say, a lot of ground got covered in here. Too much to speak of more than I have in the premise statement I made above, but I can toss out several sense impressions.

May Parker is still and forever the most improved character from the original Marvel continuity. She’s been incredibly fun to read at every turn, and I anticipate missing her nearly as much as I miss her nephew. She’s frequently cooler than Nick Fury, and I don’t care how much Samuel L. Jackson cachet they lent him. That said, I’ve never liked Nick Fury more than I do today, and I like him quite a lot on average. I’m still skeptical of the world’s newest apparent supervillain. I’m really, really excited to read the X-Men stuff, as it will almost certainly have the best forthcoming storyline. And as for Captain America, I provisionally like him better than I ever have too, although even if I’m right about that guess, he still won’t have been worth it.

That’s all for now, though. More next year!

There are two serious upsides to the new Ultimate X book that came out last week. (And man, do I ever hope it’s a series rather than a one-shot.) The first is pretty obvious, really: the whole “all mutants are terrorists and must turn themselves in to the government or be shot on sight” decree that followed Magneto’s destruction of Manhattan means that lots of characters I am invested in have been flying way under the radar for months, and it’s nice to start getting an inkling of how they are doing. The second has more to do with timing.

Put simply, Origins with its implied (and fulfilled) focus on new growth in the Ultimate Universe was a really nice (and needed!) palate cleanser after recent painful events. Truth be told, I think this book really happened before the latest Spider-Man storyline, but I could not be more relieved to read a small, personal story now. That story, I suppose I should mention, revolves around the last few free mutants on both sides of the fence built by Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr starting to band together and figure out what their role in the new, infinitely more dangerous-to-them world will be. Lots of new characters, sure, but lots of familiar faces too, and nearly every one of them was a surprise. (It didn’t help, of course, that I remembered only a fraction of the Ultimatum’s massive death toll. Yay, Wikipedia!)

There just aren’t any words. Which I suppose I’m going to have to get over quickly, all things considered. It’s just that I haven’t been hit this hard by a character’s death since, well, every time I re-read The Fires of Heaven.[1] But there’s still almost nothing to say. I mean, I can’t talk about the plot, because the title (frankly, the last several titles) gives away far too much as it stands, and anything I might add to plot details after that would take away even more strongly from the experience.

But then again, Moiraine’s death didn’t hit me nearly as hard the first time, because of the shock, so maybe they knew what they were doing. (Maybe not, too, because I’m sure it wasn’t broadly announced on the monthly schedule. Still, all I can go with is what I was given, you know?) The upshot of all this? I do have words, but they are not really that different from the words I already had. Peter Parker is an astoundingly brave and moral character who improves everyone around him, and this book tells… you know, it doesn’t tell a powerful story. It simply tells the latest chapter in an incredibly powerful and almost certainly wildly underrated story. I think it also makes a huge mistake, but I suppose that remains to be seen.

[1] Also, Joyce in The Body[2], but that’s not the same thing, my sadness is for the ones she left behind, not for her loss itself.
[2] Unlike The Body, I didn’t cry. But I bet I would if I ever read through these books again. It absolutely hurts.

I guess this Death of Spider-Man thing is the next big Ultimate event, what with a prelude and now crossovers? I still think it will turn out to have been a giant mistake (unless it is simply not true), and the current book did not disabuse me of that notion at all. The book starts pretty much exactly where Blade vs. the Avengers left off, with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the midst of an international incident in the Iranian desert. What better time to set off a power struggle between Nick Fury (leader of the black-ops Avengers) and Carol Danvers (leader of the public-facing Ultimates) by accusing each of them to the other that they are responsible for the sale of genetic secrets to rogue nations and splinter groups?

And, seriously, whether the struggle was set off by whichever of them is the guilty party or by a mysterious outside agent, the twists and turns are pretty entertaining. (Though I will admit this is perhaps just a few too many versus in too short of a time, but it’s cool, the horizon looks clear for a little while.) In any case, I liked the starting point and I liked the ending point, and the path was, if just a touch predictable, still always fun to read. Except for, well, the crossover bits with the so-called[1] event itself, which felt tacked on and unrelated in every way to the story being told. I wonder if, in a week or so, I’ll regret the publication order of this book and the next one? Either way, I definitely regret the hollow treatment in this book, with characters mouthing mostly empty platitudes about importance and tragedy. What I don’t know is whether the cause was Millar’s annoyance at having to work a few extra pages into the story he was actually telling or whether it was that the emotional impact resides elsewhere in pages I haven’t seen yet, and any words without the weight behind them would just feel this empty?

[1] Technically, by me, but I still bet I’m right and this is / was meant to be a big crossover event.