The Ultimates Vol. 1 reprints “The Ultimates†#’s 1-6
A joint review/discussion by Kevin Rapp and Jesse Baker
The Story
Kevin: I’ll start off by saying, point blank, for straight super-heroics, The Ultimates is the best comic out there for my money.
Jesse: I disagree. It’s a slow, plodding, and totally unoriginal super-hero comic and an example that the Warren Ellis Stormwatch/Authority formula is NOT something that can be attached to every comic franchise out there
Kevin: Unoriginal? How so?
Jesse: Millar is attempting to reinvent the Avengers in the same vane as
Stormwatch/Authority, something that has been done beforehand with Force Works and failed miserably I might add. This sort of retrofitting is what recently happened to the X-Men, and unlike the X-Men, the Avengers does not work with the formula Millar is forcing the characters in. Take Hulk for example: He’s portrayed as the group’s first villain, he’s a horny monster who basically wants to rape the woman who the Banner personality is in love with and who in the end is defeated and stuck in solitary where he’s treated like a villain and badmouthed whenever they walk past him.
Kevin: Okay so?
Jesse: Rather than portraying Hulk as someone the Avengers consider a friend and want to help, he’s treated like a one-dimensional monster who gets captured and only trotted out when Millar wants to have a character spout out an insult.
Jesse: Also there is the matter of Wasp, who is now a generic scientist character. What was wrong with having Wasp be a New York Socialite/Fashion Designer?
I can handle turning her into a mutant, but why make her yet another faceless cog of the Military-Industrial Complex?
Kevin: So perhaps she has a use other than being “Hank Pym’s wife”.
Jesse: Countless Avengers writers have spent decades establishing Wasp as someone other than Hank’s wife. They’ve…
Kevin: In six issues, Millar does a better job than those countless writers in several decades. Wasp has never been, to me, anything other than “Hank’s wife”. In Ultimates, she’s a respected scientist in her own right, also making it more logical as to how she met and loves Hank.
Jesse: That’s not true. Wasp has always been portrayed as being more independent from Hank, not vice versa. She successfully led the Avengers team numerous times, came from old money, and who never went through the various costumed identities that Hank did over the course of his career. Plus she had her own business so that she wasn’t some sort of homebody housewife…
Kevin: I said “to me”. And, we’re getting off the point. This isn’t a discussion of Avengers continuity, which it’s quickly getting into. The point is on the merits of the story of the Ultimates. So far, it’s been “Oh, it’s different than the Avengers”. So what? Of COURSE it’s different than the Avengers. That’s the point of the book.
Kevin: And as for Hulk, I saw Hulk as being the Pure Id of Bruce Banner. He’s constant want, at all times. And that’s a unique and interesting depiction of the Hulk.
Jesse: Then there is the issue of Captain America, who has become Mark Millar’s pet project in which to earn his Right Wing Street Cred.
Kevin: Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s what he’s trying to do.
Jesse: Since when is Cap a tool of the Government who kicks the mentally ill in the head and who is portrayed as a blindly obedient soldier?
Kevin: Okay. So, your problem is that he’s a soldier that follows orders?
Jesse: Cap is supposed to be the Uber-Man, the embodiment of everything GOOD about America, not the top running dog of whoever is in charge of the government.
Kevin: What’s the second word in “Super Soldier”? He’s a soldier, plain and simple.
Jesse: If that was the case, why didn’t Cap just kill Banner instead of kicking him?
Kevin: Because there’s a line. And Cap didn’t cross it.
Jesse: But he’s a soldier, as you said.
Kevin: So? Do soldiers kill unarmed men? No. Do they rough them up a little? Quite possibly.
Jesse: Soldiers kill and why not have Cap (who isn’t the regular Marvel Universe Cap as you said) kill Banner rather than let him be taken into custody and risk him escaping going on another rampage?
Kevin: As I pointed out, he’s unarmed. Also as I pointed out, there’s a line.
Jesse: Which leads to another point with the Hulk, as he is now a mass murderer. Millar has seriously damaged the character by turning him into a horny monster who has KILLED a ton of innocent people
Kevin: No, he’s put the Hulk in a realistic setting. How many times has Hulk, in regular continuity, destroyed cities without hurting so much as a poor little puppy?
Jesse: In the regular Marvel Universe, it’s been shown that Hulk never killed innocent civilians on purpose.
Kevin: And that NEVER rang true to me.
Kevin: “Hulk SMASH!!!!!!!! Except the innocent people…”
Jesse: And what about Thor? At least Wasp kept her basic personality under Millar.
Kevin: Oh, no! MORE CHANGES! ARGH!
Jesse: Can you justify why Thor is a greenie?
Kevin: Can you justify why ANYONE is a greenie?
Jesse: Thor’s a Viking. They don’t save the Earth, they rape and pillage the earth. Heck, Rob Liefeld had a better grasp at making Thor more realistic and that’s saying something.
Kevin: This. Isn’t. The. Avengers.
Jesse: Millar carried over the Cyclops/Marvel Girl/Wolverine love triangle dynamic in Ultimate X-Men, why can’t he carry over the basic core aspects of the characters of the Avengers in the Ultimates?
Kevin: If people want the Avengers, they can read the freaking Avengers. He’s adding a more realistic and modern tone to the Avengers.
Jesse: You can compare what he’s doing to Garth Ennis writing Superman as if the characters were the same characters from Preacher. He’s trying to ape Ellis’s previous works. And that is Mark Millar’s biggest flaw as a writer. He’s totally unable to come up with any original ideas.
Kevin: Yeah, it is, if it were true. But it’s not.
Jesse: Then why the hell is Millar using the Avengers characters? Why not create all new characters to star in the Ultimates? BECAUSE Millar is unable to create ANY sort of original idea of his own.
Kevin: So, Bendis’ run on Ultimate Spider-Man is unoriginal, too?
Jesse: Bendis and Millar are two COMPLETELY different writers and you can’t possibly compare the two of them. Bendis is writing towards the general audience, Millar is writing only for the fanboys who don’t care or give a s— about making Ultimates new reader friendly.
Kevin: That is bulls— Millar is writing for mainstream action fans.
Jesse: On Ultimate X-Men maybe; but The Ultimates is pure, 100%, “I’m not a fanboy, I get drunk and have a girlfriend!” pseudo-intellectual elitist bulls—, for people who spend their days online ridiculing the super-hero genre and traditional super-hero comics unless they’re written by one of the flavor of the week writers that they follow mindlessly because it’s the trendy thing to do.
The Artwork
Jesse: What do you think about Bryan Hitch’s art?
Kevin: Best superhero work in the business, period.
Jesse: His artwork is really good but he has one big flaw IMHO
Kevin: What’s that?
Jesse: He draws everything like it takes place in the dead of night, a problem that he seems to have carried over from his Authority run.
Kevin: I don’t see that.
Jesse: I don’t think he ever drew something happening during the daytime when he worked on Authority until the final arc on the book.
Kevin: What about his pencils make it seem like it’s all at nighttime?
Jesse: It’s very dark. Maybe it’s the colorist’s fault though…
Kevin: Yeah, I definitely don’t see it in the pencils. I think Currie’s inks are a little rough for Hitch. I don’t think his work looks nearly as sleek as it does with Neary on inks. But that’s about the biggest complaint I could fathom with the art on Ultimates.
Jesse: What do you think of the character redesigns?
Kevin: Hip, modern, sleek. Still respectful of the original Kirby designs. Love ’em.
Jesse: Really? I think his Iron Man armor is more of an Anime influence, not Kirby. It has an old school Mobile Suit Gundam look to it.
Kevin: The Iron Man one is the furthest from the original source material and reasonably so, what with technology advancements and such.
Jesse: Yeah.
Kevin: But Thor, Cap, Giant Man all show that the originals were a guiding influence to the concepts. Hell, Hitch got nominated for and Eisner and a Harvey this year. It’s really hard to deny the guy’s talent.
Jesse: Yeah, he’s come a long way from his early days as an Alan Davis clone
Kevin: No kidding. I remember X-Men Prime, where I literally DESPISED it. I used to dread the name Bryan Hitch when he did fill-in issues during the mid-90s. Now, I will kill anyone who tries to fill-in on Ultimates.
The Big Finish
Kevin: Yeah, Millar owes the tone of Ultimates to Ellis’ Stormwatch/Authority superhero stories. But he takes that tone in a different direction, going so far as to prove that super-humans are actual PEOPLE, too. They’re human and flawed. And while that might be a direction many people are uncomfortable with, I definitely don’t think it’s unoriginal or poor writing.
Kevin: I give “The Ultimates†a 10.0. Can’t beat Ultimates, baby.
Jesse: The embodiment of hype over substance, “The Ultimates†proves that Mark Millar does not have the Midis Touch and is at best a one-hit wonder with his Authority run. Millar does nothing to update the Avengers franchise and shows that you shouldn’t tinker with the tried and true formula of over-the-top soap-opera storylines and battles involving traditional super-villain fodder. I give it a 1.5, as Bryan Hitch’s artwork is the only thing keeping me from giving this trade a zero.
The 411 .::. Love it or hate it, the biggest conclusion one can gain from The Ultimates Volume 1 is that Hitch can bring people with vast differences of opinion together in agreement. Have Saddam and G. Dub look at some of Hitch’s art. They’ll totally work out their differences. Either that or celebrity boxing.
Final Score: 6
