Ultimate Armour Wars


By Warren Ellis & Steve Kurth (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-441-6

The Marvel Ultimates project began in 2000 with a thoroughly modernizing refit of key characters and concepts to bring them into line with contemporary “ki-dults” – perceived to be a separate buying public to we baby-boomers and our declining descendents who seemed content to stick with the various efforts that sprang from the fantastic talents of Kirby, Ditko and Lee. Eventually this streamlined new universe became as crowded and continuity-constricted as its predecessor and in 2008 the cleansing publishing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is comics, after all) killed three dozen odd heroes and villains and millions of ordinary mortals.

Although a huge seller (in contemporary terms, at least) the saga was largely trashed by the fans who bought it, and the ongoing new “Ultimatum Comics” line is quietly back-pedalling on its declared intentions…

The key and era-ending event was a colossal tsunami that drowned the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and this post-tidal wave collection (assembling issues #1-4 of the miniseries Ultimate Comics Armor War – and yes, it has been spelled differently for this British Edition) picks up the story of the survivors as well as the new world readjusting to their altered state.

Young Tony Stark is a tech-genius weapon-smith – and amiable drunk – from a family of armaments manufacturers. When the wave hit, his greatest treasure was lost in his state-of-the-art Manhattan Corporate HQ. A public figure in his trademarked Iron Man war-suit, he is down to his last few million bucks and sifting through the wreckage of his building when a cybernetic super-thief called The Ghost steals his precious strongbox, and would have killed the billionaire brat if not for the intervention of Justine Hammer, daughter of Stark’s greatest enemy: a girl dying from her father’s abusive attempts to giver her marketable super-powers.

Wearing a suit painfully similar to the Iron Man suit the Ghost vanishes, leaving Stark with the realisation that his technology has been pirated and sold to unscrupulous monsters. Although spoiled and dissolute even Stark can’t drink enough to wash away all the blood his inventions could spill if he doesn’t take control back…

With Justine in tow he follows the bloody trail, finding and neutralising all illicit incidences of his armour from malevolent arms dealer Dr. Faustus to deviant Balkan mad scientist Bram Velsing to the ever-OTT Metropolitan Police Force (who use their Stark-based tin-suits to quell political protest and civil disobedience… same as it ever was…)

Eventually the trail leads to the shocking mastermind behind the plot, with plenty of twisty-turny revelations in store – or not, depending on how astute you are, how much attention you’ve been paying and of course on whether you’ve read the original tale this was based on (see the graphic novel Iron Man: the Armor Wars as well as our review of same).

Visually stunning (True Brits especially will revel in the spectacular battle in the skies over London) thanks to artist Steve Kurth and the colouring magic of Guru EFX, Warren Ellis’s tale is sharp and witty, if fairly predictable: heavy on attitude and action, and over almost too quickly, leaving the reader genuinely hungry for more…

Once removed from the market hype and frantic, relentless immediacy of the sales arena there’s a chance to reassess these tales on merit alone, and given such a opportunity you’d be foolish not to take a good hard look at this solid, accessible superhero yarn.
™ and © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd