By Mark Millar, Lenil Francis Yu & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-465-2
Marvel Ultimates began in 2000 as a reconfiguration of key characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of modern readers – perceived as a potentially separate buying public from the baby-boomers and their descendents, who were content to stick with the various efforts that had sprung from the fantastic originating talents of Kirby, Ditko and Lee – and one unable or unwilling to deal with the decades of continuity baggage that had accumulated around the originals.
Eventually this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum†culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed three dozen odd heroes and villains plus millions of lesser mortals. Although a good seller (in contemporary terms, at least) the saga was largely trashed by the fans who bought it, and the ongoing new “Ultimatum Comics†line quietly back-pedalled on its declared intentions…
The key and era-ending event was a colossal tsunami that drowned the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and this second post-tidal wave collection (assembling issues #7-12 of Ultimate Avengers 2) finds the survivors fully adapted to their dried-out world and back in business.
Before the Deluge Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of superhumans called the Avengers, but he was eventually toppled from his position for sundry rule-bending antics – and being caught doing them. Now he’s back, running another black ops team doing stuff real heroes wouldn’t dream of…
His far from happy band of brothers consists of Hawkeye – the man who never misses, James Rhodes: a fanatical soldier wearing devastating War Machine battle armour; Gregory Stark, Iron Man’s smarter, utterly immoral older brother, Nerd Hulk, a cloned gamma-monster with all the original’s power but implanted with Banner’s brain and milksop character and ruthless super-spy Black Widow. You can never have enough super-stooges though, and Fury is actively recruiting…
First on his wish-list is the Punisher, a vengeance-crazed vigilante carving his way through the underworld of three continents. It’s hard to imagine an even colder stone-killer than the standard Marvel Universe Frank Castle but creators Mark Millar, Lenil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan & Laura Martin just about manage. However, his campaign of retribution is promptly stopped cold by Captain America.
Imprisoned by Federal authorities, the Punisher never makes it to prison, and soon after a new masked hero with loads of guns and a big skull on his chest reluctantly joins Fury’s death-squad…
The other newbie is super-gangsta Tyrone Cash, whose recruitment causes a lot more collateral damage. Before being blackmailed onto the team the violence-addicted, invulnerable superhuman had another life: a college professor who researched how to maximise human physical potential. One day he just vanished, leaving a pile of rubble and some very instructive data that his student Bruce Banner developed to its ultimate end… much to the world’s eternal regret.
Though not as strong as the Hulk, Cash is homicidally violent and aggressive, and enjoys breaking stuff and hurting people. Only the greatest threat imaginable could force Fury to keep such a dangerous tool around…
And that happens to be a flaming-skulled mutant biker called Ghost Rider who is relentlessly hunting and killing the Vice President’s oldest buddies and has now set his eyeless sights on the Veep himself… Carving a swathe of fiery destruction that leads to the White House itself, the Ghost Rider is utterly unstoppable. No mutant has ever been as powerful. If the press-ganged team didn’t know better, it would seem that the blazing biker is a real ghost… but there’s no such thing, right?
Trenchant, sardonic and incredibly violent, the traditional super-science scenario takes a big, bold step into the realm of satanic, supernatural horror and, as always, the grim-and-gritty heroes are almost indistinguishable from the genuine bad-guys in this stunningly engrossing, anti-heroic epic. No shining knights here, but plenty of dark ones…
Given some distance and far removed from market hype and the frantic, relentless immediacy of the sales arena there’s a far better chance to honestly assess these tales on merit alone, and given such an opportunity you’d be daft not to take a long hard look at this spectacular, beautifully cynical thriller: another breathtaking, sinisterly effective yarn that could only be told outside the Marvel Universe, but it’s also one that should solidly resonate with older fans who love the darkest side of superheroes and especially those casual readers who know the company’s movies better than the comic-books.
™& © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini.