Category: Ultimate Marvel

 

By Brian Michael Bendis & many and various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1300-2

The final volume reprinting the other Spider-Man’s meet-and-greet adventures cover the last three issues of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up (#14-16) and the Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special. Terry (Strangers in Paradise) Moore illustrates Bendis’s mediocre and somewhat silly spy tale featuring the remarkably fresh-faced Black Widow, plus a cameo by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

The last two issues featured Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu, in a big fight story. He’s a human weapon trained since birth by his father, an evil Chinese warlord who used to be Fu Manchu. Copyright being what it is we don’t know if his evil dad is that infamous trademark anymore, since that license has long since expired but whoever he is he’s still plenty mean. It’s all lovingly rendered by Rick Mays, Jason Martin and Andy Lee.

The volume is filled out with a giant collaborative venture both in terms of guest stars and guest artists. Basically it’s a travelogue of the Ultimate Marvel Universe held together by Spider-Man examining his motives foe being a hero. If you’re not that bothered by who drew things, feel free to skip the next paragraph and jump to the summing up.

In a fairly ultimate jam session, a number of creators all drew a slice of this story. In order of printing, they were Alex Maleev, Dan Brereton, John Romita Sr. & Al Milgrom, Frank Cho, Jim Mahfood, Scott Morse, Craig Thompsom, Michael Avon Oeming, Jason Pearson, Sean Phillips, Mark Bagley & Rodney Ramos, Bill Sienkiewicz, P. Craig Russell, Jacen Burrows & Walden Wong, Leonard Kirk & Terry Pallot, Dave Gibbons, Michael Gaydos, James Kochalka, David Mack, Brett Weldele, Ashly Wood and Art Thibert illustrating cameos from Blade the Vampire Hunter, Elektra, Daredevil, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Human Torch, the Ultimates, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Black Widow, S.H.I.E.L.D., X-Men, Wolverine and the Punisher.

Although not the edgiest or most powerful of volumes in respect of story-telling, the brave artistic choices in this collection make it an art connoisseur’s delight, and of course most comics fans will love all the pretty hitting and kicking.

© 2002, 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Brian Michael Bendis & various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1299-5

Probably the best of the three collections from the short lived (16 issues) Ultimate Marvel Team-Up series that introduced the re-worked Marvel Universe characters to the audiences then latching on to the stripped-down web-spinner and Mutant franchises.

The stories originally appeared in issues #9-13 of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, all scripted by Bendis and feature a staggeringly innovative selection of comics stylists on the art chores. First up is the madcap Jim Mahfood, whose unique interpretation of the Fantastic Four – not to mention the never-so-wacky Skrulls – is a triumph of insanity.

Hard on those heels is a bleak tale of sewer monsters and family betrayal guest-starring the Macabre Man-Thing, illustrated by John Totleben and Ron Randall. A return bout with Wolverine and the X-Men comes next, courtesy of Chynna Clugston-Major. All these young heroes met during a bad day hanging at the Mall, in a refreshingly combat-free escapade, and the volume ends with Ted McKeever’s two-part Dr Strange tale as the son of Earth’s greatest Magician joins the wall-crawler in a charmingly odd multi-dimensional romp, loosely based on the Lee-Ditko classic that appeared in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 (1965).

The refreshing willingness to play with the characters and the creative fourth wall lent this series a much-needed spontaneity that eased a great deal of the tedium that should have occurred whilst reintroducing 40 years worth of characters to an audience that most pundits were sure they were already painfully familiar with them. And stylish funny engrossing stories will always find an appreciative audience.

© 2001, 2002, 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Brian Michael Bendis & various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-0807-6

When Marvel rebooted their most popular characters into the more contemporary –some might say fashionable – ‘Ultimate’ universe where readers could jump on without having to worry about thirty plus years of intensive continuity, initial sales seemed to show that the theory was sound. So when X-Men and Spider-Man were joined by a Team-up title some pundits were heard to go, ‘Hang on a minute…’

There seems to be an unspoken belief about super-heroes. Not only should they face super-villains, but they should invariably encounter other super do-gooders. There can not be only one. Thus we have this series, and credit where credit’s due, the idea of using alternative cartoonists as the art side of the creative equation rather than mainstream artists rescued from potential disaster and assured mediocrity.

Reprinting issues #1-5 of the monthly magazine, this volume begins with a run-of-the-mill first meeting between our arachnid star and Wolverine, saved by the wonderful art of Matt Wagner. Sabretooth is the nominal villain of this piece.

From the second and third issues, Phil Hester and Ande Parks, who seem equally at home with independent properties such as The Coffin or The Wretch as with mainstream heroes like Green Arrow, illustrate Bendis’ stripped down, hi-octane introduction of the Ultimate Hulk. Once again a back to basics approach is used as Spidey finds himself more in tune with the monster than with the callous army types hunting it.

Closing the book, Mike Allred makes the pictures as Iron Man is re-invented for the modern consumer in a tale of corporate intrigue and international skulduggery. As with all Ultimate stories, there’s a very high explosion and collateral damage quota. This story was originally printed as #5-6 of the comic book.

It must be tricky trying to remake old and loved characters while they’re still actually being published elsewhere. There’s no narrative distance, and the unwelcome comparisons must begin immediately and you don’t have the luxury of enough pages to cement your version with the readers. In this case most of the stories don’t quite sell it, but the art is enough to make the stories worth a look.

© 2001 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Ron Zimmerman & Duncan Fegredo, with Walden Wong (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1043-7

There is so much that’s wrong with this book. As another volume of the collected adventures of those retooled Marvel characters that inhabit the “realer” pocket universe created when the company’s traditional fan-base stopped buying the majority of their product in the wake of the bankruptcy fiasco in the 1990s, it falls between two stools in the eyes of the die-hard Marvelites.

Addressing that slimmed-down, baggage-free, more contemporary and realistic concept itself; if there’re loads of super-beings, having crossovers and you start needing a score-card again, what’s the point of having two discrete universes?

Most pertinently, when DC Comics’ biggest rival puts out a grim ‘n’ gritty miniseries featuring a caped avenger of the night, who patterns his super persona on a winged nocturnal predator, and, armed only with a utility belt and the coolest car money can buy, looks to adopt an orphan and train him as a sidekick, what – other than a lawsuit even She-Hulk could win – have you got?

Well actually, you have a delightful and gripping parody (that’s the plea I would go with) of the genre, albeit uncomfortably shoe-horned into the burgeoning continuity of the Ultimates line. Even though there is a just plain gratuitous team-up/fight with the Ultimate universe Avengers wedged into the middle of the proceedings, it just acts as a welcome break from the Sturm-und-Drang, pant-wetting angst of the modern super-hero idiom, without ever actually becoming forced or silly.

The humour is there in abundance for both the comics neophyte or bewildered grandparent who bought this thinking it starred some other dynamic duo, and the old lag who doesn’t mind the occasional pop at the nostalgic bulwarks of his life, but this is not a comedy book. The action is sincere and the characterisations all acute and well-rounded. Writer Zimmerman’s apparent irreverence for Marvel tradition, so successfully shown in The Rawhide Kid, once again plays to his advantage, especially when enhanced by some of the best art of Duncan Fegredo’s career. Read this before someone bans it.

© 2002, 2003, 2005 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.