![\"Ultimate](\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/uadv.jpg\")
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By Ron Zimmerman<\/strong> & Duncan Fegredo<\/strong>, with Walden Wong<\/strong> (Marvel) 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a9 2002, 2003, 2005 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00c2\u00a0 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d pocket universe created when the company’s traditional fan-base stopped buying the majority of their product in the … <\/p>\n
\nISBN 0-7851-1043-7<\/p>\n