Hot women wearing very little get to strut their stuff in Ultimate Power!
Written: Jul 14 '08 (Updated Jul 15 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Humor, epic action, at times the artwork.
Cons: Gets a little too absurd, no characterisation, at other times the artwork.
The Bottom Line: if you're a reader of any of the Ultimate Marvel series then it's worth checking out.
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| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Brian Michael Bendis, Jeph Loeb, J. Michael Stracz... |
At the start of the century when Marvel authorized the release of Ultimate Spiderman they assured readers that there would be no crossovers between the Ultimate and the regular universes unless their writers had 'completely run out of ideas'. At times Ultimate Power comes dangerously close to breaking that statement.
Ultimate Power is the first complete crossover for the Ultimate Marvel imprint. It's also the first cross universe story as the heroes come into conflict with the heroes of the Supreme Power universe. Supreme Power was another of Marvel's universe resets, this time taking their shameless Justice League rip off The Squadron Supreme, and giving them their own self contained universe to tell the stories too mature for the regular Marvel imprint.
Ultimate Power starts with the Fantastic Four saving the day from a group of insanely hot women in extremely revealing attire calling themselves The Serpent Squad. I think I should make it clear from the start that this series is going to do nothing to help the belief that comics are nothing but adolescent male wish fulfillment. Anyway, during the course of this battle an explosion manages to break off a small piece of The Thing's stoney hide. This kicks off his feelings of isolation, and reminds Reed Richards that it was his experiments into cross dimensional travel that caused this condition in the first place.
Obsessed with finding a cure Richards approaches S.H.I.E.L.D for funding into his experiments on the N zone and other similar dimensions. Nick Fury declines and orders Richards to terminate all experiments into other dimensions as the risks are just to great. Needless to say he ignores these instructions and sends out what few probes he has to gather data on the different universes.
Some time later the Baxter building is attacked by a group of super beings. The problem is that these guys are speaking a weird alien language and therefore can't tell anyone why it is they just blew up a building.
At this moment in time Richards decides to call Nick Fury and request some backup from The Ultimates. Luckily for everyone Spiderman also happens to be swinging by with his new girlfriend Kitty Pride (long story) and decides he needs to help out. Kitty, of course, heads straight for a phone to call in the support of the rest of the X-Men, and, well, things get a little hectic at this point.
Eventually the attackers are able to regain the ability to speak English and try to explain things. It seems these guys are the Squadron Supreme, defenders of an Earth similar to this one, which has been all but destroyed by the emergence of a dangerous organism. It seems that this life form managed to enter their world attached to Reed Richards probe. They want Richards to return with them to their world, try and fix the mess that he has created, and then stand trial for his crimes against humanity. Overcome by grief Richards agrees to the arrest and leaves willingly. The rest of the ultimate heroes disagree though and decide to launch a full scale rescue mission into the home universe of the Squadron Supreme.
From the start I should add that this is very much an Ultimate story and requires absolutely no prior knowledge of the Supremeverse at all. I'd never heard of these guys before and was still able to follow the events of the story completely. If you've never read anything from the Ultimate universe though then you're likely to get very lost very fast.
Unfortunately if you are new to either series then you're not likely to find anything here that will make you want to pursue the universes any deeper. Basically this is an action story, and while those familiar with the characters will likely find the huge action set pieces enjoyable, that is ultimately all you're going to find here.
The problem is that Marvel decided to let all 3 writers of these 2 universes loose with each getting 3 issues each. Not a problem when the different writers actually communicate their ideas before starting, but a huge problem when the writers each decide to go ahead and do their own thing. The result is something akin to big action scene, quick recap, big action scene, quick recap, big action scene, and then rush out a quick resolution. Something which isn't helped by the increasingly absurd nature of these action scenes taking in one surprise character after another. Up to, and including, the point that both universes run out of characters and the regular marvel universe has to make a small appearance just to keep things 'shocking'.
The fact that there's never any kind of 'team up' also means that the Supreme Power heroes are very much the villains here. A fact that leaves me with no desire to pursue them any further. On the surface these guys are a poor mans Justice League, but from what I hear their edgier personalities are what makes them worth reading. After reading Ultimate Power I couldn't say as none of the characters are given any kind of development at all.
Still I'm not saying that this book is completely unworthy of reading, because if you're familiar with the Ultimate universe then the character interactions do offer a lot of fun. Mainly it's Spiderman who holds it all together as he banters with pretty much every character on the Marvel roster. I was a little confused as to why Thor had suddenly reverted to the Old English dialogue of his regular Marvel counterpart, but then his argument with Spidey over the pronunciation of Mjolnir was hilarious. Throughout the entire book Spiderman's trademark wisecracks ensure that the events of Ultimate Power are never boring.
I also felt that the action, while overblown and increasingly absurd, still had the right epic feel to it throughout. This was thanks in no small part to the enthusiastic artwork from Greg Land. He's come under a lot of heat lately for the use of tracing in his artwork, and by an large I would I agree. However his detailed backgrounds, and vibrant colorful displays of power really do feel epic.
I still wouldn't call myself a fan of his though. Mainly because his work on the characters themselves just comes across as lazy. He seems fine with the male characters because their bald heads, or beards, or stubble, tend to add character to each individual. Unfortunately his female characters all seem to have the exact same faces. I dunno why, but something about the 15 year old Kitty Pride having the same face, in the same frame, as The Scarlet Witch just strikes me as a little lame.
Of course you couldn't claim that Land has any respect for his female characters anyway. It's a little awkward to say this, so I'll just come right out and say it. The way he sexualizes these characters is ridiculous even by comic book standards. I can accept the occasional buxom blonde is going to show up, but I don't need the aforementioned 15 year old Kitty to have suddenly ballooned in size. I don't need Sue storms spandex covered derriere at the center of every shot she appears in. I also found it quite strange that a character who's flying over her version of Washington, decrying it's destruction by a strange organism, would be twisting her neck round to smile seductively at the reader. Not the most rational behavior really.
It also kind of irritated me that he's an artist who doesn't do his homework either. For some strange reason when the Ultimates show up Ant Man is leaping into action alongside them, despite the fact that he was thrown off the team and is not mentioned again throughout the entire book. Then his depiction of Wasp is a white woman, despite the fact that Ultimate Janet Pyme is supposed to be hyspanic!
The big question remains though. Do I actually recommend Ultimate Power? Well, yeah, if you're a reader of any of the Ultimate Marvel series then it's worth checking out. It's enjoyable enough to get past the sheer absurdity, and if nothing else reading this will stop you wondering why a major player in the Ultimate universe seems to have vanished over night.
Part of the Funny pages writeoff: http://www.epinions.com/content_5192654980#ow
Recommended:
Yes
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carl_lazarevic
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Member: Carl Lazarevic
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