Please note – this review assumes some knowledge of who / what I’m talking about when it comes to superheroes and their alter egos – you won’t be phased if you’re seen the films / have a passing familiarity with the comic book characters.

Ultimate Power takes Marvel’s superheroes in the Ultimate universe and turns them into Ultimate Cheese. Right from the opening scenes of the preposterously large-bosomed “Serpent Squad” turning up and demanding some property they claim has been stolen from them, through several jutting bosoms and impossibly tight buttocks prominently shown throughout the book, this is everything that makes people think that comic books are the sole domain of testosterone-charged adolescent boys. However in addition to this (most of which obvious titillation was, I have to admit, quite hilarious at times), there was a good plot and some very good writing going on in Ultimate Power.

In the opening scene The Fantastic Four are busy trying to subdue the daft Serpent Squad when something quite unexpected happens to The Thing. Reed Richards promises to get to the bottom of this and in fact makes the rash promise of finding a way to reverse Ben’s condition. This involves groping around for answers in other dimensions – something that Nick Fury absolutely refuses to sanction. Reed does it anyway and soon earth is invaded... but they’re not trying to take over the world or anything, just bring someone to justice on their world... Richard Reed...

All this is a big preamble for some serious superhero against superhero action, with a backdrop of Reed’s anguish over Ben’s condition and the millions of deaths he is believed to have caused on another world. There is also a conspiracy back story involving Nick Fury, woven into the fabric of the plot quite skilfully. The writing is high quality, managing to create a lot of tension and uncertainty despite the silliness of the original plot.

The drawings are also superb, the action scenes being perhaps the best of all the Ultimates comics I’ve seen so far. There are a wide variety of cell shapes and sizes used, often wordless, capturing emotion and movement to carry the story forward rather than using words. Sometimes this is devastatingly effective, at other times it fails to have the required impact. Overall though the quality if the images is top notch.

The dialogue is pretty good throughout, occasionally becoming excellent. Once again the humour is at its sharpest when using political satire – my favourite line of the film has to be Wanda’s comment to Pietro (who looks strangely different in this to the other Ultimates books): ”Come, Pietro.. let us hope that his certainty about the location of Reed Richards is not the same as the vaunted American certainty about the location of weapons of mass destruction.” Ouch... Scarlet Witch has become a real sex kitten in this book too, along with a few other characters looking a bit different to previously. Speaking of sex kittens, Spiderman’s girlfriend Kitty (complete with a miniskirt the mysteriously fails to cover her knickers ever when she’s standing normally) has a few good moments here. It’s Spiderman who delivers most of the humour, his character is very funny for about half of the book and moderately amusing for the second half.

All your other favourite comic book heroes are here (well, not the DC ones obviously, though one of the other dimensional superheroes pretty much has all the powers Superman does!), including the X-Men (who always seem to turn up just in time to turn the tide of a battle), Iron Man, Wasp, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, etc etc... I won’t tell you about the superheroes from the other dimension... you’ll have to find out about them by reading the book!

Overall this is a good comic book – get past the schoolboy fantasy pictures of hot heroines and there’s a quality story, lots of humour and some great action scenes in Ultimate Power. Assume the opening scene has tongue very firmly in cheek, and enjoy the ride. There is a little ***’d out bad language (about two words in the whole book I think) and, with it being superheroes trying to bash each other and all, there is a bit of violence. There were actually a few genuine surprises in the storyline, which is a good thing - it will be interesting to see where they go from the ending in this one.

At the back of the book there’s also some quite detailed history about Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Supreme Power, Ultimates and X-Men. There are also some sketches from the book before the inks got to them. Fairly interesting but only really a big deal for comic book fans.


Related Reviews

The Ultimates, Vol I
The Ultimates, Vol II: Homeland Security
The Ultimates 2, Vol I: Gods and Monsters
The Ultimates 2, Vol II: Grand Theft America


My Top Ten Superhero Movies

Movies featuring characters from this book:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Hulk
The Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Spiderman 2
X-Men
X2: Mutants United
X-Men 3: The Last Stand

Recommended: Yes