Ultimate Avengers: Next Generation

Both series of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Ultimates were well received by those who read them. They reworked the origins of Marvel’s premier superteam for a modern audience and told mature episodic stories. They are amongst the best comics written since the turn of the millennium. Not even the horrible misfire that was Jeph Loeb’s Ultimates 3 could ruin them.

In 2008 Marvel decided to shake up their Ultimate line with a big crossover apocalypse event dubbed Ultimatum. The line’s credibility had already taken a battering with the Ultimate Power story but Ultimatum was worse. It was designed as a reboot of the whole line. It achieved that goal, with all ongoing titles either being cancelled or rebranded with new numbering, but also delivered an incredibly boring story that insulted fans and made no sense to new readers.

One good thing did come out of the reboot though: Mark Millar returned to write more stories using some of the characters he’d used in The Ultimates. Confusingly this new book was dubbed Ultimate Comics: The Avengers. The Ultimates were an Ultimate universe version of the Avengers, whilst the Ultimate universe’s Avengers were a black-ops S.H.I.E.L.D. team. It’s a minor detail and what that doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things but, well, it’s always seemed like Marvel made a choice with the name.

Poor choice of title aside it was a promising start. Millar had proven skilled at spinning compelling modern day superhero yarns that fused politics, history and pseudo-science with traditional superheroic action. With access to all the characters he’d written so well and a promise that he would be using ideas he’d originally planned for further Ultimate series it looked like Marvel were on to a winner.

The first six issue series, subtitled Next Generation, saw Nick Fury rehired by S.H.I.E.L.D. (after some time spent in an alternate universe he’d been involved in trying to destroy) and tasked with bringing in a rogue Captain America. Aside from those two the only other established character in the series is Hawkeye. He still sports the strange redesign insisted on by Jeph Loeb (it makes him look more serious, allegedly) but is written well again. He’s no longer the strange suicide-obsessed killing machine he became in Ultimates 3.

The new characters are Codename: Nerd Hulk, a good natured guy with Hulk’s body and Bruce Banner’s mind; Fury’s ex-wife Monica Chang as a new Black Widow; Insect Queen from the villainous Liberators team the Ultimates battled in the Grand Theft America arc, here renamed Red Wasp; Colonel Rhodes, who has the most advanced Iron Man suit on the planet; and Gregory Stark, the tee total, amoral brother of Tony who regards his brother as a feeble-minded disappointment. Written here it just seems like a list of ideas, continuity references and inverted regulars. Millar writes them with humour and makes them as believable as any Marvel character needs to be.

Even though he’s on the run Cap is at the centre of the story. The opening issue shows him discovering that he has a son. And not just any son. A son who is just as physically, mentally and tactically gifted as him. It’s the Red Skull.

Ultimate Red Skull is not a superhuman created during the Third Reich. He’s an American born to Cap’s girlfriend Betty and taken to a US military base as a baby. His escape at the age of seventeen, during which he slaughtered hundreds of employees, is shown, establishing how formidable an opponent Skull is.

The success of the book lies in the way Millar melds his ideas with a compelling plot. His naturalistic dialogue doesn’t hurt either. By the end of issue six you know what everyone’s motivations are and what they hope to gain from their black-ops work. Well, mostly. Gregory Stark is left a distant and shifty enigma. And the Spider-man sitting inside a glass tank inside S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Triskelion HQ is a complete mystery.

Artist Carlos Pacheco is excellent. It’s disappointing he didn’t get to return to work on any of the other three volumes of Ultimate Avengers. His knack for drawing action sequences was a boon for the series. With Next Generation Ultimate Avengers gets off to a strong start and shows that Mark Millar is still the best thing to have happened to Marvel’s Ultimate line. Definitely recommended reading.

Super-Villain Team-Up

Back in the 70s Marvel was happy to unleash experimental titles on the world. Unlike today not everything had to be a continuity heavy crossover providing in-depth analysis of a superhero with a film coming out. The company was happy to have writers write things that were fun.

One such title was Super-Villain Team-Up. Instead of focusing on the latern-jawed do-gooders of the Marvel U it put their iniquitous counterparts centre stage. Bad deeds were the order of the day in SVTU, not world saving. Failed attempts at world domination reigned supreme.

The natural choice for the starring role was Doctor Doom. The arch enemy of the Fantastic Four has been one of Marvel’s most well-rounded ne’er-do-wells since his first appearance, part of the reason he is still used frequently to this day and enjoys such popularity with fans. His over the top personality and access to wide range of gadgets and gizmos meant he was a perfect choice to carry such a title and also keep sales high. He referred to himself in the third person far more back then, another bonus.

The Team-Up part was the downside of the book, at least at the start. Doom is such a great character that having him share pages with the likes of Namor and Kazar feels like a wasted opportunity. Things do improve during the Doom and Namor saga (some of which features them battling rather than teaming up), and they really heat up when Magneto becomes a part of the series, playing the party of the hero to save the world from another of Doom’s plots.

The art by Wally Wood, Gene Colan, Herb Trimpe, Jim Shooter and others is textbook mid-70s Marvel. Everyone makes sure that the running gag of Doom’s mask showing emotions is kept alive and well. The lack of colour in the collected edition doesn’t matter a bit such is the care and attention paid to the pencils and inks.

Red Skull pops up too. He starts off being pitted against Doom and ends up becoming the central character of the final team-up of the series, paired with the equally hateful… erm… Hate-Monger. While they’re not the stars the good guys do make appearances, with the Avengers, the Shroud (a Batman take-off that’s fallen by the wayside in recent years), and the Fantastic Four all cropping up for a spot of thwarting.

Doctor Doom is the undeniable star though. Any fans of his have to read this. Practically every issue contains a classic Doom line, be it “Serve me, woman!”, “Doom will be revenged, cur!”, or “Doom needs no one!”, bellowed as the character is flying through the air. The story’s all over the place, thanks mainly to the large number of writers coming and going over a relatively small number of issues, but ultimately it’s a great read. Good fun a fine example of Marvel at their best.