Ultimate Power #1 (of 9)

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils & Cover by Greg Land

 

It is an interesting state of affairs that brings Ultimate Power into creation. For starters, and probably the most pressing issue for Marvel, is Supreme Power’s continued failure to rise in sales despite its move from a MAX imprint to a general readers one (obvious proof that a ‘mature label’ was hardly holding it back). That book itself hardly makes for enough reason to do a sweeping, nine issue crossover of the two universes, especially since one of those universes is (in concept, a bit gimmicky as a Marvel-version of DC characters) and only occupies one series.

 

The Ultimate Universe on the other hand is hardly so small, with four maxi-series, and while it too is suffering from a dip in attention and popularity at the moment, it hardly seems like a crossover with the ‘Supremeverse’ is going to fix that. So it holds that this crossover is either the work of ‘bottom-up’ creative storytelling (something I highly doubt) or is designed primarily to bring attention to a single comic by exposing Ultimate readers to the Supremeverse.

 

As if to accentuate this point, this issue is entirely devoted to exploring and continuing storylines from the Ultimate Universe, specifically the Thing’s continued pains at being freakish. Bendis exposes Millar’s thin papering over of the dilemma (when Millar gave the Thing a girlfriend, the blind Alicia Masters, with no real time or depth put into the relationship) and Millar’s subsequently absurd notion that the Thing must choose to be a freak or risk disrupting the entire time-space continuum. The whole issue is brought up again when the Fantastic Four fight an Ultimatized Serpent Society and one of their number calls the Thing a freak after knocking loose part of his rock exterior.

 

Ben’s physiology is again the focus of the problem, and Reed’s immense guilt at failing to keep his promise to fix Ben is the driving force behind his experimentations (again). We are to believe that it is Reed’s experiments, against the wishes of Fury and SHIELD, which bring their universe to the attention of the Squadron Supreme. They show up on the last page full of piss and vinegar, striking dramatic poses for the hell of it. The whole thing screams ‘generic’ and if it wasn’t for my interest in the Ultimate Universe already, I wouldn’t give two squirts about this comic.

 

Greg Land’s work is as much a mixed bag as it always is—there is hardly a scene with a woman without her striking a chest puffing pose. Land’s faces convey a proper amount of emotion but he has a very limited range of actual faces he can draw (based off him using the same model over and over again), so that every blonde is pretty much the same girl. And what is up with that pose he does ad nauseam—the one with the head thrown back, big smile and half closed eyes? He can do other poses, so why the hell does he use that one so much? I don’t mean to pick on him incessantly, he is not without praise—especially his action scenes can take on an amazing vibrancy despite the smoothed over quality of his work.

 

Unfortunately, Editor John Barber (who is ultimately responsible) allowed the three page preview insert of X-Men: First Class to be placed right in the middle of a two page splash. Such horrible execution is beyond amateur because most independent comic book makers would put such an amount of attention into the creation of their book to make such a mistake unthinkable. Only a large, unfocused company like Marvel would allow something so simple, yet so egregious, to transpire.

 

Rating - 6