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“The Ultimates 2” #1

By | November 25th, 2016
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

How do you solve a problem like the incarceration of eternity? In the wake of the disbanding of the Ultimates during the Second Superhero Civil War, its members must be brought back from the brink of despair to once again face the ultimate problems facing all of reality.

Read on below for our full spoiler free review of “The Ultimates 2” #1 to find out why you should be reading this out of this world comic.

Written by Al Ewing
Illustrated by Travel Foreman
Who – or what – is the Cosmic Jailer? What being is powerful enough to chain Eternity itself? That is the mystery Galactus must solve – before it’s too late. Ultimate problems require ultimate solutions, and Galactus will call on those who helped cure his insatiable hunger. Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Spectrum and Ms. America! Together they are the Ultimates, protectors of the Omniverse. But now they are something more – the newest heralds of Galactus, the Lifebringer!

From the ashes of “Secret Wars”, the ultimate death and ultimate rebirth of the entirety of reality in the Marvel Universe, Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort brought us “The Ultimates”. A new team consisting of some of Marvel’s currently most popular characters, built to solve problems on a cosmic scale. When everyone else was bringing things back to basics, reaffirming characters as tackling little more than street-level petty crime, Ewing and Rocafort set their sights higher. Way higher. “The Ultimates” did for Marvel what “The Multiversity” did for DC, taking the wild concepts of the structure of the omniverse, the fluid nature of Marvel’s sliding timeline and the personifications of universal concepts and weaved them into a very human story about people standing against the natural decay of the universe.

Literally, the first arc of the series was about taking the universal personification of decay and entropy and, instead, transforming it into the bringer of life.

Now, from the ashes of “Civil War II” (which not only took over the story of the first series, but ended the first series with the team in tatters), Al Ewing teams with artist Travel Foreman to bring the team back to it’s original purpose. This change in artist belies a change in tone from the first series of “The Ultimates”. Kenneth Rocafort and Christian Ward’s art was heady and psychedelic which vibrant purples and oranges through.

Travel Foreman’s linework is much more constrained, much more structure and naturalistic, but with no less personality. Sure, those unbelievable vistas of cosmic scenery still show up in this issue, notably a double page splash in the first few pages, but the majority of this issue is dedicated to a couple of dialogue scenes that take place in a laboratory and a diner, respectively.

It’s a much more downtempo opening than we saw previously, but it not only works to the strength of Travel Foreman as an artist able to capture character language perfectly, but allows Ewing to pick up the pieces in the wake of the team’s destruction. Carol Danvers’ out of left field transformation into the ultimate fascist superhero was something Ewing tried to justify in “The Ultimates”, but not even he could align his vision of the character with whatever Bendis was doing in “Civil War II”. Here, this first issue is already in denial phase of the post-event first issue where Ewing is trying his best not to talk about it and is instead pushing the pieces back together to reform the team.

It does mean that this opening issue is much more downplayed than how “The Ultimates” opened. It’s much more character-focused with the majority of the issue focusing on dialogue scenes that recap the themes and elements of the prior series while looking ahead at the problems to come. This allows Ewing to bring new readers up to speed with the characters and where they are in their lives and the shape of the world as it stands, but it mostly means his more heady concepts are pushed to the side.

One of the things that made Ewing’s writing in “The Ultimates” stand out was how he fictionalised concepts about the structure of the Marvel Universe that fans have been discussing for years. Here, Ewing does a similar thing in opening the issue by taking the noted fact that Marvel’s comics have become more dire and more dismal of late by fictionalising the idea that, yes, this year does suck more than it has before because the entirety of reality is being tortured in a literal sense. It’s these multiversal, hyperreality concepts and plots that makes Al Ewing’s writing stand up alongside Matt Fraction’s writing “The Defenders”, Grant Morrison on “Final Crisis” and Jack Kirby on “The Fourth World”. Lofty praise, I know, but this comic just feels so much grander than anything else Marvel is publishing.

Continued below

As I’ve mentioned, Travel Foreman brings a very different style to “The Ultimates 2” than we saw from Kenneth Rocafort or Christian Ward. A more structured, more downplayed style matches Ewing’s more grounded writing in this issue. Despite the awe-inspiring, multiversal vista that opens the issue, we’re mostly seeing dialogue scenes inside very neutral environments. This lets Foreman focus more on the characters and their facial expressions which makes even a dialogue scene between two characters sitting in a booth at a diner visually interesting. It also helps that Foreman uses cutaways and transitions to make the dialogue more visually appealing, but at the end of the day it is still just two characters talking.

What makes it even more visually interesting is returning colour artist Dan Brown. Brown’s vibrant palette and ability to colour light and shadows brings a sense of life to some otherwise pretty drab settings. There’s a theming of orange hues that follows the characters throughout the issue, bringing a vibrancy to the diner scene that builds and builds, until a reveal in the final pages brings all of the characters together in a wash of orange light. It’s a very warm comic, from the theming of the orange hues in the sunset on the dinner to the red of Captain Marvel’s uniform and the cloak of Galactus’ herald, which Brown uses to his advantage by making space feel so cold and empty.

Before, Dan Brown would colour space in a psychedelic mix of purples and pinks and blues with flecks of gold for stars pinpricking their way through rolling nebulae. This isn’t the case here. The world beyond Earth is pure black, the varying wavelengths of light given off by the multitude of stars bringing an almost Jackson Pollock effect to the page. It makes the world beyond Earth feel so closed off and so isolated, fitting the theming of Ewing’s writing that showcases a reality in pain. It’s a masterclass in how to use colour to accentuate the themes of the story, even if the story dictates that the characters sit in a diner and talk.

If there’s a major disappointment of the issue is’s that there’s a promise of what Ewing and Foreman could do when unleashed on this title that isn’t quite fulfilled. With Ewing’s ability to coalesce incredible ideas and concepts into a narrative structure and Foreman ability to blend a minimalist sense of grounded reality with reality warping visuals (I mean, just look at what he did on “Animal Man”), anything could happen. Instead, we get a first issue that needs to pick up the pieces of the hole “Civil War II” blew in the concept. As much as it is fantastic to see “The Ultimates” return and to see Ewing still on top form and joined by a masterwork artist like Travel Foreman, this first issue suffers from having to stall and bring the band back together while promising that we will get to the good stuff eventually.

Final Verdict: 7.6 – Make no mistake, it’s still one of the best comics you will read from Marvel these days, but you’ll have to wait an issue or so before that real good stuff kicks in.


Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

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