drive-by readings: Ultimate Avengers #1

Ultimate Avengers #1 (Marvel) "The Next Generation, Part 1 of 6" Mark Millar Carlos Pacheco Danny Miki Justin Ponsor Cory Petit Laura Martin Leinil Yu/Jason Keith (variant cover)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand Mark Millar's back in the Ultimate line. i confess i haven't read Ultimatum yet from end to end. i'm vaguely aware of Magneto going nuts, a Biblical flood, Wolverine killing Multiple Man, Blob eating the Wasp, and most of the mutants dead as well. now we have the Ultimates - the Avengers - rebuilding their world post-Armageddon. looks like everyone got infected by Hawkeye's suicidal-take-no-prisoners-approach, even Captain America casually tosses bad guys out of a helicopter, or its just a bad day to take on the Avengers. anyhoo, most of it is a flashback with Cap and Hawkeye dealing with A.I.M. and Cap meeting the Red Skull (for the first time) - and the ugly jerk (looking like Crossbones) is ostensibly his son. pretty much Cap goes AWOL after that (more backstory to come) and Nick Fury is brought back to head a special ops team to bring Cap back in.

i've been a fan of Carlos Pacheco (Avengers Forever is a treasured book) and i'm astonished at this new level of amazing interior art - maybe its Danny Miki's inks. suffice it to say: wow.

if anything at all, this is NOT Ultimates 3. and thank God for that.