ultimate alliance

after reading the reissued Ultimates Vol. 2 as The Ultimates Saga, which was from Tony Stark's reflections (and hacking Samuel Jacks- er, Nick Fury's files), they gave out a teaser poster of the next chapter of the Ultimates (Marvel's re-imagined Avengers, for the postmodern 21st century ADD-addled internet generation).

you know most of them but wha-? is that a Valkyrie or is that Valkyrie? you know, the teenager they introduced earlier in the series with no powers whatsoevs.

are we there yet? can i sit down now?

freed from the purview of S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark finances the group and has some new members - the aforementioned sword-wielding bimbo and that kickass dude in a oh-so-difficult pose above. they just call him "The Panther". no T'Challa, no nuthin'.

first order of business: watch a sex tape of Tony and the recently-deceased traitor Natasha (the Black Widow). who made this and why? furthermore, did they watch it until the end? and is there a sequel?

the festivities are interrupted when Venom (huh? what?) barges into the mansion by using Thor as a wrecking ball. darn, its so easy to barge into the mansion these days. security, pfah.

the new Hawkeye (well, the same one, but much more ... suicidal) becomes a cardboard cutout hardass, given that he's already an iceman as it is.

i'm not sure if the inclusion of Valkyrie here was to provide a fantasy setting (flying horse, sword). didn't she sleep with Hank Pym once? and now she's sucking face with Thor? talk about sleeping your way to the top!

speaking of Thor, he seems to have lost his green street cred and is now embracing all the worldly pleasures this mortal plane can offer. and he speaks ... like a Hollywood writer (not the ones on strike).

after disposing of Venom (who was raving about a girl) with a well-placed thunder lightning strike, the team, now with Jan as team leader, tries to regroup, but everyone seems to have their own separate agendas - Tony drinking (tumor problems?), Hank trying to OD (probably because Thor is boinking the sword chick), Cap feeling distant ... and even more so when he gets it that siblings do boink each other (yes, i'm talking about you, Pietro and Wanda). Magneto's children are sick in the head.

talking about these sick puppies, somebody tries to gun them down on a cold wintry morning on Sixth Avenue, and for all of Pietro's speed, somebody succeeds.

seems like there's a conspiracy going on to take down the Ultimates. based on the expanded cover below, they'll be going toe to toe with some "bad" muthers soon enough (is that the Blob?? and Sabretooth? what, were the Ultimate X-Men not good enough?).

though the work isn't a great leap from BattleChasers (and we all hope this run of yours doesn't end up that way either) ... welcome back, Joe Mad.

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Ultimates Vol. 3
Jeph Loeb/Joe Madureira/Christian Lichtner

JLUnleashed

ever read your comics using a widescreen big-ass monitor? would you ever go back to your puny 14" screen? hell, no!!!

especially if the reading material is about big-ass fights. slap around the Justice league, will ya? be prepared to be whupped.


if we don't reconfigure the size, Batman will be even larger than life.

okay, it ain't HD and it ain't video. but it'll save your eyes and make you drool (i'm not worried about power consumption as this monitor is located in the - cough, cough - office).

was there any doubt that the League would stay down for long? actually, they really need a bunch of nastier villains to clean their clocks. Luthor has been doing this shtick for awhile now and he hasn't won anything.

there goes another empty promise. i dare ya, Diana.

since all of these happens just before the Black Canary/Green Arrow wedding (yes, we know - continuity sucks), team leader Dinah knows she has to finish this quickly so they can continue the bridal shower (hey. those studs cost a lot of money ok?).

Dwayne McDuffie is building something here, with Vixen's fluctuating powers and a manipulative third party. kissing Superman? is Lois watching this?

speaking of the Big Blue Boy Scout - what does he do when he gets his powers back? why, punch the bald asshole, of course. but you know he held back - he still doesn't want to kill Lex after all the crap Lex puts him through year after year. wuss.

oh-ho! and who comes to pick up the anti-League? Amanda Waller? really? i smell something fishy ... like a bigger Injustice League (and she's saving Luthor's ass for her own ends).

fresh off his run on the Fantastic Four, where he made T'Challa the baddest brother in the universe, the same undercurrent flows through here, with a much-fleshed out Vixen, Black Lightning, and now Firestorm.

o, Bat-God, please give me a widescreen monitor like this for Christmas.
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Justice League of America #15
Dwayne McDuffie/Ed Benes/Sandra Hope

shiske-bat

i'll let you chew on this for a few minutes ...





actually, just go read the ongoing Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul storyline in the Bat- books.

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Batman #671
Grant Morrison/Tony Daniel/Jonathan Glapion

some Devil

"The Universe"
v2, #65
Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev/
Michael Golden/Greg Horn/P. Craig
Russell/Phil Hester/Ande Parks/
Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend/
Jae Lee/David Finch/Frank Quitely

yeah, so that's another 2 months off the books ... geez. if this was a paying job, i'd been fired oh-so-long-ago. so i'm grateful it isn't.

but what about my minuscule audience, who have been starving on my take on DD for the longest time? i apologize, but i probably will get to issue #100 when in real time, they'll be putting out issue #200.

for now let us subsist on the 40th anniversary of the man in red tights, issue #65, an all-star extravaganza, which doesn't advance the current storyline, but adds layers to the mythos and makes Daredevil the treat that it is.

back to where we left off ... Daredevil's been outed to the press, his personal life is a mess ... what else is there to say? well, apparently, the ageless Mr. High and Mighty Nick Fury has a few words.

"i'm THE SPY. it's what i do." that made me chortle.

very few people would not shit in their pants when Fury starts talking tough. Matt is one of those (uhm, on account of being blind, perhaps ...?).

Fury offers Matt a way out, to be a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. he would have an easier time rehabbing A.I.M. and make them all Red Cross volunteers.

ok, how much does anybody want to bet that the reason why Fury has been missing all these years is that he went underground to prepare against the upcoming Skrull invasion (the future crossover i call World War Skrull, but commonly known as Secret Invasion)?

this special issue is an all star jam showcasing Matt's relationship with certain characters in the Marvel Universe at this particular juncture, and is led off by the highly esteemed Michael Golden. next up is a splash page special by one of my favorite cover artists, Greg Horn, whose brilliant visuals on Spiderman's reflections on Matt keep fueling my dream that he'd be doing interiors one day. wait, that's not Mary Jane! that's Tila Nguyen, a.k.a. Tila Tequila!!

then we have Mr. Killraven himself, P. Craig Russell, contributing a quiet scene with Captain America in Central Park (?). i guess if Nick Fury can't convince Matt to cut and cut cleanly, neither can the figurehead of freedom.

a couple of nice bits was Matt being paranoid about being seen with Cap - he senses "fourteen people within shouting distance" and "a couple making out under that bush". which means whenever i'm in Central Park, i never look at the right places!!!

then there's the Punisher sequence, courtesy of the Irredeemable Ant-Man team of Phil Hester and Ande Parks. it turns out the Punisher was present in that Hell's Kitchen bar when Matt uttered his "I am the Kingpin" soundbyte. i'm sure he's more than a little pissed that Daredevil beat him to the Fat Man (hello, Frank, you've racked up a high body count, but very few majors).

running into each other 2 months later, Matt and Frank get into it, and there's no doubt who's gonna win in this book. this is payback for that humiliating scene over in Punisher #3, where he hogties DD enough to equip him with a gun, and makes him choose between letting Frank assassinate a bad guy, or stop the whole thing by taking Frank's life.

the inimitable Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend duo seems to be in the wrong book (i thought i walked in the Joe Kelly X-Men set), but this is fine ... its the Dr. Strange sequence. Matt pays the good doctor a visit after pwning him when the guys met in Central Park.

well, whaddayaknow ... the Devil knows how to apologize.

Matt allows the Doc to complete his sentence about the proverb this time, although Strange senses that Matt "may not be the proverb type." but advice is what Matt came there for, thus Doc gives sage wisdom as befits his stature. however, it must be the tea sometimes ...

ouch. for such a sorcerer supreme, you don't watch TV, don't you? i almost sense a billy club striking you on the head.

Matt tries to know if there's an easy way out of his problems. but as we all know, whether you're a fictional hero or a real one ... there really isn't a magic pill for life (ok, the Scarlet Witch's reality-altering powers not included!).

Messrs. Jae Lee, David Finch and Frank Quitely all contribute splash pages, and i like the latter because fighting ninjas over the edge of a building is not the usual Quitely fare.



to end, we learn that the kingpin before the Kingpin is getting out of jail. of course, there will be a connection.


addenda (12/10/2007):
i should have thought of this sooner, but my friend (and sole regular reader - hahaha) Gloria pointed this out to me. Brian Michael Bendis, bless his cranium, had a rare brain freeze and ...


well, okay, if anyone can tell me that wasn't Doc Stephen in Daredevil #8, then i'll give you a free chai latte. just go to your local Starbucks and tell 'em i sent you.

tripping the force magnetic pt. 3

continuing a look back at a '90s classic. if we can call it that.

Fatal Attractions
X-Men #25 "Dreams Fade"
Fabian Nicieza/Andy Kubert/Matt Ryan

following Magneto crashing Illyana's funeral and stealing Colossus as his newest Acolyte, the world prepares for the worst, by activating the Magneto Protocols - an electromagnetic shield around the planet designed to keep Magneto out. maybe.

Magneto retaliates by - let's just say he explodes an EMP on the shield (don't even ask me how he's able to float into space without as much as an oxygen supply or protective suit), and thus disrupting all electrical systems worldwide. how these humans managed to design an EM shield that can be used against them anyway, i scratch my head. no adequate protection, no nothing. maybe they do deserve the wrath of the Magster.

with the EMP blast shutting down the world's power supply (how this was not a catastrophic event with a much stronger impact across Marvel's titles at that time, i don't know again), only the X-Men with their spanking Shi'ar tech were able to watch the football game at that time. i bet some Westchester neighbors knocked on their doors and begged to allow them to watch too (they brought chips!).

following that VDP, Professor Xavier deems its his turn to deliver a rousing speech and implement a final plan to take down old BFF Magneto once and for all (it was the final plan, alright ... for 1993). he forms Task Force Magneto, just like Philippine cops like to form teams to do something specific, but fail in that task more often than not. we'll see how this one fares.

he leaves behind energy wielders (except Gambit) because close-quarter combat is expected, and leaders (like Cyclops) as a precaution, just in case they do fail. Charles' strike force are sooooo grim given their task, Andy Kubert drew them like they all got robbed of a million dollar lottery jackpot. we don't even see Jean kiss Scott goodbye.

the wondrous thing about alien technology is that we can use it anyway we want. for example, Jeff Goldblum manages to infect an alien ship with a virus without knowing a whit about the alien language. this X-team actually manages to teleport themselves right in Magneto's floating space station, Avalon. sure, they had some help getting by undetected, but going by that principle, they can actually go anywhere they want. any-freaking-where.

since the Internet then was never heard of (despite all that vaunted Sh'iar tech - hah!), this time to control the station, Quicksilver has to use a USB flash drive to - what, they didn't have that too?? ok, he used something called a "compact disc" ... soooo lame. did it have DRM?

the result is a reverse teleportation of all of Magneto's sidekicks to escape pods that get launched at a specific distance from Avalon, thus taking them off the board.


so, we have the inevitable confrontation between friends and family. sounds like most reunions.

Quicksilver, in particular, thinks that headbutting his dad will solve his family and self-esteem problems.

now, the most common error in fighting a single foe (as seen in movies and elsewhere) is throwing down one at a time. Kill Bill notwithstanding, you have pile on especially if you're fighting someone world-class, if you wanna win. the X-Men sort of fall into this trap - though Xavier and Jean try to warp his mind while everyone else gets their dibs.

Cyclops didn't want Wolverine to go toe-to-toe with Magneto for obvious reasons. overriding caution with ferocity, Logan is part of this team, and you know you can't stop him from trying his best to slice and dice.

and the inevitable result:

actually, the inevitable result is a more interesting Wolverine and record sales.

and this moment leads to more crossovers and events for years to come (we all worship at the altar of Bob Harras), whether good or bad.

Onslaught, Heroes Reborn, Heroes Return, Joseph, etc. ... the current Marvel braintrust took a page from this when they depowered mutants, sent the Hulk into space and started Civil War. one crossover should beget another.

now, the obvious suspect for letting the X-Men get into Avalon without clanging alarms would be their erstwhile teammate, Colossus. but shouldn't he be in one of those floating escape pods, remote teleported before the battle?

i know why. everyone that got teleported had IDs and magnetic strips identifying them as Acolytes - Peter still didn't even one or even an official uniform.

this crossover epitomized the darkening of the heroes we've come to love ... Xavier written in the '60s wouldn't cross that line, and since then his choices have been always questioned by his students. is it any wonder that these days, he's no longer in control of his school, and his first and best student, Cyclops, one-ups him at every turn?

next: the triumph of Larry Hama and more backstabbing