The Pickytarian

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April 19, 2005

Subway Reading: The Ultimates

Welcome back, loyal Pickytarians! Sorry about the delays, which have gotten longer and more frequent in recent days. An increase in my workload and the beginning of the fantasy baseball season are the prime culprits, though there are certain other secret reasons... more about that another time. Meanwhile, I had planned to come back with a slew of brief capsule reviews today, but I have too much to say about The Ultimates. So let's get to it!

The Ultimates 2 #5 - I have nitpicks. Oh brother, do I have nitpicks. First off, I should state that I am digging the overall story in this title. The mystery of Thor's origin is intriguing and the execution has really kept my interest. I really enjoyed the Hulk trial a couple of months ago. Penciller Bryan Hitch and inker Paul Neary are the reigning kings of the "comic realists," and colorists Larry Molinar and Laura Martin have been doing an incredible job.

** SPOILER ALERT **

BUT... mechanically speaking, this issue was one of the most awkward comics that I have read in some time. When I say "mechanically," I'm referring to the staging and the panel-to-panel, page-to-page, plot-advancing aspects of the script. It seems clear that the plan was to have an 16-page fight scene, followed by 6 pages of wrap-up. The problem is that in order to fill those 16 pages, Millar relied on unexplained acts of convenience, faulty logic, and physical impossibility.

Let's start with the main goal of the "heroes." The characters pound the point about Thor's belt being the source of his power into the reader's and each others' heads in mind-numbingly repetitive fashion. Despite these repeated and increasingly shrill entreaties to remove his belt, nobody ever bothers to try. They punch him and wrestle with him. They shrink down to insect size and fly into his mouth. They shoot him with machine guns, flamethrowers, and "neuron-scramblers." At one point three people are even holding him down, yet none of them makes a single twitch in the direction of his belt buckle.

The only hero who seems able to follow one simple instruction is Quicksilver. The speedster gets up from a stretcher early on and dashes off into the snow. The problem, of course, is that quicksilver is super-fast. If he were to grab Thor's belt right away, we wouldn't have 16 pages worth of smack'em-powie. So he needs to be delayed somehow, and delayed he is. Somehow. I wish I knew how, but apparently it happens off-panel. Next time we see Quicksilver, he's laying on the ground with his sister trying to get him up. "Pietro! Quick! We only have 6 more pages until you're needed to resolve this fight!" Who wha huh? I suppose the argument can be made that he re-aggravted the injury that put him on that stretcher in the first place. OK, fine. But come on, you can at least drop that into the background of a panel somewhere. And it couldn't have been much of an injury, since all it took was Wanda's "The bad man HIT ME!" line to overcome all of its ill effects and... propel him into the sky?

Speaking of the Scarlet Witch, Millar does give her a great line about finding a reality where Thor is getting clubbed like a baby seal and she's going to summon that reality. But then she gets knocked down by Captain Britain, and two pages later, she... gives up? Forgets? Decides that it would be more effective and gender-appropriate for Quicksilver to save the day instead? My head is starting to hurt.

But let's forge on. On page 2, the soldiers who are halfheartedly trying to move Thor's alterna-teen followers to safety announce that they are one mile from the battle. They announce this over the radio to Captain America, who is in the middle of said battle. (This page is also notable for an errant word balloon that attributes dialogue to a teeny tiny person standing in the way-far-away background of a crowd scene.) The mile is apparently not far enough for them to avoid the danger, as a stray lightning bolt soon knocks down a tree that almost sort of threatens to muss their hair. Luckily for these soldier's coiffures, Captain America has suddenly developed the ability to teleport his body up to a mile in any direction! He swoops in and lifts the tree up off of the jeep that already cushioned its fall, and even sneaks in a snarky comment about the soldier's foul language. Which brings up another fun little side-note: I understand that Cap is a man out of time, and the he is shocked by the coarsening of American culture and all, but am I to understand that he would be dismayed by soldiers using foul language? I've read my share of Sgt. Rock and Two-Fisted Tales comics, and I can guarantee that the "$#%&-word" was indeed bandied about by more than one World War II-era soldier.

Gripe, gripe, gripe, piss, moan and complain. By now you've probably gotten the impression that I disliked this book. Despite the myriad of contrivances, I am still enjoying the heck out of this story arc. It's maybe the best super-hero book that Millar has ever written (damning with faint praise? Who, me?) and the visuals are spectacular. Still, these little bits of inconsistency and mechanical laziness are distracting and mildly annoying. They prevent me from giving this book more than 3 stars.

Posted by jdonelson_nyc at April 19, 2005 10:20 AM

Comments

Posted by: Peat at April 19, 2005 04:48 PM