Ultimate Doom #1
I must begin by saying I know very little of the Ultimate Universe. I have read a dozen or so issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, and that is it. Everything I know about the Ultimate versions of the X-men, FF and Avengers I’ve learned by skimming Wikipedia throughout the years and casting one, some-what interested eye towards the Ultimatum events; now onto the issue.
The Ultimate Universe is very new to me, and I had no idea what preceded the events of this issue before being asked to review it, and (perhaps against my better judgement) I decided not to scour the internet trying to learn 10 years of Ultimate Universe history before reading this one issue... And my decision didn’t turn out all that bad.
Though I don’t know the characters, or their histories, I instantly notice the little (or large) differences in them in this Ultimate universe and that in itself is interesting. The story begins (potential spoiler alert) with Sue Storm discovering that a recent, massive attack is the doing of Reed Richards, who has always been one of the good guys. Like I said, I don’t know what has happened in the universe prior, and while that may diminish the ‘shock-value’ of the issue for me, it certainly didn’t diminish the entertainment. Bendis’ writing is as good as ever, and the dramatics are set in among great pacing and art. The issue begins with shock value, and ends with a cliffhanger. On its own: a great single comic. In the Ultimate universe: I’m not sure. Time to fire up Wikipedia and do some research.
Bendis is a great storyteller and I like the majority of what he does. Secondly, I am very biased towards “what if?...” and re-imaging stuff: I love it. Bullet Points is one of my favourite stand-alone arcs. So if you are like me and enjoy the bizzaro versions of characters outside of the 616, then grab this issue. It might not be the best starting point for delving into the Ultimate universe, but it’s certainly a good comic.
No comments:
Post a Comment