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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 4, 2019 17:04:37 GMT -5
Good comments on chapter six. Two more things: Stark may have been scared by the Hulk, but he's distressingly blase about the outcome of the battle, which we will soon learn killed hundreds of people. But Stark only talks about what a rush it was. Jarvis talks about getting together with other butlers including Alfred (Pennyworth). Heh. I completely missed the Alfred reference! Hah!!! Ultimate Stark is depicted as an egomaniac. A well-meaning one, but everything still turns around him. I’m not surprised that hundreds of victims would be something that he’s intellectually aware of and regrets in some abstract way, but wouldn’t be at the top item of his agenda.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 6, 2019 9:29:19 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter eight : The expertsAfter a quiet issue, we shift gears for an all-action one heavily influenced by the movie The Matrix (both in terms of aesthetics, with plenty of black leather trenchcoats, and in terms of choreography, with what is known in popular culture as “gun fu”). Rather than a deliberate attempt to steal the thunder of a popular film, I think this artistic choice is just Millar and Hitch’s trying to be in sync with what was then trendy, Marvel’s Ultimate line being after all aimed at a modern audience. It's pretty much what Stan Lee was doing with his dialogues in the '60s (arguably with somewhat less success as far as verisimilitude went). Not only does the result here look extremely good, but I think the fascistic overtones of so many characters in black straps and leather with guns, guns and more guns (and one bow) suit the overarching theme of the mag to a T. The Ultimates will soon show how super-heroes are quickly co-opted by a government that cares less and less about due process and the rule of law as it becomes more and more powerful, no longer having to answer for its actions to anyone. It may come as a surprise in hindsight, but this is also the first time the Ultimates face an outside threat (eight issues into the life of the magazine). Up to that point, we had seen flashbacks (Cap’s last day in 1945), the establishment of the team, and an internally-caused crisis with Bruce Banner flipping his cork… but no problem that would have required a superhero team to exist in the first place. But no longer! For you see, Earth is hosting members of no less than eleven alien species, as revealed in this issue by Nick Fury. While the ten other species play nor role in this story line, one of them pauses a clear and present danger and has been at it for quite some time: the Chitauri, also known as Skrulls. («Chitauri» will be reused as the name for the alien servants of Thanos in the first Avengers movie, but since they showed no shape-shifting ability on the silver screen and had not been called Skrulls, their use did not prevent the later use of actual Skrulls in Captain Marvel). The Chitauri have been around for a good long while, being the aliens who provided the nazis with their Flash Gordon tech. As I mentioned earlier, I find the concept of aliens providing such low-level technology as rockets pretty odd; to a space-faring species, rockets would be much the same as hot air balloons, I would imagine. If aliens were to ally themselves with some local political faction, I’d expect them to provide something a little more advanced, closer to their own level of development. Unless, of course, the Chitauri who worked with the nazis (and we’ll learn there weren’t that many of them) aren’t that tech-savvy, or that their death-ray and anti-grav technology requires tools that humans can’t build yet. (Actually, I kind of like that last explanation. Can I get a no-prize?) Personal note: I know that it was not the writer’s intent to dismiss our responsibility in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I really dislike the explanation that their destruction was forced by the cities being training sites for alien soldiers. Whether one agrees or not that bombing these cities was a sound strategic choice, whether one agrees or not that killing tens of thousands of civilians in one go to prevent the death of millions more is defensible, I feel that an excuse like “Oh, we had to do it because of an alien invasion” (even in a work of fiction) sounds callous, self-serving and unpalatable. We killed those people because we chose to, because it seemed like the proper strategic choice at the time, and not because we had to. Excusing the rise of nazism by saying aliens were behind it is also childish. Good people joined the nazi party and plebiscited Hitler because humans can become bats#*t insane when they buy into a toxic ideology. It’s never aliens, it’s us. But back to our comics! Although their plans went south in 1945, the Chitauri have since multiplied and infiltrated our society. The issue opens as Black Widow and Hawkeye, leading squads of soldiers, attack a pair of New York buildings that serve as a base for the aliens. Mayhem ensues, and Hitch really knocks it out of the ballpark with the widescreen action. There is in there a particular sequence that took my breath away; one so cinematic that I was surprised not to see it reused in the MCU films to date (but perhaps we’ll get to see it in the Black Widow movie). During the course of the battle, the Chitauri set off a bomb that blows up a few floors of one building, where Hawkeye and his team are busy killing aliens. The hero is left hanging from a piece of debris, far above the street, holding another survivor. As a few Chitauri menacingly advance toward his position, he radios Natasha for help, but she’s in the second building, across the street, and her guns are nearly empty. So she orders a hovering helicopter to drop a machine gun out of the door at the exact moment she tells it to, runs toward a street-facing window while using the last of her bullets on office-dwelling aliens, and jumps through the window!!! She does a backflip in mid-air between the two buildings just in time to grab the falling machine gun, lands in the other building, and saves the day. As a witness says : NO WAY!!! (but in a good sense). Such a great action scene!!! Little exposition, here: Natasha’s skills aren't just due to her being a trained athlete. She also has ill-defined “implants” that enhance her performance. (I quite like the vagueness of the term. We don’t need to know how the super-being tech works for the story to work, and dealing with it in depth would both slow down the pace and turn out to be ridiculous technobabble anyway). Hawkeye uses a bow here, but in the rest of the series he will be written as having essentially Bullseye's skill set. He can throw everything at anyone. He and Natasha seem to have some professional history together, as will be the case in the Avengers movie... because let's face it, that film is basically an Ultimates one. After this dynamic ouverture, the Ultimates meet for a talk with Fury, who tells them all about the alien invasion. We are also introduced to Wanda and Pietro, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who as members of “Cap’s kooky quartet” are of course classic Avengers. They had been previously introduced in the Ultimate X-Men title, I believe, as the mutant children of Magneto (no Fox contract-mandated retcon yet). Naturally, Pietro is even more arrogant than in the MU proper, and Wanda is even more flakier. Everything is bigger, louder and (fill in the blank)-er in the Ultimate universe. (Not that Wanda was very flaky initially, but as with the “Hank Pym is a wife-beater” or “Cyclops is neurotic” memes, the “Wanda is sort of unstable” meme caught on over the years… resulting in her becoming actually mad in Avengers disassembled, a few years after this issue). One thing I really enjoyed in this staff meeting is how Stark reacts to learning that there are aliens on Earth… He’s blown away by the concept! It’s as if his life is one long attempt to escape boredom, and this really makes his day! We then set things up for another major fight, with Captain America having a few words to say to Hank Pym. Steve tracked down Hank’s position last issue, and has himself dropped in downtown Chicago (again from hundreds of feet up, and again without a parachute). As codystarbuck mentioned, this Cap is truly superhuman, not just a very strong and very skilled athlete. When Fury learns what Cap is up to, he orders his agents to stop him, needing all his super-human personnel on the eve of an alien invasion. This explains why Hank was not tracked down by SHIELD after he fled, even though it was dead easy to find him. Too late, though! Next issue: heroes fight heroes (again).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 6, 2019 10:13:25 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter nine : Captain America vs Giant-ManIt’s as traditional as a Thanksgiving turkey, I suppose: a good punch-up between two super-heroes! The physical clash between Steve and Hank parallels two different outlooks on life, one modern and one associated with years gone by. Hank represents a rational, psychologically aware school of thought, in which resorting to violence toward another member of society (and particularly one’s spouse) is reprehensible and something to be regretful for, but rooted in causes that can be explained (like the fact Hank has been on antidepressants) and can be corrected by education, discipline, proper medication and a greater awareness of the consequences of one’s actions. Cap represents a more traditional school of thought : guys don’t strike girls, and offenders deserve to get their a$$ kicked but good. So Steve takes Hank out behind the bar he had taken refuge in, refusing Hank’s offer to discuss the situation like adults. He slaps the much smaller man around a few times, telling him to shift to giant size so he can have something to punch. I like the way Hitch draws a slight smile on Steve’s face when Pym finally complies, sure that his size will give him an instant victory: Cap wants to punish the man, but he doesn’t want to beat him up in an unfair fight, because the same way you don't hit a girl, you don't hit a smaller guy. With Pym becoming a giant, Steve's role as an avenging knight becomes unambiguous: rather than deal with messy psychological issues of causes and effects and the roots of dysfunctional relationships, he can punch an opponent much bigger than him to avenge a girl. It’s like a little boy’s dream of righteousness made real. Cap may be much smaller, but he’s (a) very strong, as we’ve seen before, and (b) a natural scrapper, while Pym is just a regular guy grown tall. The fight doesn’t last long. Securing his position at the top of the moral ladder, Cap spits on his opponent… an opponent who, in his eyes, covered himself in shame by hitting a girl, accepting what seemed to be an unfair advantage before a fight, and then losing said fight. This shame is doubtless a large part of what makes victory sweet to Steve, in a “Vae victis” sort of way. He didn’t just beat Pym up physically; he also crushed his opponent’s self-image. This old school / new school dichotomy resurfaces when Steve later pays a visit to a recovering Jan, pretty much with an attitude of “D-urh, I really showed that bully and you don’t have to worry about him anymore”. Honest and well-meaning, but very old fashioned (in a schoolyard sort of way). Jan is however not old-school, snapping at Steve for trying to prop her up. She even accuses him of hitting on her, as if beating up her husband gave him the right to drag her by the hair into his cave. (I paraphrase, here, but that’s the general tone). Cap realizes he doesn’t know how to handle the situation and quietly leaves, leaving Jan distraught. I get the impression that fundamentally, she appreciates that a knight in shining armour would stand up for her; on the other hand, she views that sort of attitude as primitive and inappropriate. Oh, what's a person to do, torn between primal instincts and civilized behaviour? Not everyone is unhappy, though, as the news of the fight make Bruce Banner ecstatic; his nemesis has been served the same bitter dish he has to partake of recently… public humiliation after screwing up, and everyone hating him! That attitude is disingenuous, something that is brought up by Betty: Banner condemns Pym for being a wife-beater, but conveniently forgets that he himself killed 300 people just a few days ago. (Betty jokes about it, though... she doesn't seem to be overly concerned by collateral damages. In that sense, she's a good match for Bruce). The two of them discuss the Chitauri situation, with mentions of aspartame poisoning our nervous system or kids being microchipped to be made compliant and so on and so forth. No mention of chemtrails or faked moon landings? I’m surprised. Perhaps I blinked. Fury now intends to lead a massive assault against the aliens’ stronghold, on an island in Micronesia. That will start next issue, as the climax of the first season of The Ultimates nears! Note: there is a F-4 Phantom II at the triskelion, years after the plane was retired from active service (it was used for a while as a target drone after that). I love the Phantom. It was the first model kit I glued together as a kid, and still today I think it is a beautiful machine (along with my all-time favourite, the F-16). Quite a war horse too, as it served for many, many decades and is still active in some air forces around the world!
- Tony and Natasha have a chat, and things seem to click between them. No sign of romance yet, but they come across as being interested. - Hawkeye is a family man; he phones his kids before each mission to tell them he loves them. That aspect of his life will be important later on.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 6, 2019 11:02:38 GMT -5
Applying the Liefeld Defense to the building assault? One man's "...trying to be in sync with what was trendy." is another man's "rip-off to sell comics." Let's face it, comics have been swiping from everyone, since the beginning and this is more of the same. Every popular storytelling medium does it. Every novel that becomes a bestseller has 20 imitators, within 6 months. Every hit tv show or movie has copycats gobbling at their heels. Pretty much everything in comics was taken from a popular hit elsewhere and this is no different. The artistry is in taking the idea from a very different medium and making it work with different mechanics. Film is in motion and comics are static and have to trick the brain to conveying motion. Hytch really accomplishes that well. At the same time, the Wachowskis used a comic book trick of using slo-mo to mess with time, to emphasize certain beats, then speed it up, to make it seem that much faster.
I'll tell you, though; by the time this comic came out, I was well sick of slo-mo shots of endless rounds falling out of automatic weapons and gun ballets. Then again, I was watching John Woo films before Hollywood was completely ripping him off (after Tarantino got the ball rolling).
I always have to laugh at the strategy in these things; Hollywood and comics. Black Widow leaps out and catches a rifle to take a shot at the aliens. How about having snipers covering from the helicopter and just call in a shot from one of them? Why not infiltrate the basement and plant demolition charges to collapse the building on top of the Chitauri? Collateral damage? You mean worse than what we see by bullets flying all over the place and explosions and falling debris? If this is a surgical strike it is the medical equivalent of treating a laceration by chopping off the limb with an axe! It works, though, 'cause comics are always forgiving with extremes.
I hated the "Hank as wifebeater" trope; but, it is pretty damn satisfying when Cap catches up to him. You can see Cap reacting this way; especially this Cap.
Despite the carping on details, I enjoyed this series, especially this first volume. I get the same silly joy out of it as I do the film Commando, or the Matrix.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 6, 2019 11:13:49 GMT -5
The Phantom has always been a favorite in comics and cartoons: it looks like a warplane. Fully loaded, it looks like a big killing machine, which is what it was. We used to see them all of the time, in the sky above our town, as we were on the flight path to the Air National Guard base in Springfield. They used to fly pretty low over us, as well. Heck, one morning, we had one fly over at supersonic speed and the sonic boom shook the house! Pretty certain they weren't supposed to be doing stuff like that; but, it was the Air Guard and we were a little town. We didn't have enough money for anyone in Springfield to pay attention to us.
If you want to get technical, those CH-47 Chinooks are pretty out of date, though still in use. However, they'd be more likely to be using Blackhawks, unless they had to deliver a heavy payload or a whole platoon. You also wonder why SHIELD is using standard military equipment, instead of more advance d stuff, given things like the Helicarrier.
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Post by rberman on Jul 8, 2019 14:08:33 GMT -5
Ultimates #8The first half introducing Black Widow and Hawkeye was great, if highly derivative of the Matrix not just in style (duffel bags, black leather, guns slung everywhere) but also setting (laying waste to everyone in the lobby of a professional building). Sure hope no civilians ever go in this skyscraper on a busy Manhattan street! It wouldn't be a very good hiding place if it was all Chitauri, without any legitimate business as well. Besides that: Did you notice that Rick Jones owns a diner now?
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 8, 2019 23:42:46 GMT -5
Ultimates #8The first half introducing Black Widow and Hawkeye was great, if highly derivative of the Matrix not just in style (duffel bags, black leather, guns slung everywhere) but also setting (laying waste to everyone in the lobby of a professional building). Sure hope no civilians ever go in this skyscraper on a busy Manhattan street! It wouldn't be a very good hiding place if it was all Chitauri, without any legitimate business as well. Besides that: Did you notice that Rick Jones owns a diner now? Home of the Hulkbuster Burger!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 13, 2019 12:16:52 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter ten : devils in disguiseWe open with a flashback scene set in Poland, 1944, as Captain America is dangling from a locomotive on which a bunch of Nazis are moving in for the kill. Their officer, one Herr Kleiser, taunts Cap about how his sabotage mission has failed and how the train will deliver the parts required for the Germans’ doomsday weapon. From Kleiser’s choice of words, we are to understand that he’s neither a German nor a Nazi himself (of course not, since he’s actually a shape-changing Chitauri). Cap allows Kleiser to go on and on, actually buying time until several already-set time bombs blow up the train, which Cap escapes by plunging into a conveniently placed river. We then fast forward to 12 months later, in Marrakesh, where writer Mark Millar takes time to feature Mr. Lauchlin Currie. Does Millar have a soft spot for this historical figure? We have Eisenhower in the same sequence, but while the general's presence would help add to the verisimilitude of the story, Currie is a rather less well-known person. A briefing follows, in which we learn about anti-Chitauri operations in diverse spots, with Iceland being the last target to attack (as seen in issue #1). Prophetically, Steve declines the offer of ice in his soft drink. We then fast forward even more, all the way to the present, as SHIELD troops near Micronesia. I have in the past mentioned how cool a concept I believe the helicarrier to be, and we begin with a full splash page of one in flight, looking much more like a regular aircraft carrier (albeit one that’s flying) than the Jack Kirby more rotund version seen in Marvel comics. Inside shots of the carrier look lovely, all lit in red… and as the camera pulls back, we get something even cooler than a helicarrier in flight: a whole fleet of them!!! It conveys the feeling of this trailer: Meanwhile, Jan is still hospitalized and quickly comes to realize that something is wrong… the medical wing of the triskelion is strangely understaffed and the nurses seem overly intent to restrain her movements. Just in the brink of time, she realizes that the nurses surrounding her are hostile and must have taken over the whole place. Look at the way this scene is cinematically set up: Jan is between two nurses, with the one at her back pulling out a gun (something only we viewers can see). Jan then realizes what’s going on, thanks to signs of a recent struggle in the corridor. She shrinks to wasp size just as her follower tries to shoot her in the head, hitting the nurse that was in front of Jan instead. It’s quite a three-dimensional visualization of the action (and an appropriate rendering). I can almost imagine Millar, Hitch, or both play-acting the scene in their living room before committing it to paper! The nurses, of course, are all aliens. Note again that neither Jan’s not Hank’s clothes change size when they do; they must have tiny or huge uniforms on hand when they want to play super-heroics, or do without. Jan flies into the ever-practical air vents that so many heroes in fiction have used to move around in the past. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, SHIELD troops invade the alleged Micronesian Chitauri base. I like the fact that Cap is dressed as a soldier, not as a superhero. However, the base turns out to be completely empty. Fury doesn’t get it, as it was SHIELD’s psychic division that pinpointed the base’s coordinates… how could they have been wrong? (Seriously, Fury? You take advice from psychics and expect things to work out???) The general rages at how much this type of operation costs. (Hey, it’s not so bad… at least the money wasn’t wasted on a military parade meant to stroke someone’s ego). The milling soldiers then start looking for any useful information that might be found in the abandoned installations. Meanwhile, Jan manages to reach a communication station in the triskelion and contact Fury, but she barely has time to warn him that he's likely walked into a trap before the SHIELD soldiers come upon a nuclear bomb with a timer reaching the fatal 00:00 mark. BOOM!!! Beautiful explosion… shades of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira series. Even if this is a work of fiction, I was shocked by the perspective of how much this must have all cost: I mean, a whole fleet of helicarriers? And I’m not even talking about the gruesome and instantaneous death of 20,000 troops! Congress isn’t going to be happy. And any work of fiction that feels believable enough to make a reader entertain such down-to-earth considerations is doing its job, as far as realism (or verisimilitude) is concerned. Communications are lost, and Jan starts to despair a little as the Chitauri move in on her position. She understands that the aliens must have somehow taken hold of the psi-division to fed them false information, sending thousands of SHIELD personnel to their death. The Chitauri leader appears, and he is none other than Herr Kleiser, with whom we opened the issue. Great action book, with lots and lots of wide-screen shots. Notes: - Thor doesn’t fly around by throwing his hammer and hanging on to it; he really just flies, usually in a standing-up position. He can also teleport, either alone or with others. - The locomotive at the beginning has a big red star on front of it and swastikas on its wagons. It must be a Russian train seized by the Nazis. - Fury offers Cap a tic Tac in one scene. I don’t know if it’s meant as an inside joke or not, but as a whole panel is devoted to it I’d be surprised if it was just there to make the dialog sound more natural.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 13, 2019 18:19:56 GMT -5
See, i preferred things when there is one Helicarrrier; THE Helicarrier. It was unique and it made sense; the costs for such a thing would be ridiculous, yet, it was also SHIELD's forward base. A fleet is going a bit too far, if you ask me. Look at it this way, the US Navy, the largest in the world, has 11 aircraft carriers, at the present (built over a 40 year period, I might add). The most recent, the USS Gerald R Ford, cost $12.8 Billion to build and an estimated 4.7 billion in R&D costs. It is the first of a new class of carriers, equipped with the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which uses magnetic linear induction, rather than steam power to launch aircraft. So, that's what we have as state of the art ion the real world. Extrapolate that to the Ultimate universe and consider making that something capable of vertical take off and maneuverable flight. At a bare minimum we would be talking double the cost, if not something closer to a factor of 10. The cost outlay for a whole fleet would be massive. Now, the movies had, what, three? I could buy that, if at least one was brand spanking new. That illio above shows 10, by my count. Even using the double cost thesis, you'd be talking $248 billion dollars, just for those vessels. Even the Ultimate Universe USA's economy would collapse under that kind of expenditure. This is the sort of thing in modern comics and other forms of entertainment that drive me nuts. If one is good and impactful, a dozen are that much better. Captain America was a guy who went from weakling to peak of human physical ability; but, was given lots of training by the best. Now, he is superhuman and can freefall from over a thousand feet and suffer no injury at all. Before, he had an athletic, but impressive muscular build; but, one that also accommodated his agility. Now, he tends to be drawn like a steroid freak, who could not have the flexibility to accomplish the acrobatic feats that he does, just based on simple mechanics. One Helicarrier is astounding; 10 are overkill. Modern writers and artists (and filmmakers and novelists) have a bad tendency for overkill. Take the Batman films; one villain was great, so lets's use two or more, until we end up with crap like Batman and Robin. The other thing that bothered me was that Captain America is wearing a British army kevlar helmet (circa the period this was written. British artist and all. A couple of those in the example look vaguely like the American "Fritz" style. I remember reading that and just chuckling, as it was likely down to available source material. The rest of the equipment isn't US military, either. Come on, he's Captain America; you telling me SHIELD buys imports? This was a Republican administration; I don't think so. The story, itself, was rather good and felt more original than the previous, despite the diversion cliche and walking into a bomb that has reached the end of its time. The Wasp stuff was great. One thing, in general, that never quite worked for me in this or the MCU, was the use of standard military hardware, for an advanced agency, like SHIELD. If you have things like the Helicarrier, why do you have M-4 rifles and Apache helicopters? Shouldn't your other tech be just as advanced? Guys like Kirby, Wood, Steranko and Gulacy gave such things a more advanced look (Michael Golden, too.) Take what exists, extrapolate forward a bit, and make that your model. I'd have SHIELD using more advanced weaponry, sleeker body armor, things like that. If Tony Stark designed the tech of the Helicarrier, why not better armor for the average SHIELD grunt, and better aircraft? The movies improved on the vehicles a bit; but, everyone had the same old firearms. That was something the inspiration, The Man From UNCLE did well, with the UNCLE Specials, and the THRUSH weapons. Steranko gave SHIELD all kinds of cool gear, from jet packs to glider suits, cool needle guns to energy weapons. They looked like they handled the things that were too big for the police or the army. There are some things in this series that get that (the Hulk cage, for instance); but, others that look a little too low tech.
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Post by rberman on Jul 15, 2019 20:11:43 GMT -5
No great insights from me on #9 or #10. But the latter was an especially effective issue. The twin revelation of "Chitauri now control the Triskelion" and "Chitauri base was empty except for a big bomb" was very drmatically effective..
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 28, 2019 11:21:17 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter eleven : the art of warWe are all familiar with the typical structure of a Hollywood action movie: after establishing the characters and situation, things are set in place to lead us to a bombastic climax. Things blow up, villains seem to be on the cusp of winning, heroes do their thing, and then things go back and forth a few times (“Yes! We’re winning! Oh no, now we’re losing!”). We fully expect the defeated villain to rise again one last time before the final, final ending, when everything hangs in the balance. True to its movie-like feel, that’s where The Ultimates now takes us. Last issue saw the apparent destruction of most of the Ultimates and SHIELD’s armed forces. Kleiser, the apparent leader of the aliens (who now speak in alienese amongst themselves) has however read enough comics to know that if you don’t see the body, a character ain’t dead… and he insists that his cronies keep looking at the 100-mile radius zone of destruction to make sure Captain America (his old nemesis from WWII) is truly gone. Smart lad. Janet is captured by the Chitauri, put in a test tube, and Kleiser proceeds to explain the plot and gloat. Thank Heaven for tried-and-true storytelling techniques! The Chitauri haven’t actually replaced most of the SHIELD personnel as we might have been led to believe last issue; they just occupied key positions in the organization and in the military chain of command. As a result, nobody currently knows that the aliens are now in control of the whole operation. Kleiser explains that the Chitauri mean to take over Earth, and cure us of “this independent thought” problem. He claims that he and his species have little use for names or individual personalities, and act as the universe’s immune system against free will. This is a little puzzling, because while I can see how a Borg-like collective might want to take over our world of individual beings, Kleiser and his goons show a lot of individuality themselves… Kleiser is a typical moustache-twirling comic-book bad guy, complete with an overinflated ego and a personal hatred for one of our heroes! Anyhoo, the Chitauri have apparently been dealing with free will and imposing order in different spots since the dawn of the universe. I always have a hard time when creatures with such incredible power and a mission with such incredible scope resort to absolutely primitve techniques such as propping up a little dictator or putting drugs in our drinking water… I mean, there’s such a massive difference between the two ballparks that it’s just unbelievable. It’s like in Grant Morrison’s Rock of Ages, when über-celestial superbeings needed help against some ill-defined end-of-all-things type menace and wanted to recruit Green Arrow so he could shoot arrows at it. I mean, what??? I suppose Millar wanted to crank up the threat the same way he cranked up every other aspect of this series (Cap is now a near Hulk-level fighter, Hank Pym is a very violent wife beater, SHIELD has a fleet of helicarriers and so forth), but sometimes more isn't better if it leads to something absurd. Anyway. Perhaps Chitauri move in mysterious ways. So... so far, everything seems to be going Kleiser’s way. Mood suppressants have been pumped in the water supply for a while, as per any conspirationist’s handbook, and the next phase of the Chitauri’s plan involves putting mind-altering microchips in cell phones that will ensure nobody can have an independent thought within ten years. This is actually a nice meta commentary, on top of a reasonable super-villainous plan. Creepy final comment by Kleiser: he intends to become Jan by occupying her body and "experiment with the female form". Brrr!!! ---- And now we reach that famous point where all the pieces are finally set and we can start playing for real!!! All of a sudden, a fleet of spaceships materializes in the Earth’s atmosphere! Many of them look like the famous black triangle “alien” vessels seen in Europe in 1989 and 1990 (and which I think were more likely just F-117s, public knowledge of which was yet to come at the time). The scene naturally evokes Independence Day, as the TV series V which preceded and inspired it. Lots and lots of spaceships, but lo and behold, most of them appear badly damaged!!! In a one-page revelation, we learn that the entire universe has been rebelling against the Chitauri and that they have been pushed back from everywhere, now having to regroup in “the lower fourth dimension”. Since they have to retreat, they will now obliterate the Earth (nay, the entire solar system!) with their Doomsday Bomb. Man, such poor losers! To the surprise of most everyone on our planet, armed forces don’t seem to react to the sudden appearance of an alien fleet in our skies. (Nobody knows that the military is now under the control of the selfsame aliens, of course). Confound this! In our hour of greatest need we ssem to be completely defenceless!!! Unless..? As we Earthlings appear to be truly and completely %$#, some Chitauri tech notices an “anomaly” on the Micronesian site where the Ultimates are thought to have perished, and asks whether Tony Stark’s armor had some kind of force field. Force field! There’s the plot twist that allows our heroes to have survived the blast from last issue! Cue a “BRING ME THANOS” entrance by our heroes. Great dramatic moment, I must say! The build-up was well paced, and the following double-page spread of the Ultimates ready to kick ass is a powerful payoff! The heroes jump into action, and thanks to Stark’s technology looking more and more like magic, Captain America can contact all of the U.S. military personnel to tell them to ignore their orders to stand down, and to start kicking alien butt. Cap then jumps on an airplane that I have a hard time identifying… Its flat and angled air intakes really make it look like an A-5 Vigilante, but a rather short one. It looks nice, but that model was retired decades ago (as the F-4 seen in a previous issue was). The shape of the plane will also prove to be rather protean next issue. To be continued, as the story's climax covers multiple issues! Notes : the Chitauri are also known as the Annakui, which is close to Anunaki (a group of Sumerian mythological figures that some want to cast as space aliens). Kleiser says that the name “Chitauri” was given them by Africans, and according to the ‘net there are indeed creatures with that name in Zulu mythology.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 28, 2019 12:04:34 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter twelve : persons of mass destructionThat’s a very good term, "persons of mass destruction". I’m sure it would be used for real if people like the Hulk existed. It continues the tradition set by the “weapons of mass distraction” used by many politicians. We pick right up from where we were last issue, as the Ultimates attack the alien fleet. I just noticed that the battle occurs over Phoenix, so I guess the famous Phoenix Lights were actually Chitauri vessels visiting their secret base! Captain America engages Kleiser, first impaling the old Nazi with his airplane. (I am surprised that Cap can fly a jet… how long ago was it that he lived in 1945? He sure adapted quickly to our modern tech). Cap ejects just before his plane and its Kleiser hood decoration ram fuel reservoirs, and Kleiser is caught in the ensuing firestorm. Don’t worry about the shape-shifting villain, however, as he’s barely miffed by the event. The two old foes then go at it mano a mano. Biff! Pow! Bam! Meanwhile, Thor and Iron Man are busy throwing alien ships out of the sky. Thor even goes a little berserk, and tells Tony to get away before he unleashes a massive lightning bolt that brings down most of the enemy fleet. I wonder why the aliens are still there, honestly... they were supposed to retreat to the bottom of the fourth dimension, and just detonate a doomsday bomb on Earth. The bomb is already armed and impossible to stop, so why hang around? It can't be because they want to recover their brethren on the ground since they've made clear that they don't care about individuals. Oh, well. Maybe they are trying to leave and Thor and iron Man are preventing them from doing so by smashing their ships ceaselessly! On the ground, Cap is getting pummelled by Kleiser; the Chitauri can seemingly take any amount of punishment (including being shot point blank in the head) and keep on ticking. One of the massive alien ships, falling toward the centre of Phoenix, is diverted from its course in extremis by an overextended Iron Man who is starting to reconsider his career choices. As seen before in the series, Tony is more of a regular guy than his extravagant attitude might suggest, and facing both an insanely powerful threat and a crushing responsibility, he’s starting to buckle. A down to Earth regular soldier then gives him some Uncle Ben wisdom, and Tony finds his courage again. He has his drained armour connected to Pheonix’s power grid and recharges his batteries before flying off, with a thumbs up sign from a grateful kid on the ground. Then there’s a scene I don’t quite understand… The soldier says to one of his buddies “better him than us, uh?” “Tell me about it, man” before they rudely push the kid out of the way. I mean, what is this about? Are these guys actually Chitauri? But if so, why help Tony get back into action? Are these guys just jerks? If so, how does that scene help the story in any way? I’ve no idea. It doesn’t even work as any kind of criticism of the military, if that was Millar’s intention. It's like a minor plot point that is immediately forgotten. Meanwhile, Jan and Natasha find out about the Chitauri superbomb that’s going to vaporize the solar system in a few minutes, and while they do find the bomb its instructions are written in alien. Uh-oh. Cap is still fighting Kleiser, who gloats again (he just loves gloating!) and plays uncle with Steve by asking him to surrender… leading to what is arguably the most well-known scene in the entire series : Now as a French-speaking fellow and the proud descendent of French colonists, as someone whose culture is resolutely French and who completely disagrees with the representation of the French as surrender monkeys… I still find that scene hilarious!!! Ooooh, the burn! Millar got a lot of flack back then because of this scene, and Ed Brubaker even had the “real” Captain America make a welcome speech about the bravery of the French in Cap’s own comic. But come on, it’s a spur of the moment joke, and a terrible burn too. It might reveal Ultimate Cap as something of an ill-informed bigot, but it’s definitely something a quick-witted ill-informed bigot would say… and when it comes to jokes, a well-placed unexpected barb can be funny even if it is factually wrong. There are lots of sexist jokes that can be funny, for example, even if the underlying sexism isn’t funny at all; the same goes for gallows humour which can make people laugh at horrible things. I’m sure some readers must have loved the joke because they also ate “freedom fries” or bought “I hate the French Vanilla” ice cream after France refused to join Bush Jr’s invasion of Iraq, which is a pity, but that doesn’t take way from the line’s perfect delivery. We conclude the issue with our armed forces delivering a new person of mass destruction to the scene: they throw Bruce Banner out of a helicopter!!! Hopefully the result will turn out to be more fruitful than in Thor: Ragnarok!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 28, 2019 12:48:03 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter thirtheen : How I learned to love the HulkChapter thirteen? Why have a thirteen issue series instead of a twelve issue one as tradition would suggest? My guess is that the story just grew in the telling, and as a reader I am not complaining. The titled once again refers to weapons of mass destruction, as it is a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Nice. Bruce Banner falling from the sky is referred to as “the weapon of last resort”, and Cap instructs everyone to fall back. Naturally, the scrawny scientist turns into the Hulk before impact, and Cap goads him to take on Kleiser by pretending the alien has been bumping uglies with Betty Ross while Banner was incarcerated. The Hulk then spends several pages beating Kleiser, before finally eating him. Yes, eating him. As Hulk and Kleiser fight, the other heroes must deal with the Chitauri solar system-killing bomb. Jan and Natasha figure that Tony’s genius will allow him to find a solution before everybody dies, but while Iron Man does manage to get the bomb on an elevator (the same elevator as in Katsuiro Otomo’s Akira, gentle readers!) to take it out of the aliens' base, he admits that he has no idea how to defuse it and can only suggest that Thor, supposedly a god, send it away to some mystical realm. Natasha is horrified, because naturally she assumes that Thor is just a mentally unstable individual using some advanced technology… and it is to Millar’s credit that we, the reader, could easily agree with her. Even if our familiarity with Marvel’s thunder god might mean we are tempted to believe what he says about his origin, here in The Ultimates nothing suggests that he’s actually an Asgardian. Well, the matter won’t be settled today… But Thor does send the bomb away, and when it blows up all our universe feels is a sort of ripple. Thor says he dumped the bomb in the wastes of Nastrond, and we do not know if that’s actually what he did or whether he managed to send it to hyperspace of something. I personally love that ambiguity, and wished it could have been preserved for the entire series! The bomb gone, Kleiser eaten, all that’s left is for the Hulk to bring down the last few giant ships and for the Air Force to handle the smaller vessels. We aren’t told what fate befell the Chitauri who weren’t killed in action. Area 51? The Hulk is captured again thanks to an adamantium-tipped arrow delivering some serum, and we reach the part of the tale where the dust settles, we take stock, and prepare for the future. Hawkeye muses that our heroes have been fighting aliens who used to work with the Nazis, and that things don’t get much more black and white than that… which in a sense is also a commentary on this type of story, which definitely benefits from a clear B&W dichotomy. It even becomes a little ridiculous sometimes, especially when using real-world situations in which some foreign group is represented as evil and another as good, just based on what our own political interest might be. I still remember how Rambo III cast the Afghan Mujahideen as noble freedom fighters facing the evil Soviet empire, something we also saw in the final issue of the comic-book Merc. We may have been this close to meet a heroic Usama Bin Laden in both instances! Nazis are a safe bet, though. They're gone, and nobody likes Nazis. Nor space aliens who want to blow us up. As I recall, I had a problem with an earlier Millar-Hitch collaboration (in The Authority) in which some evil bad guy sent waves of flying supermen to attack our world “just to have fun”… This extremely B&W set-up was like an excuse to have superheroes indulge in mass slaughter with a clear conscience (especially since the “evil” supermen were said to be clones, and so somehow disposable… a heinous concept also used in the Star Wars prequels). But anyway, these are just funnybooks… So yeah, Hawkeye, you’re right; this was a pretty black and white situation, and the good guys won. (Volume two of The Ultimates will be much more nuanced, much to my satisfaction as a reader). Banner is back in his cell, bemoaning the fact that he actually enjoyed eating Kleiser, despite being a vegetarian. Betty, meanwhile, reveals a kinky side of her character as she’s quite aroused by her boyfriend’s dark side. We also have a poo joke, as the remains of Kleiser are recovered from Bruce’s toilet bowl. (Note: the Hulk’s poo is gamma green and it glows. I remember that Fly on the Wall, an old CBR contributor, had once postulated that the Hulk might have left scattered piles of green radioactive poo all over the American Southwest, much to the locals' chagrin. God, I miss Fly). Jan and Hank have a short phone conversation, in which she tells him not to call again… ever. At the White House, a victory party is held by the president. Tony dances with the first lady, we get to meet Hawkeye’s family, Natasha reveals she plans to make a move on Stark, and Cap and Jan have a moment that show his earlier chivalrous conduct was not unappreciated. And so we conclude this first instalment of The Ultimates, which leaves the door open for more. I’m quite happy with the Avengers movie we eventually got, but this would have been a pretty decent one too.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 28, 2019 17:55:57 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter eleven : the art of warWe are all familiar with the typical structure of a Hollywood action movie: after establishing the characters and situation, things are set in place to lead us to a bombastic climax. Things blow up, villains seem to be on the cusp of winning, heroes do their thing, and then things go back and forth a few times (“Yes! We’re winning! Oh no, now we’re losing!”). We fully expect the defeated villain to rise again one last time before the final, final ending, when everything hangs in the balance. True to its movie-like feel, that’s where The Ultimates now takes us. Last issue saw the apparent destruction of most of the Ultimates and SHIELD’s armed forces. Kleiser, the apparent leader of the aliens (who now speak in alienese amongst themselves) has however read enough comics to know that if you don’t see the body, a character ain’t dead… and he insists that his cronies keep looking at the 100-mile radius zone of destruction to make sure Captain America (his old nemesis from WWII) is truly gone. Smart lad. Janet is captured by the Chitauri, put in a test tube, and Kleiser proceeds to explain the plot and gloat. Thank Heaven for tried-and-true storytelling techniques! The Chitauri haven’t actually replaced most of the SHIELD personnel as we might have been led to believe last issue; they just occupied key positions in the organization and in the military chain of command. As a result, nobody currently knows that the aliens are now in control of the whole operation. Kleiser explains that the Chitauri mean to take over Earth, and cure us of “this independent thought” problem. He claims that he and his species have little use for names or individual personalities, and act as the universe’s immune system against free will. This is a little puzzling, because while I can see how a Borg-like collective might want to take over our world of individual beings, Kleiser and his goons show a lot of individuality themselves… Kleiser is a typical moustache-twirling comic-book bad guy, complete with an overinflated ego and a personal hatred for one of our heroes! Anyhoo, the Chitauri have apparently been dealing with free will and imposing order in different spots since the dawn of the universe. I always have a hard time when creatures with such incredible power and a mission with such incredible scope resort to absolutely primitve techniques such as propping up a little dictator or putting drugs in our drinking water… I mean, there’s such a massive difference between the two ballparks that it’s just unbelievable. It’s like in Grant Morrison’s Rock of Ages, when über-celestial superbeings needed help against some ill-defined end-of-all-things type menace and wanted to recruit Green Arrow so he could shoot arrows at it. I mean, what??? I suppose Millar wanted to crank up the threat the same way he cranked up every other aspect of this series (Cap is now a near Hulk-level fighter, Hank Pym is a very violent wife beater, SHIELD has a fleet of helicarriers and so forth), but sometimes more isn't better if it leads to something absurd. Anyway. Perhaps Chitauri move in mysterious ways. So... so far, everything seems to be going Kleiser’s way. Mood suppressants have been pumped in the water supply for a while, as per any conspirationist’s handbook, and the next phase of the Chitauri’s plan involves putting mind-altering microchips in cell phones that will ensure nobody can have an independent thought within ten years. This is actually a nice meta commentary, on top of a reasonable super-villainous plan. Creepy final comment by Kleiser: he intends to become Jan by occupying her body and "experiment with the female form". Brrr!!! ---- And now we reach that famous point where all the pieces are finally set and we can start playing for real!!! All of a sudden, a fleet of spaceships materializes in the Earth’s atmosphere! Many of them look like the famous black triangle “alien” vessels seen in Europe in 1989 and 1990 (and which I think were more likely just F-117s, public knowledge of which was yet to come at the time). The scene naturally evokes Independence Day, as the TV series V which preceded and inspired it. Lots and lots of spaceships, but lo and behold, most of them appear badly damaged!!! In a one-page revelation, we learn that the entire universe has been rebelling against the Chitauri and that they have been pushed back from everywhere, now having to regroup in “the lower fourth dimension”. Since they have to retreat, they will now obliterate the Earth (nay, the entire solar system!) with their Doomsday Bomb. Man, such poor losers! To the surprise of most everyone on our planet, armed forces don’t seem to react to the sudden appearance of an alien fleet in our skies. (Nobody knows that the military is now under the control of the selfsame aliens, of course). Confound this! In our hour of greatest need we ssem to be completely defenceless!!! Unless..? As we Earthlings appear to be truly and completely %$#, some Chitauri tech notices an “anomaly” on the Micronesian site where the Ultimates are thought to have perished, and asks whether Tony Stark’s armor had some kind of force field. Force field! There’s the plot twist that allows our heroes to have survived the blast from last issue! Cue a “BRING ME THANOS” entrance by our heroes. Great dramatic moment, I must say! The build-up was well paced, and the following double-page spread of the Ultimates ready to kick ass is a powerful payoff! The heroes jump into action, and thanks to Stark’s technology looking more and more like magic, Captain America can contact all of the U.S. military personnel to tell them to ignore their orders to stand down, and to start kicking alien butt. Cap then jumps on an airplane that I have a hard time identifying… Its flat and angled air intakes really make it look like an A-5 Vigilante, but a rather short one. It looks nice, but that model was retired decades ago (as the F-4 seen in a previous issue was). The shape of the plane will also prove to be rather protean next issue. To be continued, as the story's climax covers multiple issues! Notes : the Chitauri are also known as the Annakui, which is close to Anunaki (a group of Sumerian mythological figures that some want to cast as space aliens). Kleiser says that the name “Chitauri” was given them by Africans, and according to the ‘net there are indeed creatures with that name in Zulu mythology. The aircraft appears to be the Panavia Tornado, flown by the RAF (as the GR4) and German Luftwaffe (as well as the air forces of the Netherlands and Italy) It was developed in the 70s (like the F-15, F-16 and F-18) and produced until 1998. It seems like Hitch is primarily using British military or NATO reference material for things, like the British Army helmet, last issue. By that token, I'm surprised he doesn't have SHIELD carrying the L-85(aka SA80) rifle, since it looks more advanced than the M-16/M-4.... I think a lot of the Chitauri stuff is Millar poking fun at David icke and his shapeshifting lizard alien conspiracy theories. He's had more media play in the UK, than the US; but, head to your local New Age section and you can find his conspiracy books, right by Behold a Pale Horse, the Jim Marrs books, and every other whack-job.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 28, 2019 18:05:13 GMT -5
The Ultimates Volume 1 Story by Mark Millar Art by Bryan Hitch with inks by Paul Neary Andrew Currie, colours by Paul Mounts Chapter twelve : persons of mass destruction: Now as a French-speaking fellow and the proud descendent of French colonists, as someone whose culture is resolutely French and who completely disagrees with the representation of the French as surrender monkeys… I still find that scene hilarious!!! Ooooh, the burn! ! The correct term is "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys!" I still have a problem with it, from a character standpoint, regardless of how funny it might be. Cap was a WW2 vet, who fought alongside French soldiers and the Maquis. It's a modern convention that is perpetuated in American pop culture; mostly from the Simpsons teacher strike onward, magnified during the rush to the Iraq War. If this were USAgent or some other modern Cap, then, yeah, you might get that; but, not from someone who was there. To me it is slipshod character writing. Millar is more content to write a stereotype of Cap's generation than actually do a bit of research to do an accurate one. To me, that's laziness. I see it in some of his other writing.
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