All-New Ultimates vol. 2: No Gods, No Masters

There’s this anime my friend Steve watched years ago called “E’s Otherwise” that he likes to harp on from time to time.  Not because it was particularly good or terrible, but because it was so average at everything it did.  It was just there, existing as an example of anime and nothing more.  That’s what these twelve issues of “All-New Ultimates” are:  An utterly average comic that does nothing particularly well or actively awful.  The title group — still made up of Spider-Man, Black Widow, Kitty Pryde, Cloak, and Dagger — are still cleaning up the mean streets of New York from figurative and literal Vermin, dealing with the fallout of the previous volume’s gang war, and mixing it up with a low-rent supervillain or two.  Well, there is the scientist who turns into a giant purple freak that they have to take down.  That part at least gets points for being less dumb than Kitty’s takedown of Galactus in “Cataclysm.”  There’s also the introduction of “Ultimate” Terror, Inc. which is about as exciting as anything this series has produced.

The average nature of this series extends to its dialogue as well which never rises above “perfunctory.”  Characters make general observations about their situations, villains make threats, heroes taunt them back.  It’s like a bad parody of superhero comic dialogue found its way into an actual superhero comic.  Things aren’t a whole lot better with the art, as the one thing I was looking forward to seeing in this volume — the Marvel debut of “Old City Blues” and “Prophet” artist Giannis Milonogiannis — turned out to be a wash.  He’s not ready for prime time here as his linework comes off as way too simplistic and amateurish, showcasing his manga influence in the worst possible way.  Regular artist Amilcar Pinna is the same as he was in the previous volume:  Good with the action and bad with the faces.

Given all of the positive word-of-mouth I’ve heard about his series “Copra,” I was expecting a lot more from writer Michel Fiffe on this series.  He ultimately delivered a thoroughly average run that feels like it was aimed at kids who have never read a comic before.  Maybe an audience like that would’ve found something to enjoy with “All-New Ultimates.”  I like to think that they’d see it for how boring it is and leave it on the shelf.

One more nail in the coffin for the Ultimate Universe.  Time is running out…