Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk

Hulk fighting Wolverine!  In the Ultimate Universe!  Written by “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof!  A six issue mini-series that took over three years to finish.  Care to guess which one of these was the most memorable thing about my experience reading this book?  If nothing else, this series provided another solid reason supporting my habit of “waiting for the trade” as opposed to buying single issues.

To be fair, it’s not a bad book.  It looks great, thanks to art by Lenil Yu who not only gives the fight scenes real energy, but also gives the appropriate tension to scenes like Fury’s initial meeting and dialogue with Wolverine.  He also knows how to stage a scene like Wolverine fighting a spirit panda in his mind and Hulk’s giant orgy and make it come off as endearingly absurd.  Lindelof does show that he knows how to write a decent comic and he excels with the dialogue — the snappy comebacks that the cast are constantly delivering are a highlight of the book.  Unfortunately this book has little new to offer beyond giving us the Ultimate She-Hulk and its… long gestation period has robbed it of having any real relevance to the events of the other Ultimate titles.  You can read it and enjoy it, but skipping it entirely is also a viable option.

In all honest, had this come out on time it probably would’ve been a bit more entertaining.  When something takes THREE YEARS to finish, it not only accumulates a certain amount of expectations but also a certain amount of ridicule as well (see also “Duke Nukem Forever”).  While I commend Lindelof for taking the time to finish the series, I’d have been more impressed if the end result showed that he needed the time because was shooting for “Watchmen” levels of greatness.  Ultimately it gives me the impression that he just couldn’t find the time to take care of things while he was planning out the rest of “Lost.”