Ultimate Comics Ultimates: Disassembled
Remember the days when this title brought us some of the boldest widescreen action with thrilling art and compelling streamlined/reinvented versions of Marvel characters? Yeah, they feel long gone as I read this title now. Jonathan Hickman managed to capture more of that spirit than I expected with his take on the title, but Sam Humphries couldn’t quite keep up the momentum. Now we have Joshua Hale Fialkov taking over for Humphries as he wraps up outstanding plots in advance of the presumably universe-ending “Cataclysm” event. He’s joined here by artist Carmine Di Giandomenico and while nothing the two give us here is actively awful, it still feels like joyless busywork with the title concluding as a shadow of its former self.
“Avengers: Disassembled” was Bendis’ controversial start to his tenure on the “Avengers” franchise and a significant event in the overall narrative of the Marvel Universe. It was so significant that the company still occasionally trots out the “Disassembled” tag when they have a storyline they want you to pay attention to. That being said, don’t expect any disassembling here. Thought the storyline may involve Reed Richards getting his hands on the Infinity Gems with the help of Hulk, Quicksilver and Kang the status quo is effectively restored at the end of this volume.
It at least starts off with plenty of destruction as Reed and Hulk are freed by this mysterious Kang individual and proceed to tear apart the Triskelion thanks to the Infinity Gems that Quicksilver has rounded up. Cap is captured, while Tony Stark, Sue Storm, Hawkeye, Monica Chang and Thor escape to plan their counterattack. In the meantime, Reed uses the power of the gems to make a worldwide utopia to show the Ultimates how their job is supposed to be done. However, there are plenty of fascist overtones like summary executions of rebels and curfews (yes, curfews) to let you know that he’s still a bad, bad man who needs to be stopped.
Do our heroes turn the tide through their own ingenuity, cleverness, and not-giving-up-ness? Of course. Does it involve lots of new “Ultimate” takes on characters that feel really arbitrary? You bet. Are we treated to an ominous lead-in to the “Cataclysm” event at the end? It’s pretty much the only reason this book likely exists. Fialkov was likely dealt a bum hand here, having to wrap up all of the outstanding storylines in the book while trying to build momentum for the event at the same time. That doesn’t quite happen as the final issue is a blaring cacophony of action where everyone fights everybody else until things finally stop. There are some clever moments, like the revelation of where the final Infinity Gem is and Reed’s gruesome interrogation of Stark, that suggest he could probably do better without having to breathe life into an editorial mandate. In any event, I imagine he’s probably glad to have work that doesn’t involve killing off DC’s most prominent African-American superhero.
Di Giandomenico manages to fare both better and worse here than what I’ve seen from him in the past. The spiky looseness in his art has been phased out here to something smoother, but no less intricate. It’s more immediately appealing than his usual style and I was at least interested in observing the change throughout the book. The man does draw a good Hulk, and also manages many striking images throughout, such as the liquification of said monster, Reed’s creepy elastic self, and the bloody, brainy aforementioned interrogation of Stark. As nice as this all is, Di Giandomenico’s work really feels crammed-in on the page here. That’s likely because of translating Fialkov’s compressed script onto the page, but for all of the fighting and explosions the action feels really small-scale. This is again felt most keenly in the finale which is just too chaotic for its own good.
If nothing else this volume makes a good case for putting the Ultimate Universe to bed. While the “Ultimates” may have been the brightest spot in the line for a while, that time is clearly over here. I can appreciate the fact that Marvel kept the title going to wrap up its outstanding storylines, but that’s it. The end result was a slog to get through and did nothing but make me remember the better times when Mark Millar was writing it.
… You know, when you make me remember the time when Mark Millar made the title better, that’s when things have gone very wrong with what you’ve created here.