Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Esad Ribic

Thor’s miffed and who could blame him? I’d be mad too if some advanced race decided to wax my entire homeland and all of its inhabitants. What occurs is a fierce battle in which the Asgardians had their godly arses handed to them and a battle that turned him from Thunder God to Instant Orphan in about six pages.

That’s the setup for Ultimate Comics Ultimates #4, which mostly spotlights Thor’s suicide mission to take the hammer to those responsible while Fury, Stark and Hawkeye lick their wounds after last issue’s vicious dogfight and monitor from a safe distance. As a whole, it’s continued excellence from Hickman, although I admit there’s some confusion trying to figure out who’s who between the People (debuted in Hawkeye mini-series) and the Children, the techno supers hellbent on reshaping the world to suit their needs. The face-off between the two factions is pretty much inevitable and will probably happen at some point down the road, but for now, Thor wants blood. Trouble is, he’s not going to get it. Why? After a pep talk from Valhalla’s ghosts that got him going, he’s confronted by the leader of the People who reveals his identity, an act that leaves Thor a beaten man despite neither one of them exchanging blows. Yeah, this secret guy’s real lightweight in terms of stature but a heavyweight in all other areas, leaving Thor to skulk back to home base with his proverbial tail between his legs.

With Hickman on point, Ribic’s art simply pops—same as he’s done in the previous issues. The angles are great, environments look alien enough, but this guy’s bread n’ butter is facial expressions: when someone is mad, they look MAD. When it’s hitting the fan, you know it by the look of terror or exasperation or any gamut of emotions the characters go through. I’ll say it now: no disrespect to those that have come before, but his Thor is the best, beard and all. Don’t give me a clean shaven jovial Asgardian god, give me a battle-hardened roughneck that won’t hesitate to ram a hammer up your backside for looking at him cross-eyed. Ribic does that perfectly.

Digging this series very much, but can’t wait till Cap and Hulk make their first appearances.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars.

Brian Cee is a contributing writer at Champion City Comics

TheOutHousers

Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Rafa Sandoval


Hawkeye’s one of my favorites. Not just one of my favorite Avengers, I mean “favorite” as in “all time.” ONE of my favorites—Cap still takes that cake. Anyway, I’m a bit biased when it comes to the handling of my faves, and here with issue #4 of Ultimate Comics Hawkeye, we’re seeing the wraps on his solo mission to retrieve a purported Super Soldier Serum in Southeast Asia that ends up with a resounding “Huh?”

As a story, it leaves plenty of questions that I’m sure will be addressed over in the mother title Ultimate Comics Ultimates, making these four issues part of larger ongoing saga that’s happening over in that book. As a stand-alone, self-contained arc, you can’t help but feel page constraints kept Hickman from fully fleshing out his tale. Or maybe it was editorial. Regardless, here’s the skinny: two super-powered brothers—Zorn and Xorn, respectively—wax over their origins, why they are like they are, why they live in twin floating cities and why Hawkeye’s allowed to take however much of the serum he feels is necessary (there’s a small pond of the stuff just floating there, by the way). He’s also given the opportunity to sample the concoction, along with some of his tag-along teammates, but to tell you who partakes ventures too far into Spoilerville. Suffice to say, some do, plus  Hulk gets offered hot cocoa. Yeah, really. Don’t know the angle Hickman’s going for, but a mysterious off-panel voice does in fact offer the giant grey behemoth some chocolately goodness.

Aside from my usually distaste of Sandoval’s pencils on Hawkeye (just the character; everything else looks fantastic), Hickman’s on his game as far as dialogue and pacing but it seems, as a whole, a lot of the story ended up on the cutting room floor, leaving me with the impression that this mini-series could’ve just been told in pages of the regular Ultimates ongoing. Maybe Marvel’s testing the waters on whether sales would support a Hawkeye monthly (I’d buy it), but brevity holds back a story I feel could’ve been told. At least Clint doesn’t have to wear that gaudy purple getup from the regular Marvel U, so I’ll count my blessings.


Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars



Brian Cee is a contributing writer at Champion City Comics

Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Rafa Sandoval

By now you know the meat n’ potatoes of the whole series: Hawkeye’s hunkered down in unstable southeastern Asia, trying in vain in track down a Super Soldier serum recipe while avoiding The People, some super-patriots who are all about toppling the existing government and inserting and asserting themselves as the Powers That Be. Oh, and they also want to exterminate all of mutantkind. Kinda important footnote.

Here in issue #3 of the four issue mini, we join up with Hawk and the gang, one of which is The Hulk, so you see where this is heading. The way they have it figured is if the gang sneaks into the enemy fortress unnoticed and “steal” the plans telepathically, no harm’s done. “Hulk” and “covert” are practically antonyms, so there’s plenty of resulting property damage until a mystery man sends the big grey mass down to his knees. Yeah.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye and the squad find out what they want to steal might be practically given to them by another shadowy figure. Might’s the keyword, so there’s gotta be a catch, and rest assured you’ll catch it in November’s final issue.

On the good side, everything remains the same: Hickman moves the story along well, dashes of action throughout. On the bad side, I’m still not a huge fan of artist Sandoval’s Hawkeye; instead of a former Olympic archer, he looks like steroidal boy-band member with facial expressions that him look like he’s always chewing gum. Gum he doesn’t particularly care for, either. When he’s not looking that way, he wears a “who farted” grimace. Otherwise, everything looks presentable, especially backgrounds, something I feel is one of Sandoval’s strengths. One thing to nitpick and I’ve never mentioned in the reviews of the two previous issues, but in the book Hawkeye uses a recurve bow; in the excellent covers by Kaare Andrews, he’s using a tech-heavy compound which looks as cool as all get out. The latter better suits the “ultimate” style of the character’s all I’m saying.

Not the best issue in the series (so far) but still a vital piece to the overall storyline.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars.



Brian Cee is a contributing writer for Champion City Comics.

Although it has nothing to do with the issue, of note is small but moving inclusion of Marvel’s tribute to the September 11^th victims in case you missed it the first go ‘round.