The Ultimates: Homeland Security

[DanMcS]

Trade paperback #2, collecting issues 7 to 13, I believe. Some spoilers.

Just picked this up. The Ultimates is consistently my favorite comic series, and it's a shame it's so infrequently published. This whole book had me going "ooh" and "aaah". The giant flying hovercarriers, Cap vs Giant Man, the alien guys, the Black Widow and Hawkeye invading the highrise buildings. It was just neat, and all played like a cool action movie.

This series tends to feature the whole team well, as opposed to Ultimate X-Men trade #7, which featured Wolverine, Spider-man, Daredevil, and oh yeah, all those other mutant guys who showed up at the end.

The writing was amusing, I loved the whole thing. In particular, the final plan involving ticking off Bruce Banner and then telling him the alien leader had been hitting on Betty. Brilliance.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

I enjoy the series overall but there is an ongoing streak of mean-spiritedness that I don't care for at all--like the way normal miltary types are always portrayed as thugs who enjoy beating up 98 lb weaklings, etc.

I'm looking foraward to seeing what the 'real deal' is with Ultimate Thor in the next series. Personally, I'm hoping for for the whole Asgardian thing to be real and that Thor isn't just an extraordinarily powerful and mortal nutcase.

 

[DM_Matt]

I'm looking foraward to seeing what the 'real deal' is with Ultimate Thor in the next series. Personally, I'm hoping for for the whole Asgardian thing to be real and that Thor isn't just an extraordinarily powerful and mortal nutcase.

I'd rather him be the holographic representation of a frail little grey alien.

 

[DanMcS]

I enjoy the series overall but there is an ongoing streak of mean-spiritedness that I don't care for at all--like the way normal miltary types are always portrayed as thugs who enjoy beating up 98 lb weaklings, etc.

I think they're taking their lead from their Captain America. Cap isn't terribly nice, in this comic. He's a heck of a soldier, and a good guy in a fight, but he's got this insane streak where anything he can do to win works for him. I couldn't really remember the event you were talking about, so I flipped through, and it's right before they toss Banner out of the helicopter, they're beating him around on Cap's orders.

And to be fair, these aren't the normal military types, these are the gung-ho psychos Shield can get signed up to its black ops divisions. We never really see normal military types in any of the Ultimate series, I think.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

I think they're taking their lead from their Captain America. Cap isn't terribly nice, in this comic. He's a heck of a soldier, and a good guy in a fight, but he's got this insane streak where anything he can do to win works for him. I couldn't really remember the event you were talking about, so I flipped through, and it's right before they toss Banner out of the helicopter, they're beating him around on Cap's orders.

And to be fair, these aren't the normal military types, these are the gung-ho psychos Shield can get signed up to its black ops divisions. We never really see normal military types in any of the Ultimate series, I think.

The guys that help Iron Man out after he controls the crash of the alien craft had a rather callous attitude towards him as well that didn't sit well with me. There's a throwaway line or two in there that just really made them out to be jerks that kind of bugged me.

Also, I thoroughly dislike the Hulk eating people. I'm all for the updating and 'ultimization' of these characters, but making him a cannibal? Too much in the wrong direction, if you ask me.

And I found Cap's plan at the end of Homeland security to be anything BUT brilliant. "Hey, Hulk! Those aliens think you're queer--are you gonna let them get away with that?" Brilliant? Seriously...

Stuff I do like:

1.) Hitch's artwork
2.) The scale of the battles
3.) Cap's laying the smack down on Giant Man
4.) Thor (but not the Ultimate Mjolnir--looks more like an axe than a hammer)
5.) Iron Man--especially the bit in HS where he's trying to get rid of the core that's going to explode and the Black Widow is going on about how it was an honor to have known and worked with him because she thinks he's about to sacrifice himself.
6.) Most everything else. I do just get tired of seeing some of the sadistic and callous types that Millar puts in his *any* of his stories. Overall, I think that Ultimates is good fun.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

I'd rather him be the holographic representation of a frail little grey alien.

God, I hope not...

 

[Desdichado]

Oh, is this out? I really love the first book, and I've read a fair amount of the very infrequent issues that make up this second book. I'll be picking it up then, for sure.

I actually like the dark, gritty nastiness of The Ultimates. It's such a change of pace, especially for an all-American group like the Avengers.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

I like the darkness of The Ultimates and the grittiness. I guess it's the nastiness that I have a problem with.

 

[ashockney]

In my mind, one of the best comic series ever.

The world has not yet seen how incredibly cool, and in my mind revolutionary, this comic may be. It could easily be adapted straight into a movie, and I hope like heck it is!

Ultimates rules!

 

[Desdichado]

In my mind, one of the best comic series ever.

The world has not yet seen how incredibly cool, and in my mind revolutionary, this comic may be. It could easily be adapted straight into a movie, and I hope like heck it is!

Ultimates rules!

Yeah, the ultimate universe already bears a pretty striking resemblance to the recent Spider-man and X-men movies as it is. Doing the Ultimates, or a movie quite similar, would be fun.

However, I still haven't gotten into Ultimate FF. The only leg of the four legged Ultimate Universe stool that I don't have yet.