Comic Three-In-One

Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 9: Ultimate Six

Hey, here's a great idea for a story where the Ultimates and Spider-man team up to fight a bunch of bad guys: make it seven issues long and don't have any fighting until issue six!

RATING: 31%




Batman: No Man's Land Vol. 4

Continuing the story of Gotham being totally fucked, this one isn't too interesting apart from a classic confrontation between Jim Gordon and Batman.

RATING: 59%




Fantastic Four: Flesh & Stone

Turns out Jeph Loeb actually did jump the shark before Ultimates 3, who knew?

RATING: 45%

Comic Three-In-One

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 5: Ultimate War

The Ultimates take on the X-men after Magneto blows up the Brooklyn Bridge in the name of mutantkind, and while Chris Bachalo's art is great as always Mark Millar never really tried to make any sense as to why the Ultimates went to arrest the X-Men when their enemy did something terrible.

RATING: 48%



Batman: Cataclysm

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake strikes Gotham and it's up to Batman to save it? Shouldn't Superman or Green Lantern or one of the countless other heroes with near limitless powers be helping out rather than Batman, whose only power is immense wealth, and his harem of child sidekicks?

RATING: 42%




Thunderbolts: Justice, Like Lightning...

It was a brilliant idea, in the wake of Onslaught killing most of the major Marvel heroes to create a supposed new replacement band of heroes who are revealed to be villains at the end of the first issue. Unfortunately, based on this collection it looks like the book didn't have much direction past that idea, and sort of meandered around while the "heroes" plotted to conquer the world/started to like being heroes.

RATING: 56%

Ultimates Vol. 2: Homeland Security

Mark Millar's run on The Ultimates, Marvel's updated Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, was great. You have to get past the fact that every member of the team is an asshole and acts like they would have belonged in the Bush administration (past tense finally). For instance, this version is famous for a scene in which Captain America, after being asked to surrender by the alien big bad, says "Surrender? You think this letter on my head stands for France?" Also, they get the Hulk to attack aliens by telling him they all said he was gay. The only thing that really gives these moments a sort of pass is that I think (?) Millar is being ironic, although every book he does is like this. Anyway, the action is terrific, and the book is a very fast read thanks to Brian Hitch's exorbitant use of splash panels.

RATING: 85%

Ultimates Vol. 1: Super-Human

I know I've said this before, but Marvel's Ultimate line of comics all began pretty terrific. Currently, only Ultimate Spider-man is still good, but I guess it's been seven years, so you know. Anyway, The Ultimates is a new version of the classic Avengers, Marvel's premiere hero team, here made up of Captain America, Giant Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and Thor, and founded by government lackey Nick Fury. In this incarnation, though, they are all assholes, which seems pretty realistic to me. That is one of the strengths of the Ultimates (not Jeph Loeb's Ultimates) - that they are presented in a very realistic manner. Here they are government stooges who are all pretty big jerks, and eventually they are just used to invade countries for oil. Ahhh, politics and comics. Well, you should check this out if you never have, which I can probably say most of you haven't.

RATING: 88%