The Ultimates

Mkay, so since this is my first review it's gonna be a little short. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to go about these reviews, so it'll be a lot of trail and error til I find a system that I like.



My past week has been an “Ultimates” week. Most of it was spent reading “The Ultimates: Tomorrow Men”, and then my weekend spent reading “The Ultimates”. I quickly finished that one on Monday only to read both “The Ultimates 2: Gods and Monsters” and “The Ultimates 2: Grand Theft America” in one day. I should mention that “The Ultimates: Tomorrow Men” is a novel meant to be read after the first Ultimates, the other three books are graphic novels, and the last two I read in one day “Gods and Monsters” and “Grand Theft America” are both consisting of the same storyline.


The books all recount 3 different adventures experienced by the Ultimates. The first book, "The Ultimates", is about when the group is first put together and they try to prove to the public that the whole S.H.I.E.L.D initiative isn't really a waste. What I liked about this book was you really got to see some of the problems the superheroes had themselves, showing that they suffer regular problems as everyone else. Like a domestic dispute between one superhero couple, the urge to fit in and feel useful felt by another superhero, and one even having an inoperable tumour. It was nice to see the perfect image of a superhero ruined with problems regular people face. That being said, I really loved the plot of the story and the art was very nice.


The next book meant to be read is "The Ultimates: Tomorrow Men". Now, I read this one first, thinking that it was the novelization for the graphic novel. But not only did I find out that it wasn't, but also that it was meant to be read after the first graphic novel-- this only being said at the very end of the book in the author's notes. This book is about a group of men who come from the future and ask for the Ultimates help to defeat an evil group that will not take hold of the country till way into the future. The Tomorrow Men soon gain the trust of the Ultimates whom agree to help. The only thing that really bugged about this book was the timing of everything-- like how long the beginning, middle and end were. It seemed like the beginning lasted way into the middle of the book. I remember looking at the book and thinking "I'm this far into the book page wise, and yet we're still establishing characters?" You'd think since it's meant to be read after the first graphic novel that the reads would already know about the characters. All the author needed to do was brush on certain events and it would have been fine.



Now the next review will be both "Ultimates 2: Gods and Monsters" and "The Ultimates 2: Grand Theft America" combined since one is the continuation of the other. These last two books both now focus more on Thor, the Norse God of Thunder and also a hero that sometimes help out the Ultimates. Thor is a peaceful humanitarian with the power of the gods and an evil half brother, Loki, who has it in for him. Loki too has god like powers, being able to manipulate reality, which he uses against Thor as he tries to bring him down. This book I found was more depressing than the others, just because you see different events being manipulated by Loki and feel bad for the people caught in the middle. Again, the story line like the others was just great. I actually read these two books in one day just because I wanted to see what would happen.

So, here ends my first review. It's kinda all cramped, but I didn't want to space it out too much. My future reviews will most likely be of one book at a time so it will have an overall nicer layout and the reviews themselves will improve with time.