Ultimate Origins #4 (Marvel – Bendis / Guice / Maleev)
Continuing the shocking exploration of the dark side of the Ultimate Universe! For the first time we learn: How did Nick Fury become Nick Fury? How did the Hulk become the Hulk? And, finally, how did a baby Peter Parker connect to it all? Plus: the Ultimate Watcher has appeared and he is here to witness the Ultimatum!
I applaud Marvel for trying to breathe some life back into the Ultimates line. Sure, at one point all of comicdom pivoted on what new character or concept would be “re-imagined” in the Ultimates, Ultimate Spider-Man or Ultimate X-men. And it was good and fresh. Then it got not-so-fresh. Whether it was Ultimate Galactus being a swarm of inter-galactic bugs or Ultimate Thanos drying out the UFF book with space gods, maybe it was Ultimates became action based rather than character based, perhaps it was the introduction of Ultimate Clone Saga or maybe it was just the soap opera that the Ultimate X-men became… who knows, maybe it was all these thing and just simply over-kill. Whatever the factors involved, the Ultimate titles are not what they were once and this MArvel’s first big move to try to fix it and keep it Ultimately fresh!
Like I said, with all my being I applaud Marvel for the attempt. BUT (huge But here!), this plot is wearing pretty darn thin. How has the fact that this clan destine group of the Ultimate big brains, headed by Nick Fury never been mentioned before or hinted at? These characters have been interacting with each other of some time and never been brought up… did Lucas write this prequel? (we all know it will be revealed that Tony Stark created C-3P0).
What can I say, I have pretty mixed feelings about this series. It is the catalyst that will move us into Ultimatum and the new line of Ultimate titles next year, and we are getting a great fell fro Nick Fury but it’s still feels very forced.
Issue Grade: C+
