End of an Era

The Ultimate brand is and was amazing. If not for the Ultimate brand comics and entertainment would not be where it is today.

It was years since I bought a comic book. I still loved good art but just didn't care about comic books any more. Not after all the Image failures and 50 variant covers, which we all bought. I didn't even read the books.

But time passes and we all grow older, and I still had friends in the biz and others that still would buy comic books. Fortunately I began to make good money and had tons to spare. A few close friends would tell me, "have you read any comics lately?" or "Have you seen what they're doing in the books?" To be honest I could care less. But after months of pestering and then my dear friend Ethan, lent me the Ultimates first trade. I didn't even know what a trade was. I didn't realize that they where telling stories that spanned 5 or 6 issues and where complete stories.

I read Ultimates and was very surprised. It was good. The art was great. And for the first time I actually read the book all the way through and like the story. I was on my way to a week-end trip to visit my aunt in San Diego for some reason. On the way I decided to stop at a comic book store. I picked up Rising Stars first trade and the frist 3 trades of Ultimate Spider-man. I was hooked. By the time I got back from our trip, I was back in the comic book frame of mind.

My girlfriend found a great store that had just opened down the street from her office and she was picking up comics every Wednesday. She told me that this store was actually really cool and the owner took the time to help her out. That store was Earth 2, still the greatest comic book store around, and she said I had to visit them. Thinking that sure, they were nice because you're a hot girl in a store full of geeks, but they won't be nice to me. But I went. To make a long story short, I walked out of there with two short boxes and a $500 tab! Since then, I've been a weekly reader.

The many different Ultimate titles have had their good and their bad, but if not for them I and many others wouldn't have gotten in or back into comics. The new breed of writers and stellar art pushed the medium forward and layed the foundation for all the movies that you're seeing today.

I don't know what the Ultimate brand will look like but I am sad to see it shrink. But like all things, it has served its purpuse. I will miss these books but look forward to the next generation.

Black Panther #1-3

I know this is the cover for #4 but I like it better then the first 3, so deal with it. I'm really enjoying the Black Panther these days. He's been a cool character for a while but it seems that if there isn't a clear direction, writers have a hard time coming up with how to use the Panther and the Wakanda backdrop.

At first, I thought the whole Storm marriage was just a stunt. I guess I watch too many VH1 "I love disease harvester ______" shows. I thought taking Storm away from the Xmen would hurt both sides but it hasn't. It's given Storm power and let her grow at the same time, she gets grounded when she interacts with he old teammates. I find a lot of the stories in Panther to be about acceptance. Not white on back or mutant on human but black on black and royalty on normal or outsider acceptance.

Again, I think issue #3 suffers from what Dark Avengers #3 suffers from which is they need 6 issues now to fill a trade so this one seems like you could have put half of this in 2 and the other in 4 and would have been fine. Wakanda could be like the world of BSG in that it's basically the same as ours but has grown just slightly different and has been on that path for many years. We see a full society that doesn't need shaping, it's complete, we need to shape ourselves around it because Wakanda is not going to change.

I'm liking the book, but really must add that the Black Panther : Secret Invasion crossover was really great. Those few books are well worth reading and shows just how bad ass the Panther world is.

Dark Avengers #3

This will be short but sweet. I have loved all the Bendis Avengers stuff for the past year. I felt the Secret Invasion tie-ins where even better than the actual Secret Invasion book. Although I like Dark Avengers and the twist it puts on, well everything, I'm not a magic fan. I love the Osborn / Sentry stuff in the beginning and now Doom has got his shit together #4 should be great.

It's a good book. Worth reading and paying the price, which seems to go up every week. You can't expect every issue of a six issue arc to all be home runs (BTW, baseball season starts today). If I had waited and read this all as a trade or set, I'd have liked the book more. I'm ready for the next chapter. This is one of the main reasons to switch to TPB or HC's. But there are some stories I just have to get each month. Sometimes I have the will power to Save them up. Like my Green Lanterns and GL Corps. I've got the past year saved in anticipation of Darkest Night (?). Very excited.

Back to Dark Avengers. Read it. Enjoy. Fucked up characters doing fucked up things for a fucked up leader who is really just fucked up, under the guise of the most honored group ever? How can you go wrong?

P.S. I didn't like the cover. It's only the third issue, can we at least get a good cover of someone on the team? I'm really not too familiar with the villain in the first place. But I am a fan of boobs which you get a good look at here.