Pick of the Week

August 10, 2005 – The Ultimates 2 Annual #1

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

2
Pulls
Avg Rating: 4.0
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 0.0%
 
Users who pulled this comic:


Size: pages
Price:

Story by Mark Millar
Art by Steve Dillon
Colors by Paul Mounts
Letters by Chris Eliopoulos

Published by Marvel Comics | $3.99

I’ll be honest with you here, there were some okay books, nothing too amazing or anything that knocked my socks off. The House of M stuff over at Marvel is progressing and the whole JLA crisis is building, but nothing earth shattering caught my eye, not even anything quirky and indie.

I picked up The Ultimates 2 Annual #1 on a whim, mainly because it made me remember back almost 15+ years ago when Annuals were a yearly event in the summer you could count on. “Atlantis Attacks”, “The Evolutionary War” and other crossovers were great reading because the concept of a crossover hadn’t been beaten to death to yet. They were fun. I don’t think this Annual is a crossover, rather a one-shot, but that’s ok cause it was pretty damn fun to read.

Of course Millar and his grand plan for The Ultimates continues is a big fashion, focusing on Nick Fury and his expansion of the Super-Solider program. But the real reason why this book rocked was the little detail I didn’t notice when I bought it. STEVE DILLON! That’s right, the artist from Preacher and Garth Ennis’s early run on The Punisher. Dillon is a personal favorite of mine, mainly for his art and style, but also for his con appearances in the couple of years we went to San Diego. Talk about personality — Dillon oozes it as he does headshot sketch after headshot sketch with a bic pen. Genius.

Millar has taken The Ultimates in a direction that is the most divergent from the standard Marvel Universe than the other Ultimate books. Sure they’re all divergent to a certain degree, but at their heart, they are very comparable to their Marvel Universe counterparts. But The Ultimates seems to be progressing way further and creating much more of an independent spirit than the other books. Sure, they have Captain America and Iron Man, etc but Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. are the characters/stories that are source of the title’s uniqueness. I’m curious to see what becomes of it once Millar moves on. Time will tell.

But for now, this book really is the most comparable to a big budget summer movie, and like those movies, it pays off for a good bit of entertainment.

Ron Richards
Someone get him a drink.
ron@ifanboy.com

Did you read The Ultimates 2 Annual #1? Add a comment and tell everyone what you think about this week’s comics!

Comments

  1. I’m totally buying this later today.

    Your mentioning Atlantis Attacks made me think of MARS ATTACKS IMAGE. Remember that? I used to worship Erik Larsen.

  2. I still really like Larsen alot

    I do remember Mars Attacks Image – that had long term implications in Savage Dragon…

  3. I bought this solely because I saw Dillon was the artist.

  4. Did you like it?

  5. I am normally not a big fan of the Ultimates book, but i really dug this issue. It was cool that it focused on the “reserves” of the Ultimates.

    Best read of the week for me was Gravity #3. I love that book.

  6. Imagine if Dillon pencilled this regularly…

    I’ll check out Gravity.

    I finally started reading Girls #1 through #3, same guys who did Ultra. weird, but I dig it

Leave a Comment