It's been said that every writer has at least one great story within them, just waiting to burst out of it's host. I'm of the opinion that Mark Millar has had several of those over the past 10 years, one that I loved so much, and gave such a glowing review of (Marvel Knights Spider-Man) that Mr. Millar was kind enough to email me and thank me personally for my knob-slobbery. Other examples of my Millar faves are the first two volumes of The Ultimates. Having never really been a fan of The 616 Avengers, I found Millar's take on the concept to be a pretty fun romp. Those two volumes were, in my opinion, just waiting to burst forth from Mark Millar and I believe they read as such. None of his attempts thereafter even come close, this miniseries included.

I found this story to be simply OK. I never really felt anything as I slogged my way through this series, until one moment towards the end, which we will get to in just a second. It all felt very "been there, done that". A beloved character has betrayed us! No wait, a different beloved character betrayed us! No, no! It's a character that we never really heard of until recently who betrayed us. Whew!

The retreading of ideas isn't the only thing I found bothersome. I think an even greater mistake was made here, and that's the fact that now anyone can have superpowers anytime in the Ultimate Marvel Universe. If they want to, any character can become an invincible, Incredible Hulk version of himself with an injection. Anyone can have Spider-Man's spider powers or grow someone who does. How long until we see a Giant Man version of Thor, or Punisher or Aunt May stomping around Manhattan, wrecking shop? If anyone can assume these traits, everyone becomes interchangeable and the original characters become less special. Instead of Hawkeye having to use his special umm...Hawk-eyeing abilities to take down a threat, he Hawkeye Smashes his way through it. It feels cheap and a bit lazy. I realize that these things happen, Spidey was cloned already, so on and so forth, but this miniseries took it to a whoooole new level in a way that annoyed me.

The story bit that I loved and have actually decided was Awesome Of The Week, was the bit where Tony uses his EMP to shut down his brother Gregory Stark's tech, leaving him vulnerable to attack. So how is he taken down? Thor hits this newly unarmed man with a BOLT OF MOTHERLOVIN' LIGHTING, deliciously crisping him to death, and jauntily cries "Got him!" Tony's priceless reaction being "Thor, what the HELL? I meant KNOCK HIM OUT." That actually made me laugh out loud while reading. Was it worth the 6 issues times $3.99 for that one glorious scene? No, not really. But dag-nabbit if it wasn't funny as all get-out. It was definitely my favorite scene of this week.

Yu's work here is his usual solid penciling, but boyoboy am I uninterested in Sunny Gho's coloring style. More often than not, the colors are separated into "layers" and appear to be hit with a 1pt stroke of a darker version of that color. It reads like those cheesy old Paint By Numbers sets I used to love as a child. I find it disarming visually and a bit dark.

Overall, I could have done without this mini-series, ESPECIALLY since it had little to do with the Death of Ultimate Spider-Man, despite the banner draped across the top of every issue.