Ultimates (USA) di Al Ewing

[Azrael]

Ultimates 2 #4 (PREVIEW)



http://www.cbr.com/ultimates-2-4/

[Azrael]

ULTIMATES 2 #7 
AL EWING (W) • TRAVEL FOREMAN (A)
Cover by CHRISTIAN WARD
SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN!
• As Steve Rogers makes his move, the Ultimates find themselves on the wrong side of his plans.
• With an existential threat in control of Earth, Galactus might be their last hope...
• ...but the Lifebringer has problems of his own.
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

[Azrael]

Ultimates 2 #5 (PREVIEW)



http://www.newsarama.com/33613-get-weird-with-galactus-in-ultimates2-5.html

[Azrael]

Ultimates 2 #6 (PREVIEW)



http://www.cbr.com/ultimates-2-6/

[Azrael]

Ultimates 2 #7 (PREVIEW)



http://www.cbr.com/excl-preview-ultimates-2-7-goes-to-galactus-for-help/

[Azrael]

ULTIMATES 2 #100
AL EWING (W) • TRAVEL FOREMAN (A/C) VARIANT COVER by MARK BAGLEY Kirby 100th Anniversary Variant Cover by JACK KIRBY A double-sized issue celebrating ULTIMATES #100! • Eternity is free – but can even he stand against the might of the First Firmament? • Or does the embodiment of everything need help...from Outside? • Featuring the Ultimates and...the Ultimates? 40 PGS./Rated T+ ...$4.99

[Kenshiro]

Vorrei recuperare i TP di questa serie. Mi affascina l'idea che tratti dei misteri cosmici del MU, però, leggendo albi a caso giusto per farmi un'idea, noto un Foreman un pò sottotono. Per voi vale la pena un recupero, o è trascurabile?

[Daredevil]

Per me è ottima, te la consiglio. Ci sono giusto un paio di numeri sottotono (parzialmente legati a CW II).

[Azrael]

Ultimates 2 #100 (PREVIEW)



http://www.cbr.com/ultimates-2-100/

[Azrael]

Ultimates2 #100
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Travel Foreman, Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, Scott Hanna, Dan Brown, and Matt Yackey
Lettering by Joe Sabino
Published by Marvel Comics
Review by Justin Partridge
'Rama Rating: 9 out of 10

Ultimates old and new assemble on the front lines of the battle for all of reality in the finale of Ultimates2. If that sounds crazy, I assure you True Believer, it is, but Al Ewing, who has been consistently conjuring the spirit of Jonathan Hickman throughout his Ultimates run, goes for the heart while also going as big as possible. Ewing's finale contains a multiverse full of moving pieces, but the script's heart and pathos are always front and center, giving the vague celestial characters of Marvel's cosmic canon real weight and characterization to match their "heralds," the Ultimates.

Sending the "paramedics of the multiverse" into that good night are capable, talented artists like Travel Foreman and Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, Scott Hanna, backed by the prismatically searing colors of Dan Brown and Matt Yackey. This issue opens on the verge of total reality collapse and the artwork reflects that, all sketchy lines and hazy backgrounds detailing a world on the brink. But as the scope of the story expands outward into infinite dimensions, the panels take on a heavenly stillness, allowing readers to drink in the majesty of the Marvel pantheon in all their Steve Ditko-ian glory. It has been a long road for this team of impossible people doing impossible things, but The Ultimates2 #100 provides them a send-off worthy of their position in the Marvel Universe.

When we last left our team, they were facing down the Ultimate Universe's resident bad penny the Maker and an Ultimates team straight out of the pages of a Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch joint from the 2000s. Of course, Al Ewing is playing 3-D chess here with his main plot of Celestial warfare, but these scenes offer up some grounded superhero fun before the craziness gets well and truly underway. Ewing's Classic Ultimates are posturing throwbacks to a far less subtle time in superhero comic books that stand as a hilariously huge contrast to the diverse and self-assured prime Ultimates. Ewing doesn't dwell on this team up long, mainly using it as a plot device framing the larger meta story, but it is still neat to see a title so focused on the future take the time to respectfully recognize its past.

But when The Ultimates2 #100 really kicks off, stardust bleeds through the pages, making the cinematic, real-world nature of the title's origins almost seem quaint. Moving from expressive displays of superhero action to meditative and awe-inspiring vistas of dimensional space, the creative team starts to heal the fractures in the multiverse and her staff of cosmic custodial entities. It is here where they lean into the grandeur and strangeness that has permeated through the series. What started with a classic Marvel "What If?" based around Galactus has grown into a display of Marvel cosmic drama that even Jim Starlin could be proud of thanks to a few intrepid souls and a rich tapestry of characters provided by some of Marvel's 'architects.'

But while this final issue is sweeping and beautiful and the kind of supremely strange story that only comics can provide, #100 won't be for everyone. For example, while Ewing's script is poetic and given a real portentous energy thanks to some overtime from letterer Joe Sabino, readers who have skipped a few issues will find themselves lost in the details of the payoffs at play in this final installment. The broad strokes are neat enough, but as they say, the devil is in the details. The argument could also be made that for an Ultimates book, the actual team was often sidelined in favor of the kind of grand cosmic schemes that the title brings to an end here today.

But what are such trifles to gods? Though not perfect, The Ultimates2 still dared to do more than be just a superhero story and its finale issue reflects that in a potently entertaining way. Pulling inspiration from the farthest reaches of Marvel space and from the greats of multilayered storytelling, Al Ewing, Travel Foreman, Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, Scott Hanna, Dan Brown, and Matt Yackey do right by their team of impossibles and put away the cosmic toys of this series for another time, another team, and another war in the heavens. Comic books are a long way from "This A on my head doesn't stand for France!" and The Ultimates2 #100 proves that with cosmically grand style.

[Azrael]

My favorite Marvel series ended this week. Seems like not that long ago I was saying the same thing. They're all dropping like mayflies. How to describe Ultimates #100? It's the perfect melding of everything Ewing has been doing on the title. Since the beginning, the series has been one of the funnest, most out there cosmic comics available. Where else would superheroes be taken out of time and shown the structure of the universe? The fights weren't fisticuffs, it was ideas waging war as the paramedics of the universe did triage. It was brilliant and big and full of itself and amazing. And now it's over. The Ultimates head home (well, most of them anyway) and the fate of Galactus the life bringer is a joy. Hopefully the end of this series just means Ewing will continue these themes with another fantastic book. Speaking of the King's works, there's dozens of references to him -- this issue serving as a kind of love-letter to Kirby. It even features, after a fashion, Kirby himself as the narrator (in his One Above All guise). It's a joyous explosion of sight and sound and ideas and I'll miss the hell out of it. -Tara

8.6/10

[Azrael]

Ultimates2 #100
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Travel Foreman, Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, Scott Hanna, Dan Brown and Matt Yackey
Lettered by Joe Sabino
Published by Marvel Comics
Review by Matthew Sibley
'Rama Rating: 9 out of 10

Time has not been kind to the characterization of the original Ultimates created by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch in the early days of the Ultimate Universe. By taking Captain America and his sense of patriotism and twisting into a fanatical sense of nationalism, he initially came across as more of a caricature than an actual character, one exemplified by their worst tendencies and that feeling has only become stronger as the years have passed. On the other hand, Al Ewing's Ultimates has involved a more diverse (and less widely-known) set of characters and made them paramedics to the multiverse, with Ewing doing all he can to not only demonstrate their best qualities, but that of the Marvel Universe as well, resulting in a bold and sweeping story that's felt humanist throughout.

When I wrote about the first issue of Ultimates2 last November, I noted that this relaunching of the series was part of Marvel's seasonal model. Unfortunately, that rebrand did not allow the series to reach a greater audience, but those who stuck around have been treated to a story of epic proportions and in this final issue it all comes to a head. It involves Galactus the Lifebringer; the High Evolutionary; the original, now antagonistic Ultimate U Ultimates; and the Maker, everything that is and all that ever was. Ewing's script looks to provide a conclusion to the cosmic tale he's been telling for 20-plus issues, one that involves many threads and he gets to these systematically, first dealing with a good old-fashioned brawl between the Ultimates of old and new. The way that Ewing goes about ending the series is a treat, but to pick an individual moment, there's something immensely satisfying to seeing America Chavez offer both a retort and counterpunch to Ultimate Captain America's now infamous "You think this letter on my head stands for France?"

Of course, Ewing knows that a brawl doesn't aspire to the level of creativeness he's operated at prior and as the issue moves along, the plot starts to involve more and more of the multiverse, his script calculatingly zooming further and further out. To help him accomplish this, a number of artists come along for the ride including series regular Travel Foreman, but also Filipe Andrade, Marco Lorenzana, and Scott Hanna. It's hard to determine exactly where each artist's contribution begins and ends; Foreman and Andrade (the latter of whom I became aware of through Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel) both have similar styles that sketch out the broad strokes of the scene, skimp on some of the details others may include, but still succeed in packing a punch. Dan Brown provides colors with assistance from Matt Yackey allowing for some consistency between artists meaning the issue can keep pushing along without sacrificing any of the pace already built. Special mention should be given to Joe Sabino who makes white lettering work on white space in addition to packing dialogue into layouts which could have proved unwieldy with a lesser talent involved.

For as big a story as this became, Ewing and all involved let it coalesce into a single, humanistic point feels both quiet and epic thanks to all that came before. Ewing's a writer that works on many titles at once and this is him at his best. The way he deftly navigates telling new tales of his own, while also serving as expansions to threads left behind by other writers demonstrates how well he works within an established universe and as evidence that he deserves to be a bigger name.

Back at the start of the decade, Marvel named a group of writers that they deemed 'Architects,' and this group included Jonathan Hickman, the man who eventually destroyed and rebuilt the Marvel Universe. Thanks to this book's scale of cosmic proportions that kept character at its core, calling Al Ewing his successor feels justified. Ultimates2 may have gotten lost amidst a plethora of other titles that launched around the same time, but it will be remembered as the place where Ewing and company were given a sandbox to play around, and chose to use this space to help build a better universe.