Review by Frank Plowright

While Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men were quality superhero series, The Ultimates was a gamechanger for superhero comics, undoubtedly influencing the Marvel movies that began a few years later. It introduced a widescreen world, brilliantly realised by Bryan Hitch, and a redefinition of superheroes under government control. Four years after setting the delayed second series to bed, Mark Millar returned to the world he’d set-up, establishing the Avengers as a black-ops spin-off from the Ultimates, and using only Captain America, Hawkeye and Nick Fury from that series. In Captain America’s case it’s both times as a target, once going rogue and once transformed into a vampire. So, does this match The Ultimates?

The short answer is that the collection of four stories each occupying six chapters doesn’t, but that’s not the entire story. Whereas before there was a bigger agenda, this is Millar given carte blanche and having fun just before his career went stellar with his own projects. There’s a sardonic tone to three of the four stories, best picked up on when Steve Dillon draws the Avengers facing vampires. Here, Millar’s tongue is often in his cheek, creating ‘the original’ Hulk, building characters up only to have them slaughtered, and co-opting the Punisher and having him quote Hamlet as he batters Ghost Rider on Leinil Francis Yu’s sample art.

It can be grim and gruesome, but the humour darkens accordingly, and only entirely disappears for the final story, which is a return to more conventional superheroics as the Avengers and the Ultimates are manipulated into thinking the other team has gone rogue. It’s the best of the run. However, the humour is secondary, and this is a package of four really good superhero thrillers.

All exemplify Millar’s mastery of the form, although he takes time to ease back in as the first outing is the weakest. There’s a template applied to three of them, which open by establishing a character new to the Avengers and what they can do, take a turn around the team, feature an inconclusive opening skirmish and then build at rocket pace to a phenomenal finale over the final three chapters. Carlos Pacheco is the other artist involved, and while he and Yu put in considerably more effort than Dillon, different stories require different approaches, and the art fits the purpose throughout.

There’s the occasional glitch, such as the Wasp used for a single great moment, then never seen again, an incredibly creepy Spider-Man also disappearing, or a leap of disbelief required to propel events of the opening story. Balanced against the sheer thrills on offer, though, that’s no problem.

For more information about individual story arcs there are reviews of the four paperback collections, starting with Ultimate Avengers: The Next Generation.