With all the hype around the Avengers movie, I got interested in checking out the source material for the series. The Ultimates by Mark Millar is an alternative universe for the Avengers. I believe this was written after the Iron Man movie, so it uses likenesses from the movie like Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

Summary of Characters

Nick Fury: Fury is in charge of SHIELD, the government organization in control of super heroes.

Iron Man: Basically the modern day start of the super hero movement.

Thor: Different from the movie in that his Norse God bullshit is unconfirmed. He’s generally regarded as a crazy dude with a hammer in this comic.

Captain America: Found in the snow just like the movie. He is the first Ultimate.

Bruce Banner/Hulk: Poor guy is affected by the Hulk problems, so he’s regulated to second smartest behind Giant Man. He is literally the most powerful hero in the universe.

Wasp - Giant Man Relationship: Wife and husband. Giant Man beats Wasp domestic abuse style. Wasp is like Uhura to me, the token minority. Her power is to turn small and shoot singers. Terrible.

Black Widow: She is part of Fury’s black ops. She wants to seduce everyone.

Hawkeye: He is basically the same character as Wesley Gibson from Millar’s Hunted. He’s a family man who was forced on the team with Fury having something over his head.

Quicksilver - Scarlet Witch: Millar uses them as a running joke for saving the Ultimates, but only if you slow down the footage. They have some weird incest thing implied.

Summary

The beginning starts with assembling the team. Fury already has Hawkeye and Black Widow. Iron Man is a “brand name” that the people already know as a super hero. The main struggle for the team is justifying the government budget it takes to pay for the daily operations of the program. Banner figures out that if he turns into the Hulk and slams havoc in Manhattan, the crisis would justify the budget. Banner even has the antidote ready to turn him off. Unfortunately, the Hulk kills over 800 people. Fortunately, for Fury, the plan works and the program is justified with the budget tripling after the crisis. They just have to keep it under wraps that Banner actually works for the Ultimates.

Giant Man beats Wasp with his fists then with his ants when she becomes a wasp. Captain America gets super pissed and fucks him up. Fury is pissed because he needs every hero he can get for this alien invasion that is deep within the human political system. Fury sends everyone and their mom to fight the aliens, but the aliens smell that shit out and seemingly destroy the assault force except for Wasp. The aliens are too late in assimilating the humans, however, as another set of aliens hunting the aliens at Earth has pushed the invaders to Earth. The aliens decide to blow up the Earth and run. Wasp helps Captain America escape while Black Widow gets Iron Man to get Thor to transport the bomb off world. Captain America fools the Hulk into killing all the aliens and the world is saved. Captain America then fucks Wasp (implied). What a home wrecker.

Bad Ass Moment

There’s a bunch, which makes me like this story. I’ll just name two. One is in the beginning when Fury and Banner are trying to recruit Thor. Fury asks Thor, “I thought you wanted to save the world?” And Thor replies, “Yes, from people like you.” OH SNAP.

The other is at the end. Iron Man gets FUCKED up and Stark says he’s not up to this hero business and that he is just not strong enough for this. Then a soldier tells Stark, “Well if not you, then who?” Stark looks at a kid looking at Stark like, “Dawg, just do dis.” Stark snaps out of it and throws down. Epic.

I Kinda Wish

I kinda wish this was the exact script used for the Avengers movie.

Rating

*****. Best. I NEVER liked the Avengers. I mean, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor vs. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash. Shit’s a no contest. Yet Millar makes this story awesome by adding politics and realism. Nick Fury is the coolest character in the story. Millar wrote Fury like how Samuel L. Jackson would act and this is why Fury owns. This story is thuglife awesome. If you read it and don’t like it, it’s because you don’t like superheroes.

Harbinger was the top selling Valiant Comic. While Image Comics back in the day was known for their collection of artists, Valiant was known for their great stories and airtight continuity. I never read any of the older Valiant titles because I hated reading comic books with shitty art. I mean, what’s the point of reading a comic book if the art sucks? I did read Ninjak, Bloodshot, and Turok. All of these books started strong and got boring as hell later. Ninjak had Joe Quesada art, which made it awesome. Back to Harbinger, the comic looked like an X-Force ripoff (I don’t mean ripoff in a bad way at all). Kids with powers fighting the adults with bigger, more practiced powers. The art is by David Lapham, whom I disliked at first, but I just got used to him. In 2008, Harbinger: The Beginning was released which is a reprint of issues 1-7 (Jim Shooter and David Lapham run). This reprint sold a shit ton as well reminding everyone that people like a good story.

Summary of Characters:

Toyo Harada: The antagonist, he wants to save the world by conquering it with Harbingers (i.e. people with awesome abilities). He has every mind skill in the magical book.

Peter Stanchek (Sting): Sting is the only other Omega-class Harbinger. He and Harada can activate powers by a mind fuck. He’s the leader.

Kris Hathaway: Basically the logic and brains, she’s really annoying as shit. But I think she’s annoying because Peter unconsciously uses his mind fuck powers to make Kris love him. There’s a hint that she’s pregnant, but I’m pretty sure it’s Torque’s.

Faith Herbert (Zephyr): Her “friends” call her Zeppelin…because she’s fat, you see. She can fly. That’s it. It really would have been dope if she became all skinny later in the series and hot. As of right now, she’s a fangirl that you see at conventions.

Charlene Dupre (Flamingo): She makes flames and is a bimbo. Torque treats her like shit telling her to get him a beer, and she does. She probably hooks up with Sting later.

John Torkelson (Torque): He’s the strong man of the team. He dies, and his last words were not Charlene but Kris’s name. Kris is pregnant. Just saying. He’s a real loser and I’m glad they killed this guy off.

Summary

The team gets together and tries to kill Harada. Too bad Harada has more experience than everyone else, so he just owns them all day. Solar has a chance to help kill Harada, but instead he just tells them to escape because he’s a big pussy. So the team goes back to get Harada, but Harada takes them all out and kills Torque.

Bad Ass Moment

Torque dies. That was so awesome. He’s lame as hell.

I Kinda Wish

I wish the writing wasn’t so robotic. For a series that carried the company on its back, the writing was really formulaic. In one sense, this is cool because you just go through the motions, but in another, the interaction between the characters is predictable. I’m not those trying-to-guess-oh-I-did-I’m-smart-this-book-sucks-now kinda guy, but this book was pretty transparent. I also wish Kris had powers that manifests later. She is boring as shit and comes off a whiner. Actually, the whole team is whiny. I actually only liked the fat chick, but that’s only because I hoped she’d get on weight watchers and get hot later in the series.

Rating

**3/4 This one’s weird folks. If you asked me if I suggest you buy it, I would probably say yes. If you then after reading it told me it was so cookie cutter and lame, I would say yup. I enjoyed it, but it was just so…lacking in umph. I would probably read the other Harbingers if they became available to me just to see what happens next, but that interest is that there is a lot of potential to make the story more surprising and exciting. However, usually when I feel that way about a story, I get disappointed. It’s like watching Signs, thinking the ending is goign to be so fucking awesome and you going through the most boring movie ever is going to be worth it, and then you find out it’s water. Fuck you, M. Night. So I would say pick it up because its a solid story, but if you don’t like it, it’s because it’s still an infant of a story.

The Authority is a Stormwatch spinoff (i.e. reboot) created by Warren Ellis. Stormwatch is a Jim Lee creation that had stupid characters from every country so every culture can have a hero to admire. Good idea in theory, but generic names like “Fiji” attached to their country is stupid. The better approach is to have cool codenames and the characters just happen to be Japanese.

The Authority consists of a combination of Stormwatch Black (there were three divisions) which did the covert operations and a bunch of other covert characters that technically belonged to Stormwatch, but Ellis added them so he could start from scratch (in the Stormwatch finale, Aliens - yes, the ones from the movies - killed most of the Stormwatch members). Here’s a summary of characters:

Stormwatch Black
Jenny Sparks: Controls electricity. Born at the start of the century.
Jack Hawksmoor: Abducted by aliens and implanted with the ability to connect (meld, feel, become) with any city. He’s kind of a white blood cell for cities.
Swift: Some bisexual Asian chick with wings and a pacifist that kills. Stupid character, really.

Henry Bendix’s Covert Team Survivors
Apollo: A Superman clone. His boyfriend is the Midnighter. He uses the power of the sun, just like Superman, but his power drains more clearly.
Midnighter: A Batman clone, except more realistic. He plans out every combat scenario before starting a fight and chooses the best course of action. Thus, his weakness clearly is surprising him.

The Changers (next generation), an old school supergroup
Engineer: Comic book nerd. Molested by one of the old Doctors. He body is a living weapon, kind of like Terminator 1000.
Doctor: There have been a zillion Doctors in the past. He’s basically an Earth historian and magician.

Summary

There were 4 volumes released.

Relentless: Established the Authority as a group that would step in and save people from any threat, in our universe or the next.
Under New Management: Jenny Sparks kills herself to kill God. Then the book establishes the team as a liberal group willing to change political landscape to protect the world.
Earth Inferno and Other Stories: More stories about politics. Really establishes the USA as a conservative entity.
Transfer of Power: US government tries to replace the Authority with their own heroes. Midnighter fucks up everyone.

Bad Ass Moment

Transfer of Power is my favorite book of the four, but Under New Management has Jenny Sparks kill God, which was kind of cool. I would say, though, the best moment in the first volume is the Midnighter surviving the USA replacement of the Authority and beating the shit out of everyone. Best part is Apollo being tortured and Midnighter saving him and Apollo saying, “I knew they couldn’t kill you” while he cries.

I Kinda Wish

I wish there was a specific villain for the Authority. X-Men have Magneto and Apocalypse. One of the attractive things about the Authority is that when they own, they own REALLY hard. But this is also a weakness because they really don’t have a villain to be scared of.

Rating

Relentless: **. Nothing really sticks out. Not terrible, but not a must have.
Under New Management: ****. Jenny Sparks is mad azz records. Jack Hawksmoor as a leader turns out to be pretty cool too.
Earth Inferno and Other Stories: **1/2. I liked the stories, but nothing really sticks for me.
Transfer of Power: ****1/2. Right now, this story arc is my favorite in all of comics. A team is so annoying, the US government busts a full on assault and then markets them kind of like every sports stadium having a company name on it. When Midnighter owns, it’s over.

Overall: ****. This run is probably the best of the whole series, but it could have benefited from an opening and closing on a villain.

Nemesis is written by Mark Millar. I’m a big fan of a lot of his stuff even if the comic book elitists think he’s simple-minded and a one-trick pony. The basic concept behind Nemesis is the angle, “What if Batman was the Joker?” Millar already had Wanted raped by film, and Kick-Ass was modified as well, so Millar claimed he was going to wait awhile until he let the Nemesis film rights out. Then Tony Scott said he wanted to direct it, and that promise went out the window.

Summary

Nemesis is in all white and owns a Japanese police chief. He then turns his attention towards Blake Morrow, the chief of Homeland Security. Nemesis always gives a card stating exactly when he will kill someone. In Morrow’s case, it is midnight, “flat line still counts.” We find that Morrow had busted Nemesis’s parents when he was a kid because they ran some human hunting thing. Nemesis gets himself captured on purpose to find the location of Morrow’s kids, one a gay son and the other a daughter who had an abortion. Nemesis invitros the daughter with the gay son’s sperm and gives her triplets. What a fucking dick. Morrow traces Nemesis down to his uncle, but it was a trap for Morrow. Nemesis tells Morrow the revenge angle was just for fun and not real. Morrow is then left with the choice of blowing up the president or his wife. The president says fuck it, runs towards Nemesis and tells Morrow to pull the detonator. This weakens Nemesis enough so that the fist fight is even. They both cap each other, Morrow to Nemesis’s head and Nemesis to Morrow’s stomach. Nemesis is dead, but Morrow flat lines at midnight exactly. Thereafter, Morrow gets a letter congratulating him for “winning” setting us the situation of a company that fulfills dreams, and that currently, the dream is for rich people to be super villains. The letter was sent 10 years ago, which I have no idea what that means. I’m guessing this company is the company that sets up all the heroes in Millar’s world: Nemesis, Superior, and Kick-Ass.

Bad Ass Moment

He beats up all the prison guards by himself.

I Kinda Wish

I’m a little disappointed with the ending. I also didn’t like that he spent a whole issue giving a backstory that was fake. I’m hoping the backstory was actually real, but for the person that set the games up.

Rating

***1/2. The first three issues are pretty good. Lots of action and hilarity. Nemesis is a real dick. Unfortunately, the series is set up like Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers where you have a suit and a different guy in it the whole time. Can’t have a consistent bad guy if the guy changes. This is more a Hollywood ending. I would have preferred to see Nemesis win and move on to Los Angeles like the story suggested.

Shepard Book was a sweet character in Firefly/Serenity. He seemed like a normal preacher, but his past had something to do with the military. Most had the impression he was an Operative because of his knowledge of the character in the movie. Dark Horse then releases The Shepherd’s Tale that released all the secrets of the Shepherd.

Summary:

The story goes backwards from death to when he was a child. We find out that he was an up and coming commander who tried to end the war in one move but ended up costing a whole bunch of lives, military and civilian. He was dishonorably discharged and left for dead. From a bowl of soup, he realized that he needed to reshape himself to help others.

Bad Ass Moment

He beats up someone in interrogation.

I Kinda Wish:

I really wish he was just more than just a commander. He should have at LEAST been a former operative head like being head of the Weapon X program. In Firefly, the Alliance saw his ID and immediately had to patch him up. Why would they do that for a disgraced commander?

Rating:

*. Terrible back story that should have remained a mystery if this was the intended back story. Serenity fans could think of more complicated and interesting back stories than this.