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.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2011 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Be a Man Like N. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.