Ultimate Comics: Avengers 2 #2

Marvel Comics
Ultimate Comics: Avengers 2 #2
By Zak Edwards
May 26, 2010 - 21:20

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Mark Millar
Penciller(s): Leinel Francis Yu
Inker(s): Gerry Alanguilan
Colourist(s): Laura Martin
Letterer(s): Cory Petit
Cover Artist(s): Yu & Martin
$3.99 US

The major thing lacking in this new incarnation of Millar’s Ultimates is the cynicism, the grand narrative of a nation’s reaction to trauma through the scope of superheroics found in much of Millar’s work in comics since the early 2000’s. Now, replacing this cynicism and political and social commentary (I remember reading somewhere Millar’s dream project is a graphic novel reinterpretation of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital,” in which Millar would take on contemporary education systems) is a full black-ops team replacing the media sensationalism of the original Ultimates. And yes, they are parodies of parodies Millar originally created and even flirted with in past works like Civil War, especially concerning The Punisher as Captain America, but the stories are lacking any depth or intelligence I was hoping would be reintegrated into Millar’s second (fourth?) attempt at the series.

Basically, the second season of UC: Avengers has been two issues of grandiose and action packed recruitment issues, both of which are filled with splash pages and feel like they were written in about as long as it takes to read them, which is no more than a few minutes. I can understand a cinematic and blockbuster approach to the pacing and panelling, but this is simply the process of decompression, or using many, big, or slow-moving panels to expand the time in which a moment takes place in the spacial interpretation of time a comic book is read through, taken to an extreme. Like the last issue, multiple pages are wasted on giant shots, sucking up page counts in favour of flashy art and a lacking story. Multiple examples are present in this issue, including a shot of Ghost Rider appearing in a two-page splash panel at the end, or the multiple one page splashes of new recruit , Leonard Williams, the original Hulk of sorts who keeps his intelligence and loses his morality, becoming a crime lord. The character is interesting in some capacity, a person who uses his powers to make money through taking over crime syndicates but has a family who thinks he’s dead, and part of the issue is used to develop a background, but mostly the story is lacking. These two recruitment stories feel as if they could be explained in an info-dump by Nick Fury in a single page, if not panel, but are expanded in order to create some flashy action sequences. In short, the series seems to have lost its maturity and is now no more than the average book. A severe disappointment for me, a long-time fan of the series.

Leinil Yu, because of the ample space he is given, continues to deliver a book which meets the expectations for such a high profile artist. His rougher pencil work is in tune with the gritty elements of the story and is a joy to look at. Even in the more ridiculous moments, like when Leonard jumps in the air and brings a small aircraft to smash onto War Machine, are just plain cool in Yu’s hands. Yu also can distinguish between the overly muscled bodies of characters like Williams and the smaller bodies of people like Bruce Banner without seeming too atrophied. Muscle-bound characters are a staple in this genre, the physically smaller often come across as exaggerated equally the other way, which is simply not the case with Yu.

Grade: C+ Another flat and disappointing issue, at least the art is good.