Welcome back to the Ultimate Universe. This should be a happy time, an escape from the nonsense happening over the real world, but alas, we’re here for a short block featuring the worst thing ever to come out of this comic line. Before we get to that, though, we have this. With Ultimate Origins, Bendis is joined by Butch Guice and Justin Ponsor as he seeks to give the line a definitive history, and pay off his early “It’s all connected” thing, first expressed by Bruce Banner in UMTU 3. For those who don’t remember that, since it happened 8 years prior, we begin with it:
Yeah, 8 years, 6 months, same thing. How long’s it been on the blog? Not quite 2 years. Butch Guice. RIP, recently, at the time of this writing. He went by “Jackson” in his early career, then Butch. Kind of ahead of the curve. He always trafficked in the kind of grounded, shadow heavy, realistic style that became so big in the 2000s, going back to the late 80s. But his is a somewhat more “comic booky” version, for lack of a better word, also, such that, when the realism thing happened, his stuff felt a bit old fashioned in comparison to your Alex Maleevs and Steve Eptings and such. Still, an excellent draftsman, which makes the fact that he doesn’t really fit the Ultimate line a shame. I mean, to me, anyway. Ultimate to me, really = Bagley, but the other first artist was Adam Kubert’s cartoony, kinetic work. Ultimate always felt very 21st Century, very bright, to me. Even the more realistic guys, Bryan Hitch, Dave Finch, they still had that 2000s sheen to them. Stuart Immonen fit the vibe perfectly, as did his successor on Ultimate FF, Pascal Ferry. Butch Guice? Not so much. That’s just my opinion, but this is my blog. The greatest artist of all time still isn’t the right artist for EVERYthing, you now? Jack Kirby couldn’t draw Spider-Man. Not being right for the Ultimate Universe certainly doesn’t make an artist bad. But I think there’s a correct feel, and this simply isn’t it. Bendis spends 2 more pages playing out that moment from UMTU 3, then abruptly shifts to the Battle of the Tenaru, August, 1942.
Ouch.
In the Marvel U, any Marvel U, it always comes back to the quest for the super soldier. A year later, in Sicily, Allied troops Fury, Howlett, and Fisk are rooting through valuables in a destroyed home when they get caught. Caught, shackled, and shipped somewhere mysterious.
Well, after a few minutes, Nick becomes super strong and enraged, with glowing orange eyes, smashing out of the chair and smashing a whole lot more, eventually escaping, only to find himself in New York. We’re told he freed all the other prisoners, too, but they have what they need after their success with him. Meanwhile, in Canada…
Real Weapon X activity. Logan escapes, but is brought down in a hail of bullets, only for his wounds to heal up, to the astonishment of the guards who assumed they killed him.
Well, there you have it. In a rather baffling choice, Ultimate mutants were created in a lab, in Canada of all places, and Wolverine is the first one. How special for him. What other crazy secrets will we learn in the remaining 4 issues? At least Spider-Man was in this. Sure, only in flashback and only on 3 pages, but still!