That same Kate Beckinsale head has been on 3 out of 4 covers. Reed’s hands are clearly not attached to those arms. Let that boy cook. Matt Ryan is out as inker, presumably quitting in disgust, replaced by Jay Leisten. And, of course, our old friend J. Michael Strackzynski is here to shove us through the middle 3rd of terrible art: the series.
THE SAME HEAD! I love how Mr. Tracer gets the web pattern backwards on Spidey’s head in the one thing presumably not copied on this page.
He did it again! And also used his copy of the Charest head again. I hate this man so much. I am interested to note the Mark Bagley Spider-Man hand webbing at the bottom. Bags is the only person I can think of who consistently has the web lines terminate in the middle of the finger like that. I noticed it because it’s such a baffling choice. Not sure that’s a Bags copy, tho. Whatever, I am barely reading these comics, the “art” is a total distraction. Not that I’m missing much. These first 2 pages are filler.
Ok, first THREE pages, my goodness! Get ON with it! Spider-Man spends an entire page getting out his idea to have Thor use his hammer to track Reed’s energy trail. Then there’s a page of everyone (Literally everyone) saying Spider-Man is right, and then Nick saying they’ll still need the helicarrier, so he was actually right. WHAT IS THIS? I get the feeling this is JMS doing a Bendis impression, and it is very unflattering. Then there’s a splash page of Thor flying with the helicarrier. There’s been, like, 3 panels’ worth of story in the first 8 pages of this comic.
What even is that 2nd panel? This comic is a waste of money. I mean, not mine, but whoever was foolish enough to buy it back in the day. In a 2-page splash, Thor opens the portal, then a 1-page splash shows him and the carrier flying through it. I am truly amazed by how little you’re getting for your money in this comic. It reads like they decided on the gimmick of 3 writers writing 3 issues each and then JMS couldn’t think of enough stuff for his. JMS now finally gets to the characters he created, who being speculating that the Ultimate heroes could follow them over the previous splash.
Is that guy a bad guy? Like all he’s doing is delaying the possibility of a solution. Back on the helicarrier, everyone’s looking for Fury and can’t find him. Kitty Pryde randomly walking down a hallway says she saw where he went, and goes to get him.
Just embarrassing. I can’t help it. Look how DIFFERENT “Kitty’s” face is from panel to panel. Wildly different women being traced. This is followed by several pages of Power Princess, the fake Wonder Woman, really evil villain-ing it up at Hyperion, trying to convince him to enslave what’s left of the world so they can rule it together. I really don’t remember Supreme Power, and I bailed on it after awhile, maybe she turned bad or was always like this, I don’t know. I don’t care. It wasn’t a good series. This ends with a whole page devoted to Hyperion announcing he’s sensed the Ultimates’ approach. Gettin’ yer money’s worth.
Well, that was a bunch of nothing. “I was thinking, what if we published comics that somehow had neither character development nor plot development in them?” “What would that look like?” “Just a bunch of traced guys flexing, I think.” “Eh, why not?” Maybe something will happen next issue. I doubt it!