Ultimate!

[jjreason]

But Daredevil/Bullseye is still stalled at issue 1 after what, 4 years? That's gotta be a record.

[anarky]

Last year at Comic-Con, he said he wasn't ready to come back to Spidey/Black Cat. Given the lead time to get those books in stores, he must've changed his mind quickly.

[jjreason]

It was an excellent comic - great art by Rachel and Terry Dodson. I'm sure when it means big money, Marvel can get the books from drawing room to store shelves lickity goddamn split.

[Diabolical]

I think Joe Quesadilla finally told Kevin to either finish it or I'll have someone else finish it for you and Kevin jumped.

[jjreason]

He should have tossed in a threat about Bendis/Maleev finishing off that DD book at the same time - but he couldn't wait the extra 30 seconds to get to Denny's.

[Newsbot]

Marvel is pleased to unveil the special variant covers to Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1, Ultimate Comics Avengers #1 and Ultimate Comics Armor Wars #1 utilizing the brand-new Foilogram cover treatment! Part foil, part hologram, these reflective covers will jump at you from shelves! Watch as Spider-Man's webbing catches the light! Examine the intricate technology of Tony Stark! And, yes, that's Captain America's shield shining back at you!

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"This is Marvel doing the nineties right," explained David Gabriel, Marvel Comics Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation. "We're taking two of the most popular cover treatments of all time--foil and holograms--to create an all new kind of cover, as a 'thank-you' to fans who've been demanding this kind of variant! Retailers and fans don't need to worry. We're only doing this on a limited basis. You won't see one on Ms Marvel #46 or Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #4. We're using them to mark very special occasions...such as the launch of Ultimate Comics line."

As the Ultimate Comics line launches with Marvel's top characters and top creators, you can't miss the star-studded Ultimate Comics Avengers #1, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1 and Ultimate Comics Armor Wars #1, now with Foilogram Variant Covers! Fans, speak to your retailers now about how to secure one of these variant covers!

Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada announced the next Foilogram cover--which is different from the holofoil covers of the 90s in that the words are combined differently--would be on all forty X-Men relaunches this fall, to welcome back returning writers Rob Liefeld, Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, and that guy with the helmet who asks strangers to change his diaper. "It'll be great," he said. "Too bad I'll be over at DC working on Batman: RIP Knightquest: The Neverending Cataclysm. But look for my new work on Ninjak and Ash to be published by the reborn Now/Valiant/Ultraverse company Jim Shooter is starting up."

[vynsane]

Fans, speak to your retailers now about how to secure one of these variant covers!

i bet it has something to do with going to a retail establishment that specializes in comics, picking the book off of shelves (usually either hanging off a wall, or possibly on a table), bringing it to a central area where employees stand called a 'counter', and exchanging paper currency that is denoted with a monetary value, possibly receiving a portion back that is above the perceived value of the book as noted on the cover and/or back cover, in a convention know as 'change'. quite a few steps to secure something that we can usually just buy at a store...

[anarky]

C'mon, vyn, they're variants, and this is Marvel. Aside from the rare shop owner who's very generous with his friends or regular customers (to keep them as regular customers), there won't be a single one of these selling to an end collector for less than $50.

[Diabolical]

My LCS throws every incentive variant on ebay.
No big deal to me, I just want the story. If this were the 90's It'd piss me off though.

[anarky]

I noticed at CBR's forums, people are wondering why Marvel would do this, and lambasting them for repeating the mistakes of the 1990s, and a certain other site fellow had to jump in and offer his two cents to defend Marvel based on totally faulty facts. I think if Joe Quesada killed his mother and father in front of him, he'd praise how well Joe Q aimed the gun.

[vynsane]

C'mon, vyn, they're variants, and this is Marvel. Aside from the rare shop owner who's very generous with his friends or regular customers (to keep them as regular customers), there won't be a single one of these selling to an end collector for less than $50.

i guess, tho they didn't reveal how much of a ratio these covers would be to the regular edition, if there's a disparity at all. we'll have to wait and see.

[vynsane]

Wow, 2007 was the last time we cared enough to talk about the Ultimate universe, eh?

So, All-New Ultimate Comics Spider-man... or is it Ultimate Comics All-New Spider-man? I can't tell, the cover branding is a bit disjunctive.

Regardless, finally, more than a decade later, the Ultimate universe takes its first tentative steps into what it should have been from the beginning. The core concepts of a certain character placed on an entirely different personality. Most coverage of the new Spider-man only focused on the fact that he's half black, half latino, but that's not nearly as relevant as the fact that it's NOT PETER PARKER! Sure, we've had a different person behind the mask once before, after the "clone debacle" in the long-standing Spider-man titles of the Marvel Universe proper, but that entire process was mired by editorial mistakes and backpedaling.

While i found Ultimates to be highly entertaining, it was only because i wasn't already an avid Avengers reader and the writing was snappy. Ultimate X-Men never appealed to me because the X-Men in general were never very high on list of favorites. I've read the occasional X-Men story arc before, but never collected it on a regular basis. Spider-man has always been my favorite Marvel character and one of my all-time favorites of any comic ever produced (I tend to lump my favorites together without ranking them, I don't know why, but I don't have one absolute favorite). That said, even though I received the first Ultimate Spider-man hardcover one Christmas and enjoyed it, I found myself disinterested. It just seemed like a 'greatest hits' album of all Spider-man's past exploits, only this time it's been digitally remastered. They also seemingly used 'Find & Replace' to change all instances of 'Atomic' to 'Genetic'. Both of these gripes hold true basically across the board (except in X-Men, where it's always been about genetics). There was little truly 'new' amidst the rehashes and what was new wasn't enough to compel me to continue reading the series. That's not for lack of giving it the old college try, I collected USM in earnest no less than three times, each time for about 10 issues or so before saying "It's just not worth the money I could be spending on other comics". I think this was a problem of coming up with the Ultimate concept from a marketing perspective - the direction those responsible took was to get old comic readers to read a new comic, when they should have aimed to get new comic readers to read ANY comic book!

Now, with the introduction of Miles Morales as the All-New Ultimate Spider-man, the slate can be wiped clean and new, interesting situations and stories can be told without being mired in decades of continuity - both from the Marvel Universe proper ("616") and the Ultimate Universe. A new character, with new supporting characters and, hopefully, new villains! I don't expect this new direction to completely ignore what came before, obviously, and Miles' origin, as we find in Ultimate Comics All-New Spider-man #1, is tied inexorably into the mythos of the original Ultimate Spider-man, and rightly so. Had USM begun with Miles Morales, or any other alter ego for that matter, the origin might have taken a completely different direction. That said, after reading the first issue, I sense this title could end up still under the yoke of past continuity. The opening pages feature a flash-back with Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, talking to a subordinate about Spider-man... not the new one, mind you, but the old one.

*sigh*

I thought we were going to get something NEW, not yet another rehash... but I read on, confident that it was a bridge between the old and the new. There was one more appearance by a character who was not introduced for new readers whom I know to be The Prowler - but only from my past as an avid Spider-man fan. This unintroduced character ransacks Osborn's facility in the present day and an unexpected stow-away (a spider) takes a ride in his bag.

After these two continuity tethers, we're introduced to Miles and his parents, as they head towards a charter school lottery drawing where Miles is the last name drawn. Later, Miles visits his uncle, his father's brother, who we find out is the identity behind The Prowler when the spider bites Miles, causing him to lose consciousness. When Miles comes to, his uncle informs him that he called Miles' father. The two brothers argue only to discover that Miles has left the apartment in the fray. Miles' father leaves the building to look for him, not noticing that his son is right next to the stoop because Miles is partially invisible.

The End.

I summed up the first issue in two paragraphs and one sentence. I appreciate the desire to tell the story slowly, but I was really expecting to see Miles in the new black and red Spider-man uniform featured on the cover. As it is, it's a VERY slow start. I'm sure a lot more would be apparent if I had knowledge of the previous events in Ultimate Spider-man and Ultimate Fallout. As the quintessential "new reader" here, I feel lost and a little disappointed. I'll be tuning in next time to see where this goes, but I hope it doesn't take the same "slightly different than the established norm" path that has to some extend, in my opinion, plagued the Ultimate line since its inception.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'm slowly building my Ultiverse library digging through the quarter bins. After Loeb shit on everything with Ultimatum, and Millar was the guiding force post-Ultimatum there was nothing about it that excited me. But now that they've revamped/relaunched it yet again with a tighter universe in the capable hands of Johnathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, and Bendis it looks like it might be better than ever. Of course, I'm not buying any of their $3.99 books, but I will be looking forward to finding them down the road than I was the first two iterations of the universe.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'm still not reading any of the Ultimate books, but the idea they've turned Reed Richards into the biggest villain of all time is brilliant.

You know what's strange? When I'm looking for the second Ult Spidey series (that eventually reverted to the original numbering with 18/150) I can find the odd numbered issues in the cheap boxes no problem, but never see the even numbered issues I need. It's weird.

[anarky]

Is it me, or is it a bit odd that they introduce a new Ultimate Spider-Man who's a black kid... and he wears a black version of the old Spidey costume?