It's been a little bit since I checked in in the Ultimate Universe. Before I got too far ahead of myself I thought I'd check in again. If you missed the first installment, you can find it here.
What did I read?
Ultimate X-men #1/2, 7-14
The Ultimates #1-3
Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #10-13
Ultimate Spider-man #14-21
What did I skip?
Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9, #14
I do have Team-Up #9, but it's a silly non-canon story where Spider-man visits the Fantastic Four (who don't exist yet) and fights off some Skrulls (who are called Chitauri on this universe and haven't shown up yet), so I skipped it this time.
What happened?
Spider-man faces off against Doctor Octopus, while reality TV star Kraven the Hunter decides to hunt Spider-man for his show. After a couple failed run-ins work Doc Ock, he ends up defeating both him and Kraven on live TV, finally winning over some of the general public.
Also, the X-men get abducted by the evil Weapon X program, and are forced to work for them, until Wolverine teams up with Nick Fury to rescue them.
In other corners of the universe, Nick Fury has begun to recruit members for his Ultimates team, including a recently thawed out World War II hero Captain America.
There's also a random two issue Gambit story in Ultimate X-men written by Chuck Austen. He doesn't join the team or anything and just hangs out in his own corner by himself. If he does show up again in the Ultimate Universe again it's in a book I haven't read yet, and if not, it's a really weird use of a character.
What did I think?
Ultimate Spider-man continues to be the strongest title in the line, but that's to be expected as it's written by Brian Michael Bendis. It is much more character driven than either of Mark Miller's books. The Ultimate X-men are still fairly unlikable, but the Ultimates aren't as bad as I was afraid they'd be. At least not yet.
Ultimate Marvel Team-Up took a turn for these issues. Where the first three story arc's featured fairly well known artists like Matt Wagner, Phil Hester and Mike Allred, these stories had art by a bit of obscure indie artists like Ted McKeever and Terry Moore.
One thing I'm noticing in this current read through is that there are quite a few early references to Reed Richards, The Baxter Building and Doom in these stories, implying that they're all known entities even this early. This can't be the case as we don't get to the Ultimate Fantastic Four for a while yet, although in this universe Doom is named Van Damme, and the Baxter Building is a thing before the Fantastic Four ever move in there. Also, that book was launched by these same two writers, so maybe they to salvage it more than I remember. Or maybe it's just a continuity error. That happens sometimes too.
Finally, in the first chunk of books I read I found an error on the reading order list I was using right away, so I moved to a different list. This one isn't perfect either. I'm kind of going off of two different lists now, trying to make do as best as I can. But there should be a better order. I understand it's probably impossible to get perfect, but it can be better than these I I've been finding.
Currently reading: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
In the stereo: Resurrection by New Found Glory
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