Upon my years of reading superhero team books, I’ve hypothesized (and I’m sure many others also have) the books that are essentially the foundation for the modern superhero team book. Of course, these weren’t the first team books, nor the first of their kind, but they’re the ones that really innovated and changed the game, the ones that today’s either riff on or build on.
- Chris Claremont et al.’s X-Men revolutionized the team book with a focus on the soap opera elements, where the interpersonal drama is central to the narrative.
- Grant Morrison and Howard Porter et al.’s JLA, along with Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch’s the Authority revolutionized the idea of a team book whose focus was more on high-concept sci-fi, with a deeper focus on thematic storytelling that’s relevant to the present day whether on a narrative or a metanarrative level, where the interpersonal drama is important but not essentially central.
Every team book that has come since is something I believe to be built on the foundation set by both, whether it’s leaning into one or the other, or mixing both. Jonathan Hickman et al.’s Avengers, for example, is more from the school of Morrison/Porter JLA and Ellis/Hitch’s the Authority rather than Chris Claremont’s X-Men, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the character drama isn’t there, just that it’s less soapy (for lack of a better term). Brian Michael Bendis et al.’s New Avengers is more from the Claremont school, while also having elements from the Morrison/Porter/Ellis/Hitch school. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Ultimates is a graduate of the Ellis/Hitch the Authority school specifically, etc. In fact, when I reviewed Children of the Vault by Deniz Camp, Luca Maresca et al., I pointed out how it’s riffing on the Hyperclan from Morrison and Porter et al.’s first arc of JLA, but also playing with it from a wholly different level where Cable and Bishop are the men from the future fighting against the future, which makes it different compared to how Jed Mackay, CF Villa et al. riff on that book by looking at how they defined the Justice League through specific archetypes and then doing the same with the Avengers and the Ashen Combine.
When I re-read Jonathan Hickman et al.’s Avengers just last month, I casually talked about how that book is the true successor – or I suppose in the analogy used in this piece – the true graduate of the Morrison/Porter/Ellis/Hitch school of the team book, taking the very concept of the superhero team but also the Avengers as a team and pushing it to its absolute limits, taking the scope to the grandest it could possibly be while also never losing sight on the core, that being one of two men.
“One was life, and one was death.”
Avengers (2012) #1 | Jonathan Hickman, Jerome Opeña, Dean White, Cory Petit
I suppose with that set up, it’s hard to imagine how I would recommend any book afterwards. It’s huge shoes to fill, one that I think even Hickman couldn’t quite fill afterwards (and I think that’s okay!). To which end, I think Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, Federico Blee and Travis Lanham have put their feet in there, and I feel like if issue 1 and the FCBD issue is anything to go by, that they will grow into those shoes by the course of this book.
THE ULTIMATES #1 is the best #1 I’ve read of a superhero team book – one that fills me with so much promise, since Hickman et al.’s X-MEN #1.
Before we get into the issue itself, let’s look at the main cover (‘or Cover A’) by Dike Ruan and Alejandro Sánchez. Anyone that’s read at least the first issue of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (or seen the pages on social media because they spread like wildfire) immediately notice the focal point of the cover – the orb. It represents the promise of something new, being offered to you, the reader, by Tony Stark, Iron Lad. Surrounding him are Sif, Captain America, Doom, Thor, Wasp and Ant-Man, who are all looking at you and basically asking you:
“Do you want to reclaim your destiny?”
It’s a bold ask, but it also underlines one of the core concepts of this new Ultimate Universe, which posits being a hero, a good person, as a choice, something that even if you innately are, you need to actively choose to be, and that’s what makes it a brilliant cover.
This issue is structurally a mix of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 and #2 in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of talking as they set up the pins, before they throw the ball and watch the strike occur, ending on the big page that tells us what the mission statement is for the book.
Even then, I think The Ultimates is bolder in terms of that mission statement. It’s thematically building on one of the central premises of this new world and taking swings on that idea. Take the very concept of the superhero team – we (and the world in the books at large) usually see them as heroes, to the point where heroes slowly became cops, defenders of the status quo rather than their initial premise (as Siegel and Shuster did with Superman back in Action Comics #1) as counter-culturalists. Not only does the Ultimate Universe (through Ultimate Spider-Man) present heroes as counter-culturalists, but Ultimates (#1 and the FCBD issue) presents them as being seen by the world as terrorists, which is a loaded word in every respect. Add on top of that our protagonists kickstarting a revolution (in their own words) and looking to define what heroism means, and we’ve got a book that is willing to take a lot of huge risks.
The terrorist angle is especially loaded when you consider how this universe does have its own rendition of 9/11 to kick things off with the attack on the Stark/Stane tower. Where the original Ultimates (by Millar/Hitch) is a response to 9/11 by making superheroes American supercops, this does the exact opposite by framing them (wrongly) as the ones that did the very act and thus marking them as terrorists. Make no mistake, this new Ultimates is absolutely in conversation with the old Ultimates. For a Marvel comic to really build and follow on that is a big understandable concern, but it’s not one that I particularly share, and you sure won’t, once you read 20th Century Men, also written by Deniz Camp, with art by Stipan Morian and letters by Aditya Bidikar.
On a very formalist level also, it’s paced extremely well. The opening exposition-dump, and later the worldbuilding too, works because it’s grounded in character work, we’re not learning about what’s happening and what their plans are through an objective lens, we’re learning about it in the ways every character sees it. The shift from that to the action, the way it’s all framed and presented, the way the team play with page layouts to really emphasize scale (whether literally or figuratively) is all excellent – and continues to showcase a big part of what I love about the new line: these are creatives who can make great comics but are also willing to play with the form in some regard.
Juan Frigeri, Federico Blee and Travis Lanham absolutely knock it out of the park on a visual level. Every panel, every page of this book looks spectacular. I love the way Frigeri and Blee emphasize expressions, even with the subtlest of things such as a movement of the eyes. The action is also such a treat to look at, blazing fast while knowing how to stop and focus on the people. Add onto that how Lanham does the lettering, especially the sound effects in a way that doesn’t overlap the art or take away from it – in fact, the composition of the pages are very clearly made with the lettering in mind to not overlap with important bits, which rocks. Also, it’s cool to see Hank Pym have a different body type than the standard big muscular man we expect from superheroes, it’s nice.
And yet, there is still so much to dissect into this singular issue alone (which we do in my interview with Deniz Camp, you can read that now!) that I simply cannot with spoilers, so all I’ll say is:
Go read this book. Like I said at the very beginning, it has the promise to be the next in that school of high concept sci-fi team superhero books that can really change the game, especially after the high bar that was already set, and I have faith that it will meet those expectations. Camp, Frigeri, Blee, and Lanham absolutely CRUSHED it.
