The 30-Second Review: Ultimate Avengers #6

Oh no! A comic book writer recycling ideas? Somebody better call the waaaaaaambulance quick!

Seriously though, I have yet to see the comic writer who hasn't recycled something they've pulled before in some manner during their career. This includes Saint Grant Morrison by the way.

I'd never call Mark Millar a "good" writer by any means, but he is an entertaining one. His work is dumb as a brick and often needlessly offensive, but I rarely get the laughs out of a comic book that I got from the likes of Kick Ass or Wanted.

Whenever a comic isn't good, but is written by a "hot" writer, the book gets called Satire. It's a situation where nobody wants to admit that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.

Case in point: This Mark Millar series is very bad. The action is poorly thought out, the characters are bland and lifeless, and the plot is just a series of plot-holes tied together with bigoted stereotypes.

1) Tony Stark has a brother who is a dick. He's boring, and adds nothing to the plot, except a few jokes about being rich. I hate characters who just stand around talking about how rich they are and how many hot girls they've banged. It's like Millar is just fantasizing to me about what he'd do with a billion dollars and it's really boring.

2) "My superhero origin is that I was beaten and raped, and then I became a bad-ass." Yeah, way to put women in comics. Go read about the character Starlight in Ennis' "The Boys" to get a good version of that story.

3) Hey, the French! Remember those guys? Remember how much fun it was to make fun of people from other countries! Ha ha, it's okay to make fun of the French because they're white like Scottish people! If Millar were joking about how cowardly blacks and latinos were, this wouldn't be a mainstream Marvel comic (it would be Wanted, or Kick Ass)! Yay for less-subtle cultural-bigotry! And that's why I read super-hero comics too, to read about ethnic stereotypes and laugh at them!

"Next in Ultimate Avenger Comics: French people are cowards and black people are lazy! But don't get upset - it's only 'satire', and that makes it all okay!"

Wow, this got pretty crazy. I've been reading Millar stuff since he was co-writing with/ apprenticing to Morrison, and I just haven't enjoyed too much of it, so I stopped. A lot of writers have "tells" they fall back on: Loeb will stamp on heroes to characterize villains, Millar writes a lot of assholes, Johns distills characters to really base symbols, and Bendis makes everyone talk like a jittery hipster. I don't mean to insult any of these creators -- I read or have read many books by all of them, and enjoyed most of them. I've just been much more excited about younger, less predictable writers lately: Aaron, Gillen, Remender, Hickman, Gates, etc.

Millar knows how to hype his work like no other creator, and he collaborates with some amazing artists. Similarly to Loeb, Millar gets very little editorial interference. I would really hesitate to blame any of his perceived shortcomings on editors. Take a look at his latest work: Ultimate Avengers/ Ultimates (pocket universe), Old Man Logan (alternate future), Nemesis and Kick-Ass (creator-owned Icon books), War Heroes (hah, never mind). Even on FF, his work seemed pretty unaltered. I enjoyed that run pretty well, but I found that it tapered off pretty poorly and, as someone already pointed out, Millar himself didn't script the last two issues. He's been on projects that won't really affect main continuities, so there has been little reason to reign him in.

The man got busy with Hollywood but still delivers scripts to his fans, of which he has many. Kudos to him for still doing that. Kick-Ass turned me off of his work, and Ultimatum made me lose all interest in the Ultimate universe as a whole. I solved my Millar problem by not buying Millar books. I've got access to a lot of free copies, so I've read Avengers, and I haven't cared too much for it.

Casting a glance back at his run on Authority and the similar scene, I was creeped out then and I am creeped out now. I thought his Authority was a big step down from Ellis' (by the way, I'm not sure why a previous poster cited Stormwatch -- Millar didn't write a page of that). It was a satirical take on extreme super heroes and what powered individuals would really do. When Millar took over, that aspect disappeared. Ultimate I and II are less of a comment on that and more of an attempt at "realism," but that aspect of the Ultimate Universe went out the window with Loeb's Ultimatum. (I am also glad that I'm not the only one who caught the issue with Croatia and the origin of this new/old Wasp.)

At the end of the day, I mainly come to CA for humor and news -- in that order. I love this site, and I love its humor. If the CA writers make fun of some of the creators I love, I can handle it because CA is respectful and insightful, and full of nerd love. It helps not to take these things so seriously, even if we have strong opinions, and to cut through some of the hype we all get swept up into. I buy the books I enjoy and I drop the books I don't, which is the only capacity I have to act on my opinions. If you enjoy Millar and love his work, keep voting with your money and keep supporting his work, just don't expect everyone else to do the same!

wow, I didn't even know the Ultimate Universe still had any books being published to be honost

Wow. Seriously guys chill out. It's stuff like this that gives both comic fans and the internet a bad name. Some people like Millar's stuff and some people don't. Whatever.

Why did Mark Millar cross the road?

He saw Grant Morrison do it.

The best part of Red Skull's speech (for me that is) is that he mentions that Dragomir guy that Hawkeye killed back in Ultimates 2. The one that lost his eye in Croatia. But now here they say it's Bosnia.
I guess to Millar it's the same thing.

sure seems to me that Ultimates was incredibly obviously heavily influenced by and patterned after The Authority from the very beginning...

difference is, like previous poster said, his previous Ultimates series obviously had at least some thought put into them. it was a big step up from this horribly cliched plot of oops Red Skull failed even with godly powers because instead of just using the damn cube to get what he wants he sits there fighting the Ultimates for no reason whatsoever and loses his chance...and all that buildup on how very evil he is all for wah I miss daddy, even though I was just trying my hardest to kill him. deep.

love that "it must be because you're trying to be cool by hating" defense though. always great to hear that from someone hopping on board the a 100,000 or so strong Millar bandwagon and refusing to let go no matter how low he sinks.

Is it me, or did every single commenter just completely miss the point Chris was making with his selection of pages here?

The man has great ideas, and, sadly more often then not, terrible execution. His books start strong, then peter out long before they are done. I hung in there with him for a while, but have only been disappointed by everything I have read by him recently. If you still enjoy his stuff, great. We obviously have different tastes. But basically I view him and Loeb in exactly the same regard these days.

And I strongly disagree that because it's Avengers it's okay to be mindless crap. Because Ultimates 1 had some depth to it, and even Ultimates 2 did for a little while. Hell you could just as easily compare this crap to the excellent issue of Wolverine (#32 I believe) that Millar ended his run on that series with a back in 2005. And if there was ever a case where you should dismiss all of a character's stories as crap it would be Wolverine, but Millar didn't feel that way then, and actually put some thought and effort into a story. It would be nice to see him try again.