I wanted to read comic books as a kid, but a few small problems got in the way. As a child I completely relied on my mother to purchase comics (Lord knows my father would never purchase such a thing for me), and that only happened on rare occasion. So I built a small collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics published by Archie, getting a very small concept of how the story evolved into very…well, comic book directions (time travel, space travel, aliens, so on and so forth). In addition, I grabbed a couple of X-Men comics as well, a number of which made little to no sense considering I couldn’t differentiate between the comic based on the cartoon and the comic proper.

As I got older I found that I had to choose between my expensive hobbies, and while I could occasionally grab a graphic novel here or there, I couldn’t collect comics if I was going to be collecting video games. In addition, there was so much in the collective continuity that jumping in would just leave me confused. In the end, I looked at all these comics franchises, have wanted to get into them, but have never taken the plunge since it would be just an investment of time and money.

That is, until recently. See, all these super hero movies coming out has finally urged me to take the plunge. When the original X-Men, Batman and Spider-Man films came out I was able to draw on my knowledge from the television shows. There was an added level of enjoyment. Yet with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, I had no real prior knowledge to draw from. With Captain America coming out all I really have is what comic book fans have told me. So I’ve been wanting to take the leap back into comics, specifically with super heroes (much to the dismay of my friends who recommended the likes of Sandman, Preacher and Fables).

Marvel Ultimate was a series I had looked into before, being a completely separate continuity specifically designed to draw in readers. It may be around 10 years old at this point, but that’s a lot better than trying to catch up to fifty plus years of story and background. So I decided to first take a look at Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-men, being the two Marvel properties I was most familiar with. I later grabbed the first volume of Ultimate Fantastic Four, a comic franchise that I’m not really familiar with, but whose aesthetic I’ve never really been a fan of.

So let’s go down the line…

ULTIMATE X-MEN

So Kick-Ass was a fantastic film. Turns out, though, that it deviated from the comic quite a bit. Ultimately, the film is a lot happier, a lot less hateful of the world and is actually a bit more mature in themes and tone. Mark Millar, writer and creator of Kick-Ass, was also the writer of Ultimate X-Men. Yeah, it definitely shows.

It could be that there’s just too much of a nostalgia factor with this franchise. I watched the cartoon a lot as a kid, and it was pretty close to the source material. In fact, the cartoon probably made for a better condensed retelling of decades of story than Ultimate X-Men has in its first volume.

The changes made are, quite frankly, juvenile. Everything has been changed to “grim and gritty” and being “hardcore”. Jean Grey is now a punk-rocker with “baditude”, the Sentinels are already killing mutants en masse, the hatred for mutants feels like it has been turned up to 11, and one of my favorite lines from the whole thing…

Just screams maturity there.

Oh yeah, and it turns out S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually in charge of the Weapon-X program, full of stereotypically dick-head leaders that think it’s fun to torture and even mutilate mutants because…well, because they’re evil, I guess. This isn’t a couple of street punks or out-of-line soldiers, it’s the guy in charge of Weapon-X himself saying “go ahead, boys, treat them like shit. In fact, make it a command!” The villains are brutal to a point where it breaks common sense. A bad guy should be interesting, but in order to be interesting you have to understand their motivation. The motivations here are poor, which can pretty much be described for any character.

That Mark Millar wasn’t familiar with the X-Men in any way outside of the film is no surprise, but that doesn’t excuse the comic being one childish mess. The tone is completely off-base with the initial mood of Spider-Man, and even after the latter comic tries to make room for some of that “mutant hatred and mistrust” stuff, the two comics feel as if they shouldn’t even be in the same continuity…which they are, because this is a Marvel comic franchise.

In the end, it’ll take a lot of convincing for me to bother with volume two and onward of Ultimate X-Men.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN

Now this is what I wanted in terms of a comic. Peter Parker is back to being a high school student, sure, and some of the changes made are to fit with a more modern take of teenage life (Gwen Stacy being more of a delinquent in volume two, for example). Yet it is still enjoyable by an adult. Peter Parker isn’t angsty, he is riddled by internal conflicts that he, as a teenager, doesn’t know how to deal with. There’s no sense of whining, just of a need to grow internally.

In other words, Peter Parker himself is a mature character despite being young.

This is the sort of tone that carries through the comic, and in a good way. Despite seeming to introduce and go through a series of villains relatively quickly, the story doesn’t really feel rushed. This is likely because Peter Parker himself is more of a focus than the events around him, whose purpose in terms of story are to force him to grow.

It’s a bit tough to explain why it works so well, as it is always tough to break such a thing down. When something doesn’t work, it pulls you right out of it. Yet with Ultimate Spider-Man, I simply want to keep reading and find out what happens next. It’s precisely what a comic should be. The recreation of the story is faithful despite a few cosmetic changes. It is no small wonder that it is pretty much the premiere comic of the Marvel Ultimate universe (or at least, seems as such).

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR

There’s really nothing I can say here in terms of accuracy. The original Fantastic Four never really appealed to me, so I’m stepping into all new territory here. Since I wasn’t approaching it with the sort of familiarity I had with X-Men, it could easily be that this comic feels as much a bastardization in a sense.

Yet it doesn’t feel juvenile. I imagine that credit goes to Brian Michael Bendis, who writes Ultimate Spider-Man. Mark Millar apparently co-wrote Fantastic Four, and you can see it in a couple characters, but on the whole it doesn’t feel like I’m reading a “hardcore” or “grim and gritty” comic. It felt like a classic origin story, but touched up for modern sensibilities (less cheesiness, more emotion and drama).

The only thing I couldn’t really get into was how quickly The Thing seemed to jump into the whole situation. He was angry briefly, and claimed to be angry as time continued, but his willingness to jump in and beat up a horrifying monster seemed way to eager. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch? No surprise. My knowledge of the character seems to give the impression the character is a very impulsive sort. Using his new-found powers to combat some huge creature busting up New York City is perfectly in character.

Aside from that minor gripe, though, the first volume was an interesting read. The only disappointment is that the first volume was also only six issues, whereas the Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man consisted of twelve or thirteen issues. One volume was, essentially, a full year.

ULTIMATE CONCLUSION

I’m all on board with Ultimate Spider-Man, and would like to continue Ultimate Fantastic Four (if I could find volume two on Amazon, that is. Might have to visit an actual brick and mortar store for that one). Volume 3 of the web-slinger has already been ordered, in fact. Ultimate X-Men, however, would require some major convincing.

The other comic heroes seem scattered amongst the Ultimate Marvel continuity, however. Ultimate Iron Man and Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra seem to have small spin-offs, but there’s really no other major comic characters in the universe. Even The Ultimates, the Marvel Ultimate continuity of The Avengers, is made up of smaller collections than Spider-Man or X-Men. More so, The Ultimates is written by Mark Millar, an author I feel I should avoid like the plague.

At the very least, however, I’ve found at least two super hero comics I can enjoy keeping up with. In that case, I’d say mission accomplished.