Ultimate Impact: Reborn #3
"Hostile Takeover"
Writer: Chris Condon
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colorist: David Curiel
Cover Artist: Leinil Francis Yu and Dean White
Riddle me this:
When is an event book not an event book?
Furthermore, can you really say that you’re introducing new characters if they each only get a very small handful of pages?
These are the questions that Ultimate Impact: Reborn dares to ask.
New Employee Orientation
Max and Lola, the two teens who made some really questionable life choices, wake up in separate cells in the Ultimate Negative Zone. Maybe next time you'll think twice about putting on shiny wrist bangles that came out of a box that appeared out of thin air? Assuming, of course, they live to get a next time. We literally don't see them again after the first page of this issue, so it's apparently way too soon to tell.
Vin Lerner isn't feeling so hot after his encounter with a mystery box. He gets randomly glowing eyes, and it appears that front doors are now no match for him. I wonder if Wonder Man's acting ability was considered a superpower, and he'll get that too.
Next up is Paulina, who can see dead things or mutant fish (or maybe dead mutant fish, it's all very confusing) thanks to her own mystery box. But apparently putting on one of the visors with multiple lenses on it that eye doctors use for exams lets her see arcane symbols instead. Or something. I'm really not sure. Personally, I'm hung up on wondering what eye doctor would just randomly throw one of those things in a dumpster out back, I'm guessing they're pretty expensive.
Rounding out our mystery box recipients is Orson Booth, who apparently got the Ultimate Crimson Gem of Cyttorak? Um, isn't that the thing that turned Cain Marko into the Juggernaut? A) why in the world would Iron Lad think it was a good idea to give that to someone, and B) since when does that give someone the power to talk in red text and apparently make people do whatever they want? I was sure we were getting a variation on the Purple Man or something, but no, the book makes it very clear it's the Crimson Gem. The dude's a jerk so that part certainly fits, at least.
Oh, and then there is Hostilicus (don't laugh, that's really his name). A devout servant of Ultimate Annihilus, he wears the Nega-Bands that he took from Ultimate Mar-Vell. So of course when Max and Lola clanged their bands together (not like that, get your mind out of the gutter), they brought him over to the 616 Marvel universe. But it's okay, he's a really nice and well-adjusted guy... stop laughing. Just because his name is Hostilicus doesn't mean he can't be reasoned with—okay, you're right, he's all gung-ho about conquering this new world and doesn't care about who he throws down with in the process.
Hostile Work Environment
The funny thing about this comic is, that time I just spent talking about these new characters is more time than the actual issue spent on most of them. Instead it devotes a lot of its page count to a less-than-civil conversation between Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales), and then a fight between Iron Man and Hostilicus. The others all literally get a page or two. I'm pretty sure this is only a five-issue miniseries, so I'm starting to get the feeling it's going to end with "to be continued in [other book's name]..."
Now I do have to say, the portions of the issue with Iron Man and Miles Morales are pretty good. Stark might be a little out of character here—he's a pretty big jerk to Miles, and he basically just shrugs off the "power boxes from another universe are lost in ours and we don't know what powers they give or who got them" danger because one of his buildings was being broken into. Dude, don't you pay for tons of security or something?
The fight between Iron Man and Hostilicus is pretty good. It shows that the newcomer is strong, but also smart. He's also a little power-hungry, but that's apparently just a side effect of being from the Negative Zone (maybe it's something in the water). I'm not entirely sure why, or how for that matter, Booth was so easily able to sway Hostilicus to work with him (or why his employees went along with it without batting an eye). I really didn't think the Crimson Gem worked that way. If it weren't for the fact that it's making Booth a really angry guy as time passes, I wouldn't believe that it was the Crimson Gem, even though the recap and cast listing page tells us just that.
I cannot for the life of me figure out whose powers Paulina got. I'm drawing a blank there. And without that puzzle piece, I can't figure out where she'll come into play before the end. Vin is clearly Wonder Man (his coworkers even call him that as a nickname after he saved an old lady), so it's obvious he'll embrace his powers and do some punchy-punchy against the baddies. Max and Lola are how Hostilicus got into the 616 universe, and also how he'll get back out of it, as soon as someone thinks to make him clang his bands together. But Paulina? I got nothing.
It looks like Steve Rogers is coming into play for the last couple of issues, so hopefully that means he'll use his best "Avengers assemble" voice and bring together our new heroes so that they can battle the new villains together. And hopefully Miles gets to do something cool by the end too, since right now he pretty much just feels like a plot device swinging around on a webline.
Performance Review
Chris Condon is a good writer, I just don't think the Marvel Ultimate Universe brought out the best in him. His Ultimate Wolverine wasn't bad, it just didn't have much of anything new to say. Ultimate Impact: Reborn is much the same. He's got a good handle on characterization (at least for the characters that get enough screen time to have any), and the pacing is steady enough. I just don't like how this is presented as an event book with literally multiversal stakes, and then we spend the majority of the time on a standard super-powered brawl.
Stefano Caselli, on the other hand, does a great job on the art from start to finish. I've been a fan of his ever since he did Secret Warriors with Jonathan Hickman (if you've never read that book and you're a Nick Fury fan, you totally should). The "old" characters all look just like you'd expect them to, and the new characters all have varied and interesting designs. He's got a great eye for action, so the fight scenes in this issue are a highlight. I'm really looking forward to seeing him get to draw Steve Rogers in later issues.
The colors by David Curiel are also strong here. They alternate between darker tones and lighter ones, depending on which character or place we're focusing on at the time. Energy effects, of which there are plenty, all look interesting and suitably cool. And there's a panel where Paulina is seeing some pretty crazy stuff, and he makes it look like we're going a little nuts along with her.
Quarterly Projections
Ultimate Impact: Reborn #3 is a decent enough issue if it were a stand-alone story. But as an event book that ties to both the end of the Ultimate Universe and the Avengers Armageddon event, it spends too much time focusing on existing characters and doesn't give enough time to the new characters it's supposed to be introducing us to. If the creative team can't care enough about them to give them more than a couple of panels per issue, why are we supposed to care about them?