Book Review: The Ultimates by Mark Millar And Bryan Hitch

I recently watched Ultimate Avengers 2 with my son Chandler. We had a good time with the first direct-to-DVD movie, and we had a good time with the second. The material is easy and fun to absorb, plenty of fights, lots of super-hero action, and the “blooper” reel on Ultimate Avengers 2 was hilarious.

But it reminded me of the comic book series by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch that started it all. I bought the monthly (that was a joke for the comic buyers among you, because the series didn’t come out monthly, but that was only because Bryan Hitch was knocking himself out on the art) series and then picked up the hardcover edition because I really loved the story. I thought, since the DVDs came out, that I might point readers to the original source material, and give a review of the hardcover.

In the beginning, there was a global altercation that became known as World War II, an altercation that plunged sons into a similar bloody chaos that had enveloped their fathers only twenty years earlier. During this second World War, though, a choice was made to create a new hero and wrap him in the red, white and blue of the flag of the United States - a living, breathing, battling embodiment of strong-willed freedom. They named him Captain America, and he was every bit the symbol that those far-thinking men had hoped he would be. Only one day they lost him.

The loss came as they had thought it would, in the heat of battle, warring against impossible odds for the highest stakes imaginable. Even in tragedy, Captain America still succeeded. Years later, with the future of the world in question and stakes rising around the globe, another decision has been put into play regarding the invention of not one, but several super-powered beings-and all of these heroes would come together under the close-knit supervision of General Nicholas Fury, the one-eyed leader of S.H.I.E.L.D who was known for kicking butt and taking names later.

Fury has talked the American government into reactivating the Super-Soldier program that created Captain America. Unfortunately, under its first incarnation, Dr. Bruce Banner created a rampaging entity that came to be known as the Hulk and all but got the program cancelled. Banner takes the number two spot on the new program, and the lead designer role goes to Dr. Henry Pym, who has already begun experimenting with communication with ants and size-changing powers, calling himself first Ant-Man then Giant-Man. His lovely wife Jan, hiding dark secrets of her own, is the Wasp. Tony Stark, known throughout the world also as Iron Man, has also agreed to join the team for reasons of his own.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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