Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

“Ultimate Vision” by Mike Carey, Brandon Peterson, Mark Millar, and John Romita Jr.

I’m back to reading some of the Marvel TPB’s I was given by a friend. This one is from 2007 and ties in to Marvel’s “Ultimate” universe. That universe started in 2000 and is a relaunching and modernizing of the whole regular Marvel universe. Though I read volumes 1 and 2 of “The Ultimates” comic, which is a take on Marvel’s regular universe “Avengers” comic, I haven’t read many Ultimate universe comics. To an old timer like me they are just a bunch of remakes and I have zero interest in reading rehashed stories.

“Ultimate Vision” is the Ultimate universe take on the regular Marvel hero called “The Vision”. Except now he’s more like another more obscure Marvel character called “The Recorder”. If my memory serves me The Recorder was a robot, built by some alien race, who wandered the universe recording as much as he could of all the civilizations he could find. In this story the Vision has the same function except he’s recording civilizations destroyed by Galactus.

That’s what makes this volume a little weird. A few years ago they rehashed the original Galactus story from the 1960’s only now in the Ultimate universe. The first issue reprinted in this collection is all about the Vision warning the Ultimate heroes about the coming of Galactus. At the start of the second issue Galactus is already defeated and a new Vision story starts.

All my griping about the Ultimate universe aside this was a pretty good comic. The first (Zero) issue was drawn by Romita Jr. and then issues 1-5 were by Peterson and those are some first rate super hero artists. The artwork is highly illustrative and the storytelling is solid. No disappointments there.

The story is a continuation/add on to the Ultimate Galactus tale but it’s not necessary to have read Ultimate Galactus to follow it. I know this because I haven’t read Ultimate Galactus. There was certainly more plot in this story than in the few other Ultimates comics that I’ve read and I consider that a good thing. Oddly enough it continues the Ultimates storytelling habit of ending a comic not with a cliff hanger but with a character making a sudden appearance. I find that kind of annoying but much less so here then in other Ultimates books that have much less plot.

Overall “Ultimate Vision” was a good comic. Nice artwork, solid writing, and an interesting story. If you’re looking for a good super hero book to read give it a try.