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Face it, kids. You are not grown-up enough to disagree about things ina meaningful or productive way. Just ignore each other. It's for the best. The "ignore" button is just underneath the poster name. It will make the comics forum much less compulsive, but also less lossy.
On "The Ultimates": the big action scene that took up - what? - half the book or just over reminded me of a far more action-packed version of the Warren Ellis Transmetropolitan technique of slowing things down enormously in order to cram in lots of besutiful pictures. Saved to a very great extent by something actually happening, at least to an extent. The balletic quality of the two special agents, compared to the more brutal physical expressions of the assault troopers is done very well. Hitch is already coming up against one of the problems of Hawkeye - he's completely shit. Green Arrow problem, basically - either he goes all Zen Archer or you assume he can fire a bow at about the same speed as a minigun fires bullets and make everyone around him look like St. Sebastian. What exactly makes these people the "Shadow Team", anyway? That they wear leather?
(Speaking of which, I rather liked the sheer shamelessness of the Matrix rip-off, down to the outfits. However, one interesting thing is that we don't see Hawkeye actually *aiming*, which I quite like - he's always either got the bow at rest with arrow nocked, or he has just released the bowstring. It's actually the opposite of the Matrix lobby scene, where the act of firing is extended through repetition into a single prolonged shooting act. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch also seem to be ripping the incesty version of Aurora and Northstar, while we're on homage, although the cover with SW humping Quicksilver's leg is a bit of a step forward. I wonder if we're going to get a soapy storyline on this one? I doubt that Millar or Marvel have the guts or the grace.)
The script really is nothing new, although I am amused by the idea that Grant Morrison did Robert-Anton-Wilson-with-pictures and Mark Millar is doing David-Icke-With-Pictures...it's almost too perfect. Must have been planned. But at the moment the USP here is indubitably the art - the "Midnighter rip-off" comment is highly germaine - the Ultimates is basically a retread of the early Authority, but with the freedom to give its characters personal development beyong some comments in the fight scenes and a panel or two at the beginning and end of each comic. It's a very persuasive combination, if an unchallenging one. Hitch as usual has terrfic attention to detail, although I was somewhat disappointed that Hawkeye doesn't appear to have a hypertrophic right arm.
Incidentally, has anyone noticed something odd about the inking or (more likely, I suspect) its reproduction during the SHIELD briefing scene? |
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