So, a huge thanks to Capptain Buttocks for giving me the idea to do a retrospective series in this format. Check out his exiles retrospective thread (it's great).
Anyway, here's a series which holds no relevance to the current state of the Marvel.

Ultimates #1

The Ultimates, whether you like it or not, is considered a cultural milestone in Marvel History. Much like the rest of the early Ultimate Universe, it feels very much of its time. The comic itself is a response to two events. Publishing wise, it was a way to reintegrate the Marvel name after a disastrous period in the late 90’s. Pulling themselves out of bankruptcy, the Ultimate brand was used in order to gain new readers which modern updates to already existing products.
Narrative wise, the comic is a response to 9/11, which is probably one of the tragedies to happen in my lifetime, leading to a loss of thousands of lives and leading to war which lost thousands more.
In 2001, I was only 7 and being English, the rise in security and tensions in the World didn’t personally affect me as much as People from across the Ocean. But there was a massive cultural shift, one which Scottish writer Mark Millar saw and decided to write his own response.
His response was The Ultimates, a series which has a very polarising opinion online.

So the series starts with a fairly self-contained episode, one which revolves almost entirely around Captain America in World War 2. Bryan Hitch’s pencils are perfect here, creating a large battleground of bloody violence. Paul Mounts sets the tone perfectly, creating a dark atmosphere with his gritty colours. The whole image feels very cinematic, in fact, at times it feel more like a big screen venture than its live action counterpart, 2012’s The Avengers.
The comic feels big and the action feels real. Sadly, the weak link in the chain is Millar’s writing.
Mark Millar is known for his edgy storytelling, and here it sadly falls flat. I consider Ultimates his best work and while I often enjoy the comics he writes, there are some comics which I personally can’t stand (Wanted is a perfect example of this).
The pacing isn’t the problem, in many way, this prologue is paced very well. It builds up to the action, then the action occurs, then we are shown the aftermath of said action before cutting to a different scene entirely (I’ll be talking more about this epilogue in a second).
The problem comes down to the dialogue choices that Millar pens.
Millar would often try to give Captain America the kind of lines that action movie heroes would say in the 80’s. These one-liners were cheesy, but they worked because they gave the audience a reaction of “Ohhh, that was bad ass”.
Here, the one-liners fall flat.
“What are you ladies waiting for? Christmas?” feels very forced and over written. I’m not against the idea of Captain America calling his allies “Ladies”, Millar characterised Cap as man out of time, being pro military and often sexist. I’d argue this is one avenue that Millar was probably ahead of his time with, referring to guys as ladies was a playground insult well into the 2010’s, and even today, being called a lady is a sign of weakness.
No, my issue with this line is the addition of the answer, Christmas. It essentially breaks the flow of the dialogue. If Millar just said “What are you ladies waiting for?” and leave it at that, I feel the pacing of the dialogue would be more impactful. But, I at least remember that line.

Regardless of my feelings on the dialogue (and I have a lot more problems with Cap as the series goes on, but we’ll get that when we get to it), the issue ends with a nice epilogue where Tony Stark is in Mount Everest in the present year of 2002. This ending is a bright, stark contrast to the darkness of the rest of the issue, introducing a new character to the cast.
Hitch shines in the landscapes. The environment feels natural and large. His crisp, clear style works well with the comic in hand and it really has its largest impact here.

The comic feels like a high budget production, to the point where I refer to it “HBO Avengers”.
While it doesn’t do the best at introducing the characters, this first issue sets up the tone and themes of the comic going forward. Captain America isn’t given much depth here, instead Millar will write him as a three dimensional character as we go further along with the series.

The Ultimates may be dated, but it stands as a relic of a Marvel long gone. As we go further into the series, I’ll point out all the dated references. But for now, we stand at 0. It’s a good issue that’s sadly marked by some (at times) horrendous dialogue. But overall, it was a fun read.