Comic Discovery: Marvel’s Ultimatum – The End of The Ultimate Universe

I knew they were rebooting The Marvel Ultimate Universe, but I never realised the comic series covering the end of the existing Universe had been released already – I need to read more comic book websites!

Anyway, I ordered Ultimatum and Ultimatum: Requiem from Amazon last week and have been reading Ultimatum. I get the feeling the story could have scanned more than the 4 comic issues they allowed for it as things seem to be moving very quickly. It also puts the graphic in graphic novel, with some pretty gory scenes of death – take Blob feasting on Wasp (Tastes like chicken), only to be followed by Hank Pym biting Blob’s head off!

Ultimatum - the end of the Ultimate Universe!

I haven’t finished it yet, but I am over half way through and the number of ‘Ultimates’ left to battle, well, I won’t tell you who the Ultimate Adversary is in case you want to read this yourself. The new Ultimate Universe is already in existance under the Ultimate Comics banner, and I’ll be keen to see how that turns out and how different it is to the old Ultimate Universe. If anyone has read any of the new Ultimate Comics titles then let me know what you think, colour me intrigued!

Comic Book Recommendation – Soulfire

Wanting to surprise me at Christmas, but apprehensive that she’d get something I already had or didn’t like, my wife took some advice from the owner of a relatively new comic book shop in a neighbouring town. She told him titles I like, highlighting Fables as my favourite, and he made a recommendation and even went as far as to say that if I had it already or didn’t like it, he would exchange it, no questions asked.

Fast forward to Christmas Day and I have said comic book, wrapped and in my hands. Thinking she may also have mentioned my like of Preacher I was half expecting the first Sandman trade paperback – a title I’ve often been tempted by but never enough to actually buy volume 1. What I actually got when I opened the present was a hardcover edition of a title I’d never heard of; Soulfire.

I recognised one of the writers, Jeph Loeb, as one of the guys behind some of the greatest Batman stories ever such as Batman: Long Halloween and Batman: Haunted Knight. I flicked through and was straight away drawn to the artwork, which is absolutely stunning – rich in detail and beautifully coloured. The story is one of fantasy, featuring dragons and magic. I really enjoyed it and am now looking forward to April when the issues 6-10 are collected in volume 2. It’s only a 10 issue story arc, but there may be more to come in the future if I’m reading correctly.

Soulfire (Picture courtsey of aspencomics.com)

So my wife took a leap of faith that paid off, the comic book shop owner was spot on, and I’ve discovered a great new comic book series that otherwise I probably never would have.

The comic book shop is Limited Edition Comix, in Stevenage, Hertfordshire – visit it if you’re ever in the area – I hear the guy who runs it knows his stuff.

In search of Manga, found One Piece!

For a few weeks I’ve been wanting to get into Manga comic (are they classed as comics?) books and have been researching what would be the best title to start with. I’m a keen comic book reader and collector and also love Japan and it’s culture, so it’s a good fit really! Just a pity I didn’t have this epiphany when I was in Japan 8 years ago!

I was in Waterstones just this afternoon and came across a series which I think would be perfect for me: One Piece – it’s a Manga series about pirates, another big interest of mine!

Avast there!

On further investigation it seems that this is a mega popular series which has been running for over a decade and has been released in 55 volumes, so far. It’s longevity is another very attractive quality as I love a long series that I can get my teeth into and look forward to continuing volumes. I’ve ordered volume 1 from the awesomely cheap Book Depository who take Paypal Payments and as I had some funds in there from an eBay sale a few months ago it’s like I didn’t have to use actual money! If I like it then I have a few volumes to buy before I’m up to date, luckily Christmas is upon us in 2 months and I’ve requested Amazon vouchers from relatives who’ve asked what I want!

Sticking with Manga, if anyone is a fan themselves, please recommend me some other series’ I might like. Not so keen on horror or anything too violent – fun, fantasy and even some vampire action, as long as it’s not OTT!

The Incredibles Comic and does Cars 2 have a name?

Hot on the tail of Monsters, Inc. comic news comes more Disney Pixar comic book news, The Incredibles. Launching Monday 24th August was a The Incredibles #0 which is a prelude issue leading up to the main story arc which starts next month.

Incredible?

Things From Another World gives the following detail on this first issue:

The Incredibles #0 launches an all-new story arc written by legendary scribe Mark Waid with covers by Matt Wagner! Take a quick glimpse at the recent past and witness the action-packed birth of everyone’s favorite super-powered baby-Jack-Jack!

But labor pains were never this difficult! The Parrs will have to fight through a phalanx of evil before the new addition to their family can safely arrive!

I’ll wait for the inevitable trade paperback and read the whole story on one go, and save money at the same time – an all round win!

Onto Cars and Disney recently registered the following domains:

cars2-worldgrandprix.com
cars2worldgrandprix.com
worldgrandprixmovie.com

I’m going to take a wild guess that the second Cars film will be called Cars 2: World Grand Prix – remember you (probably didn’t) here it here first!

World Grand Prix?

Strange Monsters, Inc. 2 rumours & some encouraging signs?

Searching the internet for news on Monsters, Inc 2 I found this post on KillerMovies.com:

The story picks up twenty years later. Boo is all grown up, and has a family of her own. She runs a toy company that makes stuffed animals. One night, one of the monsters comes into her little girls room to do their normal comedy routine, and sees a stuffed toy of Sullivan (which Boo made from her childhood memories). He reports back to Sully what he found, and he goes through the door to see for himself.

When he enters the room, grown up Boo is asleep on her daughter’s bed, and groggily awakes just long enough to see “Kitty?” Sully jumps back into the closet, and runs off the laugh-floor, leaving the door “hot”.

She follows him in, only to find herself in the plant. She looks around thinking, “This place looks familiar.”

I quite like this idea, bringing it back to the original with the next generation of children makes sense. However, this rumour was soon denied by someone in the know with this post:

Actually all this is incorrect – the OP is a hacker wanting to be creative and wanting some attention. I have direct knowledge of the situation (you’ll just have to trust me). “Monsters Inc. 2”, as all Pixar movies, was addressed in the upper levels of Pixar creative and executive management twice – once in the summer of 2004 and re-touched again in the Spring of 2006. There were two story lines that were considered – one was involving Boo just a few days after Monsters Inc went on-line with the laughter as energy switchover – a more traditional approach. The other story line was more “out there” – a prequel to Monsters Inc. – it involved how the monsters discovered human child screaming energy thing came to be. No Sully and no Mike, and certainly no Boo – a young Roz was mentioned as playing a role, however. Both of these story lines were scratched, as creatively neither could touch the “magic” or originality of the original, and consequently all efforts to build a story for “Monsters Inc 2” were abandoned by summer ’06 as I recall. They felt there was a risk in creating Monsters Inc 2 that other Pixar movies (Incredibles & Toy Story) don’t have – meaning there’s is a built in story line that allows for further story telling. Monsters Inc didn’t have that story telling continuum – it ran its course. No link. No way to verify this, except if Pete decided to speak. Take it or leave it.

Since this post it has come out that the likeliness of there being a Monsters, Inc 2 film is getting higher and is due out in 2012 if IMDB.com is to be believed!

On July 29th this year Disney Enterprises, Inc registered Monsters2.com and this sent the rumour mill into over-drive! But in realty this could be just stop someone else registering the domain rather than conclusive proof that the sequel to Monsters, Inc. is being made.

I’m going to add some more fuel to the fire by suggesting that the release of Monsters, Inc.: Laugh Factory #1 comic this past Wednesday is to get the franchise back into the public eye before releasing news that yes, Monsters, Inc 2 is going ahead!

Comic screams!

Add in the recent release of Monsters, Inc. on Blu-ray on July 27th and the profile of the franchise is being boosted a lot within a 3 week period.

Monsters, Inc. is my favourite of the Disney Pixar films so a sequel is given the thumbs up by me.

A Comic Update – Powers and Batman

After being recommended the Powers comic book series by someone on the SFX Forum I finally tracked down an in stock copy of volume 1 of The Definitive Hardback Collection at The Book Depository and it was despatched 2 days ago.

I (will) have the Powers!

The author, Brian Michael Bendis, has been talking on his Twitter about the new Powers series he’s writing so it gave me a renewed motivation to find the original Powers series and read that before embarking on the new series.

I haven’t been so excited to read a new comic book in ages – as the author of many of my favourites like New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Civil War, Secret Invasion and House of M to name but a few, I have high expectations. The fact that it comes in a mighty 400+ page hardback special edition publication is just the icing on the cake – me like pretty books!

While I am waiting for Powers to arrive I have started a comic book which has been in my possession for 4 years: Batman: Dark Knight Returns.

I got this along with a few other Batman books on the recommendation of IGN after reading their 25 Greatest Batman Graphic Novels article. I ordered the top 5 and until now had only read 4 of them. I thoroughly enjoyed Batman: Long Halloween and Batman: Year One but I really didn’t like Batman: Arkham Asylum or Batman: The Killing Joke. I may revisit The Killing Joke one of these days, but at the time I found it overly gratuitous – maybe it was the wrong story to start with as my very first Batman comic book. I think Arkham Asylum is lost on me forever – the artwork aside, which was varied and fascinating, the story seemed to be all over the place and just too damn weird!

Best comic book cover ever? – Part 2!

So a couple of weeks I posted a blog (linkage) citing Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover as ‘the best comic book cover ever’. Well, that was until I finally (that’s another story for another time!) received The Boys: We Gotta Go Now v. 4The Boys Vol 4: We Gotta Go Now – check out this example of comic book artwork awesomeness:

When I ordered it from Amazon I thought I would be getting a UK version with a different cover, as seen below:

Thankfully the final version was not what Amazon showed me!

Now onto the paper thickness of this comic book, or should I say thinness? The paper is glossy but so incredibly thin – this trade paperback is made up of 8 issues but is the same thickness of the average 4/5 issue Marvel title. It doesn’t make any difference to my enjoyment, just thought it deserved a mention.

The Boys series continues to be great – I’ve not read all of vol 4 yet but it’s like welcoming an old friend back, as long to see what (mis)adventures Hughie will find himself doing this time.

Best comic book cover ever?

I have to wait until late September to read Fables Vol. 12: Dark Ages and even longer, February NEXT year, to read Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover. But wow, just look at the awesome front cover for The Great Fables Crossover – awesome! Just a pity I have to wait so long to actually get my hands on it. Maybe I should be reading monthlies after all – remember my last post but one – linkage?

The Great Fables Crossover

Trade Paperbacks v Individual Issues – how do you comic?

I am fairly new to the world of comic books, my collector status is only about 3 years old though I have always had a passing interest from my childhood. I have always bought trade paperbacks rather than individual monthlies, without fail, but is that the right way to do things?

There are a few reasons why I choose trades over monthlies:

Storage – It’s much easier to store trades on a bookshelf than it is to store monthlies which require more than just being stacked. Monthlies also need to be packed in individual bags to avoid damage.

Accessibility – When I want to read a particular trade I just go to the shelf and pick it out, with a monthly I’d be trawling through boxes of comics to find it, and then I’d need to grab half a dozen to get enough reading material worth the effort. Which brings me on to…

Content Size – For me, a monthly comic is not big enough. Just as you are getting going the issue ends and you have to wait another month. At least with a trade I can sink my teeth into anywhere from 5 to 8 months worth of storyline.

Availability – I live in a small town with no comic book shop, just a Waterstones where I can buy trades. My nearest comic book shop is at least 45 minutes away and not somewhere we go regularly. I could order online but that really ties in with the next point…

Cost – It goes without saying that it is far more cost effective to buy trades than monthlies. I can get a 6 issue trade on Amazon for £7 or I can pay between £12 and £18 for the individual issues, and then add shipping onto that! It’s a no-brainer with those figures.

All that aside, I do sometimes feel that I missing out on the romance of receiving an issue every month and following the story on a continuous and regular basis. I visited a Forbidden Planet store a few weeks ago and saw the latest issue of Fables, something I won’t get my hands on for many months when the next trade comes out. It’s occasions like that make me wonder if my concern for the price is making me miss out on the true comic book experience.

Blog Consolidation with F1 & Comics

I have decided to stop writing 3 different blogs (McLaren Fan Blog, A Little Less Geek and The Beach Boys Discography Project) as I don’t have the time, or to be honest the motivation, to do so. I have decided to have one catch-all blog for me to write about any subject I so desire. I used to do this and have imported the posts from my old Blogger account, hereby known as Wax On, Wax Off Version 1.0.

Now, let’s kick things off with a bit about my favourite sport, Formula 1. As a McLaren this season is pretty demoralising so far, and that wasn’t made any better with today’s Turkish Grand Prix which saw Hamilton finish in 13th (up 3 places from qualification) and Kovalainen (same as qualification). Hamilton didn’t drive too badly and was fuelled very heavily making him very uncompetitive early on. The race was once again won by Jenson Button, though his Brawn GP team mate actually retired after an awful start and bad race – the first retirement of a Brawn GP car all season.

Button leads in the Turkish Grand Prix

The McLaren team don’t seem to be getting things right this season and are making little to no improvement, in fact some might say they are actually getting worse! maybe they should take a leaf out of the book of the team formerly known as Honda (now Brawn GP if you didn’t know) and give up on this season and concentrate on development for next year’s car. The next race is the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, a race Hamilton won last year, yet this year it looks like Britain could have another victor in the form of Jenson Button, who at this early stage of the season seems the only safe bet for 2009 World Champion.

Now if we can move on to another obsession of mine, comic books! In this last week I have read volumes 1-7 of the New Avengers series and volumes 1 & 2 of the Mighty Avengers in order to get completely up to date with the Avengers storylines before and past the Civil War story arc which I read in July 2007 and up to the Secret Invasion story arc.

Secret Invasion - who can you trust?

I finished the main Secret Invasion trade paperback this morning and I really enjoyed it, and all the New and Mighty Avengers volumes that I read leading up to it. After being disappointed by The Ultimates 3 I took a break from Marvel, but this was a fantastic return to form. I have a few tie-ins to read and then it’s onto the post Secret Invasion New and Mighty Invasion volumes. Will Iron Man ever regain the trust of Captain America?

On the way are Buffy Season 8 Volume 4, The Boys volume 4 and Marvel 1985 – the latter being one I have wanted to read for some time now and have finally got round to ordering. Though i still have to wait until August, it’s encouraging to see volume 12 of Fables is now available to pre-order. This is possibly, depending when you ask me, my favourite comic book series of all time.

By the way, the URL of this blog is dlrp.wordpress.com – the dlrp stands for Disneyland Resort Paris which is our favourite place in the whole world. We went there on holiday 9 times between 2002 and 2007 but have not been back since our son Lucas was born on may 6th 2008. The plan is to go back again for his 2nd birthday in 2010.