276. Ultimate Avengers vol 1 #1 ... Marvel ...

For those people who came into the comics reading and collecting late, you will probably hate what's going on in the Ultimate-verse. It's no surprise as most of us have given up on it - poor artwork, crappy storylines. No wonder they are killing the line by merging it all into this year's big crossover. I mean all the other -verse that are merging are limited or gone timelines but Ultimate is alive so you know it has to suck something major, right?

Now what's special about this -verse? Well it was created basically to give new readers a chance to jump in by updating existing star characters for the new generation and that was like 15 years ago. Naturally over time it builds up its own garbage. The only problem was it is express garbage as the Ultimate-verse ... everything moves super fast

And the worst part of it is that it is told in series of limited series with sometimes no linkage so for those of us who buy this occassionally, we get lost wondering which comes before or after

Now what about this?

Well this has something going for it. THAT AWESOME COVER. Carlos Pacheco + Dany Miki = Awesome ness

Aside from that, this continues after Ultimates 2 ... where we start off with a huge bang ass sequence. Basically Ultimatum limited series has happened (see? not new reader friendly). The world was almost destroyed an many heroes are injured or died. So the remnants are left struggling to find their footing while others take advantage by being baddies

Nick Fury is out of his old job and trying to find a place while Hawkeye offers him to join a new Black Ops version of the Ultimates ... called the Avengers. Hah! Formerly only select operatives now it has been expanded. On the team includes Nerd Hulk (clone of Bruce Banner), new Wasp (with armor like suit), new Black Widow (Fury's bitchy ex), new Iron Man (apparently richer and smarter than Tony Stark is Tony's brother (WTF right?)), and Rhodes as a war and kill crazy bastard

Their first critical mission ... find and contain Captain A ... why? Because he has encountered the Red Skull ... and found out his identity ... who? Well wait for the next issue, yes?

Ratings: 9/10