The Ultimates #11

Writer: Al Ewing
Artists: Kenneth Rocafort & Djibril Morrissette
Color Artist: Dan Brown
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel

The first arc of Ewing and Rocafort's The Ultimates was amazing. It had big ideas about superhero comics, not to say about art in general, and it was arguably the best drawn comic published by either of the big 2 at the time. But ever since the start of Civil War II, the book has been something entirely different. One of the few Marvel titles that is a tie-in in something other than name (at least out of the ones I'm reading), The Ultimates abandoned most of the plot threads from issue #1-#6 to becoming a book about .. this. Added to the fact that most of the second arc hasn't had a consistent art style, I can't help but feel that Marvel squandered the chance to make The Ultimates one of the best runs in recent memory.

Morrisette's art doesn't work on this book. Glitterbomb is a great looking book but it relies on more traditional layouts/pacing and it's a less kinetic book. Some panels of people throwing a punches or getting hit look off, but when he gets to draw the more static panels and when he gets to use silhouettes against negative space you can see what makes his style work. Adding to the problem, Brown's using the same shading for Morrissette-Phan's pages as he does for Rocafort's pages but I think the art would look better if it weren't as heavily rendered. I'm concerned about Ultimates 2 because although Travel Forman, who will take over art duties, is a good artist, his art had similar problems when colored by Rain Beredo in the ASM tie-in (look, it's the worst version of Carol Danvers).

But while Morrissette's art works better when it's more streamlined, Rocafort's art is at its best when its more asymmetrical and weird. Apart from that 4-page panel of Thanos standing against the backdrop of the entire Marvel universe, there is a lot of abstract concepts being brought to life by Ewing. This is really the most experimental that he's been since The Ultimates started and his work is astounding.

And the story actually felt fun for the first time in a while. Black Panther, Blue Marvel and Spectrum team-up to come up with a sci-fi way to immobilize Thanos while Ms. America and Captain Marvel fight him hand-to-hand. Seeing Monica show up was awkward, I thought she was stuck on another dimension after last issue but that's fine, she does need to catch a break, her attempts to frying people's brains keep getting foiled. This issue does get back to what was at the core of the series in that first arc. In spite of the musings about continuity, life and the detour to Galactus, Lifebringer via Christian Ward, it worked as a group of superheroes fixing problems through clever made-up science and big made-up words. But the musings about continuity, life and Galactus, Lifebringer were what I liked the most about this comic.

Ewing and co. tell an entertaining story and the pages by Rocafort are fantastically drawn, but this book is still doing something completely different from what made me start reading it, while also taking a dip in quality overall. I'm somewhat dissapointed but this is still a very solid comic.