The Greatest Comic Ever Made

I fell out of love with comics around 1990 and jumped headfirst into motorbikes, kung fu and disgustingly noisy Metal and, 13 years later, fatherhood.

One day, gripping the pram handle and harumphing whilst the Good Lady Wife faffed about in the shops of Bromley in south London, I noticed the comic shop I used to frequent as a callow youth. The original owner had gone but one of the assistants still remained - defiantly goth as ever, I noted happily. We chatted about this and that, he went "ooh" at my totally disinterested daughter, and that was that. "Ah," he then said "buy this graphic novel - you might like it".

I bought it.

It was called "The Ultimates".

And it is The Greatest Comic Ever Made (c)

As far as I have been able to determine since, Marvel (and DC and Image) lost a lot of sales in the late nineties. I believe the technical term is "shit loads". And it came to pass that Marvel decided to start all over again with their biggest 4 books, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Spider Man and The Avengers, only this time each title would be named ULTIMATE, and essentially allow the characters to start their adventures all over again, but, and this is the important bit, not be set in the 1960's but in the naughty noughties. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were responsible for writing the first titles (Spider man and X-men) and the titles were a palpable hit, encouraging the publishers to expand to the FF and the Avengers.

Enough history. The Ultimates is The Avengers picked up and booted forward 40 years.

Firstly:

1. The book's creative team (Mark Millar as writer, Bryan Hitch as artist and Paul Neary as inker) were British. This staggered me as I thought Blighty had frightened off the American comics market with Alan Moore's terrifying visage.


2. The characters core attributes would remain (i.e. Iron Man would not turn green)


3. Breathtaking, shattering images, it appeared, was no longer the preserve of the square box in the front room

Say hello then to the Best of the Best:

Now, before you say anything, I must concur that the title graphics do appear to have come from the dashboard of a 1980's Audi Quattro, but be strong and press on.

Everything I ever wanted a super hero comic to be, the Ultimates was.

No, in fact it was beyond what I could have dreamt a comic could be.

Issues 1-13, called The Ultimates 1, took a couple of years to publish due to various reasons but are now available in a rather smart hardback edition costing around £20.

If this book can make me visibly vibrate with excitement, it could do the same to you....

And the best bit of all?

Ultimates 2, approaching its denouement, is twice as good as Ultimates 1.

Its so good, I actually bought original artwork, framed it, and have it next to the portrait of my daughter.

Run, yes run, right now to your comic store, shake the owner awake and demand that you want the finest comics known to humanity, you want them here and you want them now!

(look, its paraphrasing a film called Withnail and I, this is a picture of it, it was a great idea in theory, nothing to see here, carry on as you were)