DREAD'S REVIEW OF "ULTIMATE AVENGERS"
Truth be told, I love animation. This zeal came as a kid when alongside issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, I enjoyed the usual crop of 80's cartoons (HE-MAN, TRANSFORMERS, INSPECTOR GADGET, NINJA TURTLES), continuing with the 90's cartoons of DC icons (Batman and Superman), as well as Marvel's. Junior High brought on the discovery of anime, and showed me how mature animation could be, if treated seriously. Ever since I have strived for higher standards for animation as I know it can be MORE than flashy colors, singing animals and action figure infomercials. Posters who see me pop up in TV forums for Teen Titans, TMNT, JLU & THE BATMAN can maybe sense this.
Marvel's forays into animation have, frankly, not always been too hot. Sure, in the early days, their shows were crudely animated, but SUPERFRIENDS was hardly an Emmy achievement either. Most of their 90's shows, whether good (X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN), bad (AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND, SPIDER-MAN: UNLIMITED) or average, usually due to one bad season out of two (IRON MAN, FANTASTIC FOUR, INCREDIBLE HULK), were triggered by Arad's zeal for Toy Biz toys. DC has ruled the airwaves with long lasting, intelligent cartoons for over 12 years with their "Timmverse" of B:TAS/S:TAS/BEYOND/JL/JLU, and also ventured into the "Pokemon Generation" with TITANS and THE BATMAN. Meanwhile, since the mid-late 90's really, the only Marvel cartoon that lasted beyond a season was X-MEN: EVOLUTION, a show that hardcores panned, but everyone else loved, whose fate went into limbo because Marvel distanced themselves from it and the WB (their rivals) own the rights.
It is worth mentioning EVOLUTION because a lot of the names involved with that show return. Series designer Steve Gordon returns for ULTIMATE AVENGERS, as do two key writers. ULTIMATE AVENGERS is Marvel's first attempt at quality animation for over 2 years and the first of their releases with LIONS GATE. A sequal is already in the works, as well as an IRON MAN feature, a DR. STRANGE one and possibly 5 other works.
If ULTIMATE AVENGERS is any indicator, we are in for some good stuff.
The story relies heavilly on the first 6 issues of THE ULTIMATES comics, as do the designs (frankly Iron Man is the biggest departure, as his look here is closer to the canon comics than Ultimate), but it is not handcuffed by it. Plus, much like the best adaptations of old comic stories, as seen on X-MEN, TMNT, and even the Timmverse toons at times, the writers make use of that time-age thing, "HINDSIGHT", to improve on some areas of the original work, or in the least adjust it to fit the medium and the audience. For example, the aliens that the team would fight in the second half of ULTIMATES, as well as the Kleiser (the alien Nazi who takes Red Skull's place as Captain America's WW2 arch foe) are introduced early, to better flow with the second chapter. Black Widow is brought in early, likely to add another woman to the team in addition to Wasp, which brings with it some new story elements. And while certain sequences of the Ultimates comics are translated nearly panel-for-panel (like about 75% of the beginning sequence with Cap in WW2), the special has its own uniqueness to keep fans guessing.
Some people will say, "why'd they have to change X, Y, and Z", but c'mon, half of the fun of non-comic adaptations is seeing what is changed, what isn't, and what the writers do on their own. Because straight translations can be boring. Even SIN CITY took some minor liberties.
I will say that while I like THE ULTIMATES, and while I feel Mark Millar is great on it, and that whenever issues of this late book ship, it deserves to sell in the Top Ten like it does, ULTIMATE AVENGERS is a suitable title because the show seems to throw in more elements of 616. The tone is lighter than Millar's work, and understandably so; Millar often writes at an extreme, and that can put people off. I have read many people who pan ULTIMATES because of "thug Cap" or "cannibal Hulk", which are both true. Ultimate Cap kicks people when they're down, and suckerpunches people with uzi's, while Hulk is a rampaging monster in the purest sense. Here, Cap is more pure, and even Hulk has some moments of heroism (as well as a subtle climax that captures more of the heart of the character than some stuff from Ultimate). Even Iron Man retains more roots in design as well as his initial desire to "work alone" as a solo hero. On the whole, though, the PG-13 rating seems a bit harsh as all of the stuff here, even the scenes of aliens being blasted or soldiers being vaporized, are really not any worse than some of the stuff on JLU. Does that sort of stuff fall into PG-13 now? Maybe because it is a cartoon. There is no nudity or cursing, but frankly, few stories really NEED that sort of thing (SIN CITY sort of shows how Miller goes overboard with it at times).
The story itself is simple; Cap goes on his last adventure in 1945 to shut down the Nazi's last ditch weapon, a nuke aimed at Washington, which has been built apparently by Nazi scientists in alliance with aliens (the Chituri). Cap seemingly kills their leader Kleiser before giving his own life to blow up the rocket, plunging him into the icey depths of the ocean. Fast foward 60 years, and SHIELD, anxious to discover the secret of his super-soldier serum, find him encased in a glacier, and he is very much alive. On hand is Gen. Fury, head of SHIELD who seems to take his marching orders from the U.N., and scientists Betty Ross and Bruce Banner, the latter of whom has had his life seemingly ruined by the Hulk, and sees the project as his shot at redemption (although not in the same way as Ross sees it). Cap, after an bit of a "misunderstanding" that was rough on about a half dozen soldiers and Fury's jaw, is your "man out of time" as he is stuck coping with a world that has passed him by (his friends are all dead, save for Bucky, who married his youthful sweetheart and both are geriatric). However, when a satellite intended to locate the remaining aliens instead gets trashed by them, Fury is ordered to jump-start PROJECT: AVENGER so there is some means of defense before another satellite can be safely launched (Fury seems to care more about the lives of his astronaunts than his superiors do).
And so they are forced to go after "costumed civilians". Agent Black Widow is used to try to coax Stark into cooperating on SHIELD business requirements as well as giving them a lead on the armored hero Iron Man, who Stark secretly is. Hank Pym and his wife Janet, ex-SHIELD workers, are eventually tapped as Giant-Man and Wasp, with the former's ego being even bigger than his ability to grow 60 feet tall, with his wife being more dominated by him (or apologizing for him). There is also an attempt to recruit the supposed "son of Odin", Thor, who holds "peaceful" eco-demonstrations until he is "provoked", which then leads to showcases of power (in this case, scaring off a whaling ship). Thor turns them down, but seems to see some common bond in the soldier Steve, as does Black Widow. Iron Man also is essentially forced into hearing their offer, but soon joins the team to defend a SHIELD base that a Chituri has invaded.
However, they are not a team yet; everyone but Cap and Widow disobeys their orders for one reason or another, and the mission is a total failure, leading to the team breaking down even more and Cap losing even more faith in himself (all he has left is "duty to America" and he can't even do that). The reworked story basically has Widow serve as a "romantic interest" with Cap, which was an unexpected twist that actually is pretty interesting. After all, like her, Cap is a soldier, the greatest there is, in fact. I'd prefer a clever new idea (like Cyke/Rogue or Avalanche/Kitty from Evolution) than blindly adhering to canon if it works.
Even Fury is about ready to scrap the team, especially when Banner claims he's managed to get a working serum ready. The trick is, there are no test subjects like he'd claimed; only himself. He wants to use Cap's process to stablize the Hulk, a chance he gets when the Triskalon is under attack by aliens. And it actually WORKS for a while. The Hulk manages to save Betty and jump off to kick some monster ass with the rest of the heroes. This leads to a showdown with the aliens where all of the Avengers, even Thor, show up when they are needed. However, in the end the Hulk cannot control himself after all, and goes into a knock-down brawl with the other heroes. However, unlike in Ultimates, there is no people eating, no killing of innocents. And in the end, after a terrific brawl, it is Betty who manages to sooth the Hulk into a slumber, and in the end doesn't that work better with the character? The Hulk always represented not only one's inner dark rage, but the fact that there are some threats that cannot be contained with sheer aggression. You can't beat the Hulk by fighting him; he only gets stronger, madder, tougher. But Ross is the beauty that he loves, who can calm even that savage beast. The ending almost begs for a sequal and I can't seem to wait until August, which means Part 1 did its job. I hope there are more installments.
Now, first the criticisms and then the points on details. ULTIMATE AVENGERS was not perfect, and I don't mean in the unrealistic sense. Some of these flaws are actually due to basing it on Ultimates; namely, aliens are overused, flat enemies to superheroes in comparison to a good ol' supervillian like Kang or Red Skull or Ultron, and that is all due to Ultimates. The aliens are really not too interesting here, they only serve as something for the team to mobilize to fight. And with a cast of some NINE heroes, some of them naturally get neglected. Most of the focus is on Cap and Banner, with some secondary bits on Widow, Stark, and the Pym's. Thor basically has little more than an extended cameo, but ALL of his scenes were incredible. The music that would play whenever he used his mighty hammer just gave off a "godly" feel, and Dave Boat ate up the few lines he had. The other major flaw is that 71 minutes felt too short to really give it their all; another 15-30 minutes devoted to some characterization and interaction, one of the stronge bits of Ultimates, would have helped it. The sequal, by the sneak preview, seems to delve more into the histories of the others (like Thor), but most movies are at least beyond 80 minutes for good reason. Lastly, some of the voices were better than others, and while most of the cast was strong, D'Abo, who is normally so solid on JLU, really hammed up her lines with Widow with her thick Russian fake accent and made all of them sound worse than they could have been. It hampered her acting a little. And yes, the story was very simple and straightfoward.
More on the positive. Captain America was handled well, with the opening being very classy. Most of the voice actors do their job well, although Wordon will never be as good an Iron Man as Robert Hayes was. The action sequences were all incredible, especially that Hulk fight. The animation was a step above all of Marvel's TV fare and the music was about as theatrical as anything from the Timmverse. Cap did sound "young" at times, but when he gave orders he had a little more authority to his voice, and one has to recall, Cap would have been in his mid-20's likely in WW2 and he was just unthawed. I think it also helped Cap come off as more like a person than some perfect icon like Superman. Giant-Man's actor really sold the role well; every line came off as arrogant. I could go on about a lot of those scenes that made the Marvel Zombie in me smile, from the Rebirth chamber to Thor being the only person to fight Hulk solo for any length of time to Cap's inability to quit when everything was on the line, to Ross managing to plead the Hulk down in the end, being the one person Banner would never want to hurt.
Hopefully the second installment will improve on the first, although introducing a new Avenger while many of the founders still need development may not be wise. And it definately needs to be longer and bolder. Still, from the opening sequence to the final CLANG of Cap's mighty sheild, this special merely reminded me of some of the reasons why I love Marvel, which is so rare these days in the age of "shock the Internet in half!" over there. If you are a Marvel fan, a superhero fan and you expectations are not too high, then ULTIMATE AVENGERS should please you overall.
it has been around for ages along with Thor and the Norse mythology.
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