 Ultimate solutions for the ultimate problems. From cosmic forces lurking on earth to whatever weight beyond the omniverse. They start with the impossible and take it from there. Hi everybody, welcome to another exciting episode. Another edition of A Week in Geek, them here on YouTube. This time we're talking the ultimate. I wish I were talking about the ultimate from the Marvel Ultimate Universe, but no, I'm talking about the 616 Ultimate's team that came after the event called Secret Wars from Jonathan Hickman. Out of that massive cosmic convoluted mess, the multiverse was sort of restored, but it still fractured. So if you want to fix things, you're gonna need an ultimate lineup of intellectual badass superheroes to take on the job. And who do you get? Well, you get the characters of Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers I should say, Miss America, Spectrum aka Monica Rambeau, and Blue Marvel himself to fix the universe. So yeah, this book is very interesting for the fact that you have this team that on paper you're like, okay, I sort of get Captain Marvel and Monica because they're cosmic heavyweights. They've been around for way too many years, doing awesome badass things. And then you've got the character of Blue Marvel, which I gotta be honest with you, I didn't really know much about him. I had to read his wiki entry and just sort of catch up, although the book itself does explain his origin story somewhat like a brief recap. And Black Panther, Panther in space is a little bit odd because, you know, you sort of expect them to do Wakandian things and then take care of Earth against all threats, but not literally going out into space into the edge of the universe. And this book goes all out. Al Ewing is a master of just simplifying things that are way too complicated for their own good and streamlining it in such a way that new readers are going to dig it. Whereas with writers like Jonathan Hickman, which do a splendid job of creating this grandiose space opera, it can't be a little bit too much for readers. Without, I have no problem recommending this to any cosmic fan or any Marvel fan in general or any comic book fan. It's basically a mix of A to C Listers going about in space doing awesome, impossible things. One of those things. And it's sort of why the whole book exists in a nutshell is to repair the timeline, time and space, the multiverse, whatever you see with Marvel comics or comic books in general. The whole idea is that these characters can go back in time, go forward in time. You have massive events like Age of Ultron, you have secret wars that really bend the fabric of time and space and you are on a brink of a imminent collapse, if you will. And these characters realize this fact. So they have formed together under the Triskelion or the Shield headquarters or whatever and formed this ultimate team to go into space and fix things. That is sort of the underlying theme and the reason they exist. But beyond that, they really tackle some interesting topics, whether it's going up against this guy himself, Galactus, the Devara of Worlds and just taking a character that has been around for decades in the Marvel Universe and flipping his concept on its head and just establishing something new, fresh, exciting and this new transformation for this character that I know will not be permanent. But for this story is actually quite amazing and brilliant and I love the idea. I won't spoil it, but if you have read it, you know what I'm talking about and what they do with this character that just fundamentally transforms this character forever. Even if the character goes back to his former self, you cannot deny that this will eventually leave to sort of a pathos or an awakening for the character Psyche because he originally was a scientist from the previous era. The previous, I believe it was the sixth dimension or whatnot before the Big Bang and all that stuff. And he was the surviving entity out of this whole mess and became Galactus. So with that premise, he destroys Worlds and that is a problem because he is taking Worlds that might not pose a threat and destroy it and creating sort of this balance in the universe. But with this new transformation, you get an opportunity to reverse all of this stuff in a very interesting way. Aside from that, the Ultimates do tackle the subject of the omniverse in what I can describe as Marvel's attempt at creating a multiversity comic book from Grant Morrison over at DC. Yeah, this is something sort of like that, but a lot more friendlier with characters exploring the multiverse and what lies beyond what we think is out there in space and going beyond the known parameters or the end wall or something, whatever you want to call it, that final goal and going beyond and understanding the concept of the universe. I think the Ultimates does a really good job. Like I mentioned earlier, Al is one of those writers where he can take this convoluted mess that I'm talking about and streamline it in such a way where new readers, like yeah, you'll be confused when they're going about and talking about tacky on readings and ISO 8 and all that stuff, but if you've read Marvel Cosmic or if you've read enough comic books, you understand these concepts. You take all of that convoluted mess and you still have time to present an awesome action adventure story with a diverse roster of characters. I love this roster. It was interesting. I did, I really didn't think it could work, but once you start reading it, it's pretty cool. You do get to see some origin stuff with the character of Galactus plus the mystery character that if you read Volume 2 and 3 onward, you know who the character is and it's pretty interesting and it does concern a heavyweight in the cosmic scene. Also, before I wrap this up, the art in this book is spectacular. Kenneth Rockerford, his record is impeccable, his work is loved by many over at Image or DC or Top Cow and here at Marvel as well. The man's job at drawing these characters is impressive and the characters are really well defined. Their expressions are awesome and the symmetry between all these characters and the way you see them in space or wherever they are at is really great to behold. The one issue I typically have with Rockerford drawings are the backgrounds because he usually takes like diamond shapes for the panels and different figures for the paneling I should say and the rest of the page or the layout is a blank page and that to me, I get it. It's a stylistic choice and it looks awesome but I kind of want to see the background and I kind of want to see the characters integrated in it but when Rockerford draws these characters and say like an alien planet and you see the background and all that stuff, it looks pretty, it looks amazing and I think you guys will like it as well if you've never read it. Ultimate is a fun experiment getting all these characters and really just flipping the concept of the multiverse around and creating something new, fresh and exciting whereas characters or writers like Hickman dwelled a little bit too much in the destruction and order of things. This is sort of a book about healing and finding one place in the universe with unlikely allies doing impossible awesome things. Have you read Ultimate? Let me know down below. I am very curious. I love Marvel Cosmic. It's my favorite aspect of Marvel comic books aside from Spider-Man so I'm really interested in reading the subsequent volumes and seeing where the story goes. I do know that there's that Civil War II tie-in that is not that great but we'll see how the story progresses beyond that point. Guys, thank you so much. As always, like, comment, subscribe to this channel for more awesome content. If you can, spread the word around about a week in Geekdom and I would be forever thankful. Thank you once again and I will catch all of you on our next video.