WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Prequel, I Say! (ULTRAVERSE YEAR ONE: DEATH OF THE SQUAD)

 It's a short one this time out.

This miniseries is a prequel to Hardcase...although writer James D. Hundall wanted to tell it before that series started.  And because it was published well into the book's run, Hundall has tacked a...peculiar framing device on it.

You see, by the time we learn about that first year prior to The Jumpstart Event that launches The Strangers and, by extension, the entire Ultraverse, the big reveal about Choice had already been made.  As such, Hundall decides that Linda, who was Hardcase's girlfriend/coworker on the Squad and was the, ummmm, unwilling brain tissue donor so that Choice could have ultrapowers, narrates this tale.

From the hospital bed that's she's been in a coma for the entire series....during, it is implied, as she is passing over to the other side.

It's...weird, to say the least.

The overarcing story itself is pretty good--in some aspects, like when Hundall is defining exactly what Aladdin is supposed to be, it's extremely good--but there are some puzzling bits.  In the first issue, we're introduced to a number of other people who were hit by the same 'jumpstart' that hit Tom, Linda and the others.  Some of them go on to be characters in the Ultraverse proper, like the Hardcase villains Headknocker and dust Devil....but with one exception, we never really see these characters again.  And that one exception is there long enough to serve as a cliffhanger for the third issue, only for us to be told that character was never connected to that cliffhanger and he became a photographer.  Uh....okay.

We should probably mention that third issue ("City on Fire").  If you go past the cover teasing some sort of confrontation with Rex Mundi, the bulk of the issue is about the Squad ignoring orders and trying to help during the Rodney King Riots.  Reading this issue at this point in the project, which has very pointed avoided any 'world outside your window' references to real events, it comes off as very awkward.  The set pieces are as expected and all I could think was 'why are we doing this here?'  And the reintroduction of Javinder, a young Sikh(?) man with electrical powers, just so he can accidentally fry some looters invading his father's convenience store implies a next issue that just isn't--and on some level, readers at the time must've known that issue would never show up because there's only one issue left in the mini and it has to be all about NME wrecking the Squad.  Death of The Squad should have either ignored the Riots or extended the mini by one issue so that they could deal with the implications of that third issue properly.

With the exception of the first issue (which is done by Scott Benefiel), the art for this mini is by George Dove, and it's fairly consistent with the artwork I've seen in all the issues of Hardcase.  It's not remarkable, but it also avoids the disconnect almost all of the other titles has suffered from when a variety of artists work on the same title--or, in this case, a spin-off from a title.

Some mention should be made of the back-ups that appeared in the first three issues, which showed us where certain other Ultraverse characters were in that year prior to the San Francisco Jumpstart.  Mike Barr tells a story about how Eden Blake and her daughter interacted with Starburst in issue #1, we learn what Rune was doing at the time in #2, and #3 is what amounts to a trailer for Codename: Firearm.  They're all okay, although the third backup doesn't do much to make me want to read Codename: Firearm (of course, I'm lucky; I've already done that so you don't have to...)

Ultraverse Year One: Death of The Squad is a good read overall--although I wonder if it wouldn't have been better served as three stand-alone flashback issues placed between story arcs in Hardcase.  That would have gotten rid of the need for the whole 'Linda narrates like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard' framework I found mildly offputting.  I do recommend it.

There's one more mini to cover before I launch into the next core title (and that one's going to take two articles given the second volume, the minis associated with it and the suspected intrigue behind the scenes!).  It's another split book, although it's one that's...kinda telling one story from two directions?  Join us next time as we give the Ultraverse Stage over to the bad guys with Lord Pumpkin/Necromantra!

(Or maybe I'll skip over Lord Pumpkin/Necromantra for a mo' and go to Volume One of Night Man, as I have loads to talk about there and I'm still working out what to say with that mini....) 

 Until then....why be meta when you can be ultra?