WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Lost In Translation (CODENAME: FIREARM)

I have now read two titles that were rebooted after the Marvel purchase was in full effect, and I think I figured out what these reboots all suffered from.

Much like The All-New Exiles, which went through five writers in less than a year, Malibu's attempt to create a new more Extreme version of Firearm actually was handed back and forth between writers David Quinn and Marv Wolfman and saw four artists and ten inkers during its six issues.  Of course, each issue advertised a back-up featuring Alec Swan--although only three of those were written by a writer other than creator James Robinson.

Peter Lopez is an Aladdin agent happily married with an ultra-obsessed young son.  He is about to don a special tech-suit and go off on his first super-agent mission to locate someone who made off with a special ultra-detecting macguffin.  He finds his quarry dead and the macguffin in the hands of...shudder...The Blood Brothers (Bloodtrap, Bloodgrip and Bloodrattle--and yes, there is a Blood Mama showing up later).  As if that wasn't enough, he gets a phone call from The Lodge telling him that Operation Burial is in effect.  Suddenly Peter is in a secret Lodge site calling himself Hitch putting on another special tech-suit preparing to break into Aladdin's HQ with orders to determine if that organization is responsible for a series of assassinations of Lodge agents.

Let me get this out of the way--this is nowhere near as good as Firearm or, to be fair, the Steve Gerber Exiles stunt.  But I have to give credit to Quinn and Wolfman in this--they make a concerted effort to not only include elements from the previous series, but an effort to give it a similar feel to the previous series.  Large portions of the story is driven by internal dialogue, not only from Lopez/Hitch but also from Marilu (Incidentally, this might be the earliest example of the 'different character, different color narrative box' thing that's sort of SOP for mainstream comics now).  There is a definite attempt to get us to understand Peter as a person before pulling the switch, and there's a certain gravitas to the family dynamics that feels like something Robinson might have done if he moved forward with his intended set-up of Alec and Ellen relocating to San Francisco and making their own life together.  Hell, the primary firearm used by our hero (heroes?) seems intentionally patterned after the one that Swan had in several stories.

I also liked how Quinn and Wolfman indulged in some story telling experimentation.  I especially enjoyed the fifth and final issue ("Gemini"), where pages are done 'split screen' with titles like 'Two Sides,' 'Two Minds,' and so on.  

That being said, this is the Marvel controlled stretch of the Ultraverse and...the 90's of it all.  The mutha-f'in 90s of it!

The plot is very self-consciously inspired by such twisty paranoia stuff as The X-Files and Alias (the J.J. Abrams spy fanfic, not the Marvel series) to the point where it gets really confusing.  There's a reveal of a character being a double agent who I didn't realize who it was at a key point.  There's very little differentiation between Aladdin and The Lodge....

Plus we're stuck throughout the story with the antics of the Blood Family.  It's obvious to me that the intention was for these characters to walk a fine line between horrific and comedic ( I have to wonder if either writer was a fan of 1980 low-budget horror flick Mother's Day, as I kept getting reminded how these characters evoked the villains of that film), but the effect just. Doesn't. Work.  Whenever these goofs show up, it shatters the air of intrigue and suspense the series is supposed to be about.

The art--by some combination each issue of Gabriel Gecko, Jeff Moore, Klebs Jr. and Gabriel Hardman--is very obviously influenced by the Image house Style and, like many of the artists, they struggled to achieve that style.  Oddly enough, the art is at its best when it's people in plainclothes having conversations or Peter and his family doing family stuff...but then Peter has to put on one of two pockets-and-all supersuits and everything goes south.  I have to wonder if this story was a straight paranoid spy story without costumes and code names--that seems to be what Wolfman and Quinn seems to have wanted judging from their scripts--it wouldn't read and feel better.

I should mention the Alec Swan back-ups, which were advertised on all the covers and composed of two three-part stories.  The one by James Robinson and Cully Hamner was another 'Idle Thoughts,' which I suspect the team would have wanted to do periodically.  It's another action sequence placed in contrast to Alec's thoughts about the benefits and downfalls of living in L.A.  I got a nagging sense that this story should've been placed in between the issues before the relationship between Alec and Ellen was revealed.  The second one was called 'Shopping,' written by Ian Edginton and drawn by Gary Erksine, and seems a little more traditional even though it tries to do the same structure.  In this tale, Alec has to contend with some ultra-powered robbers who raid the supermarket he's gone to, and the narrative is more tied into the action.  That being said, Edginton pulls off an excellent coda which acknowledges Alec's emotional arc throughout the original series and giving him a path to go forward with if there ever was a Firearm Vol. 2.

(There's also, in the fourth issue, 'A Hot Eight Seconds,' two pages of a Hellblade tale by Quinn and John Statema that kind of teases the character's origin and is preceded by a rather...overenthusiastic page telling us how Kewl he was, and comparing his introduction to Incredible Hulk #181, the debut of Wolverine.  It's...two pages, that's for sure.)

Codename Firearm is not good, but it's not bad, either.  You can see what Quinn and Wolfman wanted to do, and how they wanted this to be a thematic as well as narrative continuation of what Robinson intended.  You can read it if you want, as long as you prepare for the rough road ahead.

Next time...more post-Marvel revamp stuff with the short-lived series--or miniseries?-- Foxfire!

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

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WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: A Gun To The Ultra Fight (FIREARM)

I'm still on the beginning legs of my Ultraverse reading project.  You've already read me talking about The Exiles.  I'm holding out on talking about two others--Elven because it ties in very uncomfortably with the series I am least looking forward to writing about, and Break-Thru because I suspect it will make more sense when I reread it at the end of this journey.  And one series, Eliminator, is just so, so nonsensically bad that it's not worth talking about.

I f'in love James Robinson's Firearm.

Alex Swan is an expatriate Brit living in Pasadena, California.  He works as a private detective and bounty hunter.  Before coming to America, Alex was a secret agent for The Lodge, where he was codenamed 'Firearm' due to his skill with his personal handgun.  We don't know if this is just a standard gun or something unique to Swan.  But we do know two things--Alex hates being called by his codename, and for some reason he keeps getting involved in cases involving Ultras.

This was the work of James Robinson, who was just making waves over at DC at the time--and I have a suspicion that he, being the only Brit in the Ultraverse Trust, was told to give the line it's own version of John Constantine...but the roots of Alex Swan are anchored more in classic detective fiction and the Denny O'Niell/Denys Cowan version of The Question.  And I really feel it lays down the roots from which grow the Dan Curtis Johnson/J.H. Williams III Chase, the Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Gaydos Alias, the Bendis/Michael Avon Oeming's Powers and the Ed Brubaker/Mark Rucka/Michael Lark Gotham Central--all books that feature (mainly unpowered) law enforcement professionals operating in and interacting with superhuman crimes.  

(Don't worry; Dave Ulbrich got his John Constantine-type when Warren Ellis took over Ultraverse after the Marvel-owned relaunch...and he was...something)

What makes Firearm work so well is Swan and his characterization as someone, well, really comfortable with himself.  A lion's share of the eighteen issues (plus a zero issue that came packed in with a half hour video 'movie'--the 90's were a powerful drug) are told through Alec's POV.  At first, he's the standard Bad-Ass Brit, but Robinson starts peppering his narration with references to his love of movies, books, and his adopted hometown of Pasadena.  My favorite issues are #5 ("Said T.E. Lawrence, Picking Up His Fork...") and #9 ("Idle Thoughts"). The former is primarily a conversation between Swan and a suicidal woman whose ultra-power is tiny wings and the latter is an essay on how great Pasadena is set against an extended fight scene.  Not to take away from the murderer's row of artists who contribute to this series, including Cully Hamner, Gary Erksine, Howard Chaykin and Mike Wieringo, but Robinson's command of  Swan's voice carries this series and grounds it throughout the run in a feeling that's distinct from other Ultraverse titles.

Another thing that made me love this series so much is something that snuck up on me towards the end of the run.  The run is bookended by two arcs, "American Pasttimes" and "The Rafferty Saga," with one and two issue stories taking up the rest of the run.  In "American Pasttimes," Swan contends with The Sportsmen, a secret society of rich ultrahuman cannibals.  This story, along with pretty much every story leading up to "The Rafferty Saga," ties into the seven issue finale.  Some of these tie-ins are fairly inconsequential (a number of Ultras are introduced throughout the stretch of done-in-one stories that are murdered by Rafferty in issue #12's prologue), and some are pretty hefty...especially when it comes to Ellen, the bewinged woman in issue #5 who we find out has been having a relationship with Alec since then leading to her marrying him in issue #17.  When we learn in issue #16 ("Rafferty In His Own Words") that this serial killer specializing in ultras is being financed by one of the Sportsman, I had a big ol' "Aha!" moment.

This is one of these series that ended because Robinson decided to end it...and for a while I worried that Malibu was going to pull another Exiles on us, but that wasn't the case.  I don't know if Robinson also intended to scare readers into thinking Ellen was going to be fridged, as Green Lantern's girlfriend was murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator a year earlier, incurring the wrath of Gail Simone...but damn if I--and a number of readers, judging from the letter pages--didn't feel that way.

I'm still at the beginning of my Ultraverse read-through, but so far Firearm is far and away my favorite series of the lot.  Robinson had promised he was going to pick up the character after a while, teasing a move to San Francisco in the last letter page.  Of course, by that time the Marvel purchase had gone through, and there were plans in store for a massive line-wide relaunch.

Alec Swan would be back...but he wouldn't be the star of his own book.  That's for next time.

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SUFFERING FOR A CAUSE: Tony Has A Sad (IRON MAN #319)

This is part of a stunt to make me read through notorious Marvel crossover to raise money for the Maui Food Bank.  For every $80 I raise, I will discuss an issue, and especially generous donations will trigger bonus content.  To make your donation, go here .  Any amount will help!  And now onto the festival of fun--or tragedy....

We're still in 1995.  You know what will build up our Wicked Extreme Event?  More foreshadowing!

"Shadows Call"
Written by Terry Kavanaugh
Art by Tom Morgan

Tony is sad.  He thinks about his origin, flirts with falling off the wagon again, pulls off one of Vindicator's big tricks, shows up to christen the new Starcore command center, accepts Bethany Cabe's advances while pining for Pepper Potts, gets all passive aggressive with the Scarlet Witch at the Force Works HQ...and then asks Jarvis to set up a meeting.

This is Terry Kavanagh's first issue as Iron Man scripter, and Tom Morgan's last issue as artist.

And boy, does it make Avengers #390 seem eventful.  

This is definitely an issue of 'spinning the wheels' waiting for the main storyline to begin.  With one or two exceptions, it's just Tony going through some Portentous Angst.  Large portions of it involve Tony watching holograms--both at his undersea base and in Force Works HQ--and yelling at us that There's Something Not Right with him.  The characters around him seem to act...well, out of character (Bethany Cade, a complex and capable character under David Michiliene and Bob Layton, seems motivated in this issue by Thirst.  So, so much thirst).  Of course, some characters, like Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts and the members of Force Works that aren't Wanda Maximoff or USAgent, literally just have a panel so Tony can acknowledge them and angst over his relationship with them.  Of those with a panel, only Mrs. Arborgast is allowed even a thought balloon.  It's just weird seeing all these characters having nothing to do or, in the case of Bethany, be wildly out of character.

Look, I get that what Kavanagh is trying to do is set up Tony's emotional and intellectual place before he shakes everything up.  But there's no context to all this ennui.  There needs to be a little more place setting in this story to drive home where Tony's position is so we can better understand the impact of what we're going to discover in the event proper.

I mentioned this was Tom Morgan's last issue, and it looks like he's already checked out.  He's inking himself, and the linework looks really rough that at best of times seems like he's aping John Byrne but at worse like he's not bothering with panel to panel continuity.  Not that I'm super-focused on Bethany Cabe, but her facial features don't match from her one panel intro to her longer scene that starts after a page of Tony brooding on his balcony.  Of course, it doesn't help that the colorist, credited simply as 'Ariane,' miscolors her hair as orange for two pages, or that Morgan seems incapable of making Pepper Potts (who has, in the past, been portrayed with a smattering of freckles) look distinct from her.  It looks like it was rushed, and doesn't sell the importance of What Is About To Happen.

Other than conveying that Tony is Depressed, this issue doesn't make me excited for what the next issue blurb promises is 'The greatest event in the history of Iron Man and The Avengers.'  But maybe I'm wrong; maybe the blurb is being truthful when it promises 'it will rock the universe.'

...and you know what that means, folks.  After I hit the next milestone, it'll be time for the 48 page Chromium Extravaganza that is...The Crossing!

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SUFFERING FOR A CAUSE: A Midsommer Night's Foreshadowing (AVENGERS #390)

This is part of a stunt to make me read through notoriously bad Marvel crossover to raise money for the Maui Food Bank.  For every $80 I raise, I will discuss an issue, and especially generous donations will trigger bonus content.  To make your donation, go here.  Any amount will help!  And now onto the festival of fun--or tragedy....

The summer of 1995.  The Investor's Bubble is bursting, but no one's told the comic industry yet.  A number of new comics companies launch, although another company, Defiant (started by Jim Shooter after he was ousted from Valiant, which he started after he was ousted by Marvel) shuttered after two years.  Marvel, having purchased Malibu Comics, begins teasing their restructuring of the latter's Ultraverse titles.  And the Avengers...

The Avengers needed to get its sales up, leading to...shudder...'The Crossing.'

And it all begins here...with a prologue.

"Campfire Tales"
Written by Bob Harras from a story by Harras and Terry Kavanagh
Art by Mike Deodato
Inks by Tom Palmer

So a handful of Avengers from the tail end of the Harras/Epting run are hanging out at Tony Stark's cabin in the Adirondacks.  Deathcry--the Shi'ar niece of Queen Lilandra who was forced onto the Avengers by royal decree--is trying out for the next Marvel Swimsuit Edition in the pond outside, Quicksilver is behaving dickish for the entertainment of his daughter Luna, Magdalene and Hercules are...playing American Gladiator with tree trunks?  I can't tell...and Crystal is grilling treats brought to her by Swordsman and promising Lockjaw that yes, she will give him some.  It does seem like most of this opening scene is 'For Da Adults' considering the swimsuit choices; even Swordsman sports nothing but a black Speedo and Hercules is shirtless.  Hercules chases a runaway Lockjaw into a glade and meets Tuc, a Mysterious Youth With a Set of Avengers-Branded Tarot Cards.  This prompts Herc to take Tuc back with him to the campfire, where our Mysterious Youth reads their fortune.  Quicksilver is warned that there's a tragedy coming for him and Crystal, who is his soulmate.  Deathcry is warned that her homesickness may...cause trouble...I think.  Hercules is warned that there is a viper in the midst of the team.  And Marilla is told Luna loves her, which causes the Inhuman nanny to walk away depressed.  Later, when Luna is in bed, Tuc creeps into her bedroom and assures the toddler he did everything he could because 'the storm is coming'.  Oh, and Tuc claims Luna's his big sister.

(Oh, and in a two page sequence, Janet Van Dyne and Hank Pym are told that Jan is bankrupt..)

I should start off by saying I am one of those people who actually enjoyed the Bob Harras/Steve Epting run.  Yeah, it was flawed and desperately wanted to be X-Men (when your 350th anniversary issue is about your team fighting The Starjammers, that says more about you than the book you're supposed to be writing), but when it was good it was great.  And one of the things I love about this issue is the artwork--it's distinctly Deodato, but thanks to Inking God Palmer's inks, there's a visual continuity that makes the transition feel seamless.  Even though the fan service is off the chart it's overall good--if not great--storytelling that feels and looks like this series at this time.

But there are some flaws, beginning with the fact that this series is suffering from the 'Things Will Never Be The Same' Disease that affected Marvel after the initial success of the Clone Saga...and this cast is...vast.  There's so many different characters that Harras and Kavanagh want to give some time in the spotlight that somewhere the need to write an actual, you know, plot got lost.  And on top of that, they introduce a new character that is meant to be a Big Deal so we've got some spotlighting there, too.  I just never get the feeling that this is nothing more than a case of setting up the deck chairs with obtuse hints at what is about to come.  It's all...much ado about nothing.

(Yes, keeping up the pretentious Shakespeare posturing of both the comic and this article's title....)

At this point, I feel more confused than excited about what's to come--even though the last panel is sure to hype Avengers: The Crossing, a 48 page special that will 'change the Avengers forever.'

Famous last words...but at least Jan seems happy.

But before we get to that, it's time for Terry Kavanagh to start his run on everyone's favorite armor-wearing industrialist with Iron Man #319!  See you next time!

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SUFFERING FOR A CAUSE!: Make Me Read Marvel's The Crossing!

You see this book?

This book collects one of the most notorious 'crossover events' in comics history.

Designed to do for the Avengers what 'The Death of Superman' did for Superman, 'Knightfall' did for Batman and 'The Clone Saga' (partially) did for Spider-Man, 'The Crossing' is generally hailed at an incoherent mess that redefined a slew of characters that maybe...didn't need redefinition.  Because of 'The Crossing,' we had Teen Tony Iron Man, a Wasp that was actually part wasp, and the Eidolon Warware War Machine (look it up; it wasn't pretty).  It's a crossover so confusing and full of dangling plot threads that Kurt Busiek wrote it off as an intentional plan to confuse people in his maxi-series Avengers Forever.  It so screwed up the intent to drive sales up on Avengers, Iron Man and related series that Marvel reached out to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee to reboot both series under the 'Heroes Reborn' umbrella.  It frequently ends up at the top of a number of Worst Marvel Storyline lists.

And I am willing to suffer through it all for you...but it will cost you.

I'm pretty sure all of you are aware of the absolute devastation that has hit Maui. And it was made very clear from the three Halloween Horrorfest events that you love it when I suffer.  So if you want me to go through this Gauntlet of Bad Comics, I will require you to visit my Facebook Donation Page and give money to The Maui Food Bank so we can help feed all the people who have been left in this traumatic situation.

You can donate what you want, but for every $80 I raise, I will produce a new article featuring the next issue in this 24 issue collection, with an ultimate goal of $2000.  And for particularly large donations (or if we go over the goal), I may end up doing something special.  After all, there were people who actually came up with this monstrosity, and I. Have. Questions!

(Also...if you'd like to throw a few coins my way, I'd invite you to think about joining my Patreon  or buying me a Ko Fi . And if you have something you'd like me to suffer through for charity, whether comic, film franchise or something else, please let me know my Gauntlet and your charity of choice.  I reserve the right to say no, but all serious suggestions will be considered!)

I should let you know that, as of this writing, $100 has already been raised--so expect an article on Avengers #390, the first issue of this event, during the week.

Please help out these people suffering in Hawaii by making me suffer!

WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Hello, We Must Be Going (EXILES v. 1-2 and THE ORDER)

Earlier this year, I decided to read every issue of the short lived venture that was Malibu Comics' Ultraverse.

For those who wonder what I'm talking about (I know you're out there; I can here you scratching your head), the Ultraverse was a shared superhero universe that lasted five years from 1993 to 1997 and was one of many, many reactions to the success of Image Comics the year.  There are two things that made it unique separate from other shared universes: 

1. Malibu was the original distributor for Image before The Maverick Five made so much money they could strike out on their own, and...
2. Malibu was bought out by Marvel in 1994, and it is believed the sale was solely because Marvel coveted their at-the-time innovative coloring process...or because DC expressed an interest in buying it first.

According to publisher David Olbrich and editor-in chief Chris Ulm, the Ultraverse was developed by the top down by eight creator specifically to be a tightly connected world which emphasized crossovers.  We'll get to most all of these writers--I will endeavor to avoid talking about one of them until absolutely necessary for reasons that will become apparent then--but we're going to talk today primarily about Steve Gerber.

I'm putting this out right now--Steve Gerber is one of my heroes.  One of my earliest comic purchases was Daredevil and The Black Widow #97.

Okay, it was pretty bad....but this former ad man who came over to comics at the behest of Roy Thomas because his job was driving him nuts (his experience in the ad world became the inspiration for one of Gerber's weirdest stories, "In The Shadows of the City," a fourth wall breaking horror tale in Haunt of Horror #2) created some of the strangest, most absurd and unique comics.  This is the man who created Howard The Duck. Omega The Unknown and The Elf With The Gun, wrote a storyline in Defenders where lower tier hero Nighthawk's brain was placed in a deer, frequently broke up comic stories with prose pages, and put an official appearance by Kiss in a story featuring a villain straight-facedly called Dr. Bong...and that was only the early 70's!  He would go on to be a writer for Ruby Spears and Sunbow on Transformers, GI Joe and Dungeons & Dragons (introducing Jack Kirby to the former studio, which led to what may be the happiest period in Jack's life), create Thudarr The Barbarian and wrote the first issue of Marvel's Nightmare on Elm Street black and white magazine--which Marvel canceled immediately after that issue was released.

 Which brings us to 1993, and Gerber's involvement in creating the Ultraverse.  During the planning stages, Geber conspired with fellow Marvel vet Steve Englehart to create 'The Drunken Magician,' a character who was a hero for all the wrong reasons--and would die suddenly because he was a hero for all the wrong reasons.  Olbrich and Ulm weren't keen on the Magician as such, but they did like the idea of a book advertised as an ongoing when it's actually a limited series about characters fated to die.  The two suggested taking a concept they were playing around with and using it, also tying the character's death into the planned first line-wide crossover.  Gerber was keen on it, having pitched to DC a Vertigo revamp of The Inferior Five that would make fun of the 'grim-n-gritty' trend of 90's comics only to have it turned down.

...and those various threads came together in this uniquely skewed mind to give birth to the four issue series Exiles.

There's this nearly fatal airborne disease that apparently preys upon impossibly beautiful people called the Theta Virus.  The good news is that Dr. Rachel Demings has come up with a process of genetic resequencing that can cure people.  The bad news is you can only really get effective treatment from Dr. Demmings' secret island facility called Stronghold, and she doesn't know if the treatment stops you being infectious to others.  The good news is that a side effect of this treatment is the patients maybe gaining super-powers--resulting in Demmings 'training' these super-powered youth to become her Exiles...

Reading through this summary might remind you of a certain other wildly popular intellectual property of the time.  And looking at some of the characters code-names--the heroes are Tinsel, Catapult, Trax, Mustang, Deadeye, Ghoul and Amber Hunt, while the bad guys are...wait for it...Bloodbath, Supreme Soviet, Mastadon and Bruut (complete with umlat)--might remind you of certain other fairly new but wildly popular IP of the time.

Steve Gerber intended those associations.  Gerber has always been both socially conscious and believed in the utter absurdity of superheroes.  And I suspect knowing he was given permission to destroy this playhouse he was handed and was already itching to tear apart the state of comics of the time, he just let his freak flag fly.  These four issues are a savage takedown of how 'edgy' and 'flashy' superhero comics had become at a time, with a special aim being taken at the costume gumbo that the X-books had become over at Marvel.

Now granted, it's not being played for laughs--but then Gerber realized that the best way for your joke to land is to play it totally straight.  When I started reading the first issue, I was taken aback by how...boiler-plate it was.  But the boiler-plate of it coupled with Paul Pellitier's conscious aping of Image house styles, conceals the set-up for Gerber's critique.  It's not until I was deep within the second issue--which includes the 'sudden senseless death of a civilian' trope Gerber used in a number of his works for Marvel--that I realized all these characters were, well, intentionally terrible people.  Even Amber Hunt, who is meant to be the team's Kitty Pryde-esque reader identification proxy, is a shallow airhead who visibly recoils during her tour of Stronghold due to its condition.  And they all seem to be doing what they're doing recklessly and not trying to rise above their faults.  Of all the characters, only Ghoul seems the least bit sympathetic before he goes all Punisher to avenge the death of his sweetheart...and I think that's consciously because he was intended to become a member of Ultraforce (the line's Justice League analog) after the series was terminated.

All the sins of what some people call the Chromium Age is laid out for all of us, with Gerber doing the most effective kind of commentary.  At the end of the fourth issue, there's a one page letter from Gerber explaining the whole process behind this miniseries-that-wasn't-presented-as-a-miniseries and what they hoped to achieve.  And even in that time where the concept of internet fandom was still developing, you have to admire him and his co-conspirators for keeping everything under wraps (Malibu printed solicitation for an issue five, featuring 'The Hoaxster and His Carnival of Lies').  It's a great read, albeit one where you have to be familiar with the state of 90's comics before the Investor bust.

Now after Marvel's purchase of Malibu, there was a second attempt to pull off the very same thing with The All-New Exiles....although this one doubled down even more on the X-Men simile by incorporating three X-villains into the line-up.  Granted, two of those X-baddies were Reaper and Sienna Blaze, characters so badly conceived that when offered the chance to reintegrate them into the Marvel Universe, the editors of the X-books at the time politely declined.  The other non-ultra character, Juggernaut, was promptly returned to 616 after five issues.  In addition to these guys, we had Amber Hunt carrying over from the original Exiles (which I guess makes these Exiles not 'All-New after all), a ninja-themed, female Gambit copy called Shuriken, a Cable copy with precognitive abilities called Strike, and a Wolverine/Ghost Rider mash-up called Hellblade.  After the Juggernaut returned to the X-books, he was replaced as the team tank by Cayman from Freex.  The weirdest thing about this iteration of the team was how the first issue of that book, The All-New Exiles Infinity, reflected Marvel's first issue of their Exiles book in 2000.

The biggest problem with the new series was that it was badly written, partially because no one could be bothered to stay on it long.  Terry Kavanagh seemed to be the regular writer, as he penned the two-part story that led into the series, and wrote four of the eleven regular issues--although he needed help from Ben Raab in writing two and Jerald DeVictoria for one.  But in between those four issues was one written by Ian Edginton, and after Kavanagh David Quinn wrote two, Marc Paniccia dropped in for an issue (long enough to introduce the closest thing the book had to a main villain, an Amazo knock-off with extraterrestrial mufti called Maxis), Ann Nocenti did two and Phil Crain wrote the final issue.  Obviously, each writer had just enough time to introduce pet characters and hint at a direction before being replaced...which made the run really...nonsensical.  That final issue, which managed to be even more befuddling by dragging in a group of characters from a recently canceled series to be wiped out alongside the Exiles.  I find it fitting that the last caption box in that story simply states that the team has been wiped out, adding a somewhat cynical 'bye-bye' at the end.

Reading this run was not a pleasant experience.

Oddly enough, the 'limited series pretending to be an ongoing title where all the heroes die in the end' trick was used a third time, in Marvel's post-Civil War series The Order.  The Order was the official super-team of Los Angeles* funded by Tony Stark and overseen by Pepper Potts.  Over the course of ten issues, Matt Fraction revealed that these heroes were less than sterling, and there was a promise of each of these characters' sins coming to bite them on the ass...only for the group to be trapped by Ezekiel Stane in an underground, air-tight chamber until, it was implied, they suffocated to death in the tenth issue.

Now Matt Fraction claimed he was having problems writing the book and came up with the sudden ending himself...but I wonder if he read the experiment that was The Exiles and decided to do his own take on that tactic.  And if you squint, you can see The Order as a spit-take on Wildstorm's popular series The Authority, given the power sets of some of the characters.  I remember reading, liking, and being somewhat upset by the resolution, 

Anyway, even though it is very, very self-consciously 90's and over the top, I would recommend checking out Steve Gerber's four issues.  Just keep in mind that some of the bathos is intended to be funny, and you'll do fine.  I'd forget The All-New Exiles ever existed if I was you just like Marvel has forgotten the Ultraverse ever existed.  

(And to be fair, The Order was pretty well written and featured great Barry Kitson art...it's worth your time)

I will endeavor to continue reporting on my read of the entire Ultraverse line and, after that, other 90's attempt to get on the Superhero Multiverse Train (I'm looking at you, Broadway Comics...)  Until then--why be Meta when you can be Ultra?

*--Los Angeles has never had much success when it came to super-hero teams.  One day soon, you'll be hearing a long-lost podcast featuring myself and Michael Bailey discussing eleven year old Tom's favorite comic book, The Champions.