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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