WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Even Mythical Birds Lay Eggs (PHOENIX RESSURECTION)

Phoenix Ressurection was the first post-reboot Ultraverse line-wide crossover.  And it's a miserable mess.

The Phoenix is dragged into the Ultraverse by an ancient alien starship, which is looking for something to power its engines.  The Phoenix, being the Phoenix, seeks out a host body and gravitates toward some of the more powerful Ultras.  Prompted and aided by Gateway, the X-Men (with Banshee and Jubilee who are taking a break from Generation X) travel to the Ultraverse to do...something? with the Phoenix and ends up teaming with Ultraforce to prevent the starship from getting a Phoenix-powered jumpstart and blasting itself free from--and shattering--the Earth.

Now, the event itself only covers two issues of the four issues that are branded as belonging to Phoenix Ressurection, Genesis and Revelations (three of the four issues don't have numbers, only subtitles...thanks, Ultraverse!).  And of the two other issues, one is composed of reprints of back-up strips that appeared in various titles teasing the event along with a new back-up where Jubilee sits and reflects on the whole event a whole week before the event actually happens.  The other, Aftermath, has nothing to do with the story proper, choosing to follow the incidental character Rose Autumn into the future to collaborate with future version of the Ultra characters to take down an invasion force.  Keep in mind that this last issue features Wolverine and The Beast on the cover, implying there's still some X-Man content in there.

Let's get to the main story here before I discuss Aftermath.  It's pretty incoherent, to be honest, and it's made even more confounding by making the guest stars...the stars.  These two issues are done almost exclusively from the point of view of the X-Men as soon as they're introduced, whereas there are a number of Ultra-characters, specifically the Lauren Mantra and Night Man, who don't do much except show up at fight scenes and stand around in the background.  Hell, I don't think Mantra's presence is even acknowledged.  We do get a couple of panels a piece of Rose and her dad having their apartment wrecked during the fight so she can transform into Foxfire to scare Amber Hunt.  And writer Ian Edginton does try to tie up some loose ends from Hardcase by bringing in Rex Mundi and The Alternate.  But it is very clear right from the start that this is an Ultraverse crossover about a Marvel concept that achieves its crossover by involving Marvel characters as protaganists, and anything else but the Marvel stuffage is irrelevant.

I wish I could say more about these two issues...but there's nothing to talk about.  This is the first time I've encountered something that feels like product published under the Ultraverse banner.  I don't blame Edginton, but at no point did I feel like this was a story he wanted to tell.  Instead, it's a story that editorial--that, to be more precise, marketing--wanted to be told under the guise of drawing more Marvel fans to Ultraverse comics  when it seemed more like an excuse to milk money out of X-Men fans.  I may not have written yet about the disastrous Eliminator series (yet!), but even that mess was something someone wanted to tell badly.  There's nothing here to excite you; it's just enough confusing fight scenes to entice you to buy it.

sigh...I'm going to move on to Aftermath, because there's something to talk about there.  This is a...pilot?...for the Foxfire character, which is confusing because it has nothing much to do with the series we ended up with.  Rose is thrown into a future where humanity is under attack by an alien race called The Progeny.  She is told by resistance leader Hawke that she was developed out of ultra and progeny DNA to become a living weapon in this ongoing war, sent back in time as an infant to hide her and provided with two robots to act as her parents/guardian.  Her exposure to the Phoenix triggered her powers, prompting her to be returned to this future.  She reconciles with her robot father and joins up with versions of the Ultra-heroes to implant the Progeny with the Theta Virus from the original Exiles title, leaving her to wonder what he place is in this Strange New World.

If you've read my discussion of the series that spun out from this issue, you'll probably see a bit of a disconnect between what's set up here and what it resulted.   What makes it even more puzzling for me is that, some rather obvious bits of X-Envy aside, the series that's set up here is more interesting than what we got.  Considering how the Ultraverse seemed to play out primarily in the present day even though there is a sense of a much more expansive history, the idea of a series set in the future has its appeal.  And quite frankly, I think I preferred what Edginton and co-writer Dan Abnett hinted at concerning Rose's mother than what we ended up with.

The art is handled jam style, with the two books that encompass the actual crossover being done by a number of pencilers who were working on Ultraverse titles at the time.  They're not doing there best work, most likely because there was an awful amount of pressure to get this project out on a biweekly schedule.  But the artwork from Aftermath....yowch.    As is the risk with any jam issues, the style from page to page is wildly inconsistent, with competent work by Leonard Kirk giving way to some truly hideous art that I think was inspired by graffiti and street art.  While the art on the previous issues end up more generic than anything else, the art on this issue truly draws attention away from the story in a negative way.  A very, very negative way.

This may be the worst thing that ever came out of the Marvel purchase--if not the entire line as a whole.  The sheer lack of passion in this project save for the last issue is overwhelming--and that last issue is hamstrung by how it was ignored when Foxfire got her own title.  I would in no way recommend it.

Thankfully, next time we travel to the other side of the purchase with a story that James D. Hundall wanted to tell prior to the official start of the Ultraverse and its...bizarre framing sequence.  It's time for me to experience....deep breath...Ultraverse Year Zero: Death of The Squad, covering the time leading up to Hardcase #1!

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

WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Who Invited The Space Viking? (GODWHEEL)

I used to be a big ass wrestling fan.  I'm still intrigued with some aspects (like the thought that goes into booking), but I really have problems watching the product today.

I bring this up to evoke March 26th, 2001.  That was the night where Titan Sports, the unholy fiefdom of Vince MacMahon, incorporated their sale of WCW into the ongoing storyline.  Vince showed up on the last WCW Nitro to gloat, only for son Shane to announce he bought the organization out from under him.  The possibilities were endless...and were quickly dashed to pieces as the 'Invasion' storyline that resulted was made up mainly of Vince putting over his product by making their product look stupid. As. Fuck.

And after reading it, I am convinced that Godwheel was the Ultraverse's March 26th, 2001.

Argus is the last of the Gods of Vadhala.  His fellow Gods have slain each other, and the three items that will jumpstart the Crucible that empowers them all have been scattered to different points along the Godwheel, a giant, well, wheel made of cosmic stuffage and containing countless worlds.  Since Argus is rapidly running out of energy to keep him alive, he plucks a number of people from the Ultraverse that will help him get those objects.  Given that these people include the evil sorcerer Boneyard, the demonic Lord Pumpkin, the evil version of Mantra Necromantra and a frozen shell of Prime that Necromantra revives called Primevil, there is a bit of conflict about how to go about it.  So this results in two groups--one virtuous, one not nice a'tall--racing to obtain the three objects.....

Even thought it's a little bit all over the place, I think the idea behind this weekly crossover event is sound--what this shapes up into is a throwback to the Silver Age Justice League of America.  You know the storytelling template I'm talking about--there's this threat with three components, the heroes split up into smaller teams, resolve the threat and reunite for the Big Ass Fight.  And the real gimmick that drives the event is actually quite appealing.  You see, the four issues of Godwheel are flip books (the Ultraverse went hard on Flipbooks, frequently using them to tease new titles including an anthology, Ultraverse Premiere, that was used to test new concepts).  And each issue is written by a different writer, and is split into two parts that are drawn by two different art teams.  So readers picking up this event due to the much teased participation by a major Marvel character ends up getting a pretty accurate picture of the range of writers and artists that they'll encounter in the future.

...and it works even better because each individual issue seems plotted to each writer's strength.  Thus, Dan Danko and Chris Ulm can focus on the world-building in the initial 0 issue, Hundall can work on characterization, and Mike W. Barr can...deal in general chaos.  And the artists chosen are the best mix of known names and up and comers--I was pleasantly surprised that Scott Benefiel got to do a chapter given how much I appreciated his work on Hardcase, and let's be honest, no one does final Big Ass Battle better than George Perez.  If you approach Godwheel as just an Ultraverse issue and excise the Marvelness, it's a very effective sampler for new readers of what they can respect.

But...that f'in Marvel Guest Star.

Godwheel wants you to know this is The Event That Guest Stars Thor.  Every issue has Thor's picture in the logo box on both sides of the Flip Book.  The last book of the mini screams out on its cover 'Thunder Strikes The Ultraverse.'  You'd expect Thor's presence to be a Really Big Deal.  Well, in actuality in issue #1 we see that Argus can detect another dwelling of Gods, prompting a panel of Thor's lower leg sitting on a throne.  Then, in issue #3, Argus opens a portal looking for someone to help get all these pesky Ultras off him, George Perez pops up on pencils just in time for Thor to burst through the portal and blacken all of Argus' hundred eyes.  The other Ultras coo and fuss over him, and he uses Mjolnir to send everyone where they want to be.

You see why I brought up March 26, 2001.  We get three and two-thirds of a straightforward Ultraverse crossover, then a Marvel character literally shows up at the very end to clean house and prove how much cooler he is.  And if you weren't fond of major Ultraverse villains like Rune, Lord Pumpkin or Rex Mundi, rejoice because Loki has arrived on the last page to become the linewide Big Bad.  This is not about further defining and pointing potential new readers to this company--it's to remind them how much more awesome Marvel characters are.  It's not surprising that once the decision is made to reboot the line with Black September, the place is chock full of Marvel heroes either visiting or being visited by the Ultraverse.  While I was mildly engaged by Godwheel, the ending just lands like a awkward fart.

I think that if this was left solely as a Ultraverse mini, Godwheel would have worked better.  I really liked the jam band nature of the product, and while it isn't top tier, it does entertain with a nice overview of what the world has to offer.  It's perfectly fine.  If only the Space Viking hadn't crashed the party and drew all the attention.

But at least it wasn't The Pheonix Ressurection.  And we'll examine that mess next time.

(Don't worry too much, though--we've got Ultraverse Year Zero: Death of The Squad after that.)

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

WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: The Girl Who Replaced Pamela Sue Martin* (MANTRA: SPEAR OF DESTINY, MANTRA V. 2)

 

At this point in the Ultraverse , I've come to accept that there is a rather...extensive shift in storytelling and art once Marvel bought Malibu Comics.  And it's reflected by the fact that of all the titles the Ultraverse put out, all of them were either cancelled, were allowed to end or rebooted with a volume two around the time of the Black September event.

(The Marvel-owned Ultraverse loved crossover events only slightly more than plonking Marvel characters into their titles, if you haven't figured it out yet)

One of the six titles that got blessed with a second volume was Mantra, and like most of these second volumes, its status quo got squished something fierce.

To be honest, the first sign of this shift comes in Mantra: Spear of Destiny, a two part mini featuring Eden Blake being recruited by Aladdin to go undercover as a different hot girl to gain control of the Spear of Longinus, the spear used to pierce the side of Christ.  This is an odd story in that Eve appears as Mantra only at the beginning and end, allowing for the bulk of it to be a kinda, sorta James Bond/Indiana Jones mash-up with a race of primordial underground people standing in for the Nazis (They're even called 'Herrenvolk').  There's some fairly nice artwork from Paul Abrams, but it overall reads like a spy story Barr always wanted to write that he reworked to place Mantra in.  It's alright, I guess, but if you don't read it you won't miss anything...except the ludicrous sequence of Eden in male drag and the seemingly arbitrary inclusion of the Holy Grail in the second half.

The second volume launched with an 'Infinity' issue with an all black cover and the kind of lack of coherence that seems to be part and parcel of the Marvel reboot.  Eve's two children have changed personalities something fierce, her daughter acting a good couple of years more mature than when last we saw her and her son deciding to go through an 'I Hate My Parents' phase that includes some violent outbursts.  This attracts...something?...that gives the kid Massive Mystical Power that he uses to take his frustrations out on his family and his babysitter Lauren (who we last saw in volume 1, #21's "Little Miss Mantras").  During the course of the battle, the Mantra abilities, armor and weapons are transferred from Eve to Lauren, making her the All-New, All-Hawt Mantra.

This lead to seven issues of the actual volume, with the blonde Lauren taking center stage with a new, silver set of armor.  Like with Volume One, the narration for the first four issues is provided mainly as an inner monologue from Lauren.  The sheer denseness of narration from the last volume is out the window--in fact, it has the same chaotic feel I've gotten off of All-New Exiles and Foxfire.  The cheesecake aspect is seriously amped up, typified by the cover of issue #2 which seems to emphasize our heroine's crotch, or the cover of issue #6, which has Lauren doing a semi-brokeback pose in her new (lingerie-esque) costume to avoid colliding with catcalling guest star Rush.

You remember Rush, right?  The guy who showed up in two issues of Freex?

Oh, and Mike W. Barr's name is missing from two of the first four issues before Jerald DeVictoria, a Malibu assistant editor writes the fifth while maintaining the first person narration, and Tom Mason pens the last two using an omniscient third person narration.  With the exception of two issues, Dave Roberts did pencils and Jim Amash did inks.

Now here comes the controversy....

The general rumor is that Barr was fired from the book, but I don't think it's that cut and dried; you don't get to give your character a neat send off in your last (albeit uncredited) issue if you've been told to clean out your desk.  I did ask the editor of this volume of Mantra for his view, and his response is presented below:

"There are two things that happened right about the same time.

1)When Marvel bought us, sales were already declining across the board (and the industry), thus Black September (reboot!). Part of what we wanted to do with Black September was “fix” things that had been problematic to begin with. Mantra was one of those because the licensing department couldn’t get anyone interested in the character. Oh, they were very interested until they learned Mantra was a dude. 

So, we were instructed to make the change during Black September. Barr didn’t like it, but he did it and created the new character (Lauren was the name, I think). 

As you likely know, comics are very much an assembly line process. So, they’re written considerably ahead of time of publication. I’d be lying if I could tell you I remember exactly where we were with scripts when the next event happened (but this should be fairly close); as the new #1 was getting ready to go out, the guy overseeing Malibu editorial after the departure of Malibu EIC Chris Ulm happened to be in my office and browsed through the film I had ready to ship to the printer. He demanded we add two pages with Lauren in a bikini. Sigh.

I wasn’t happy (I did NOT like late shipping comics—still don’t! haha) as the book was literally headed out the door. Mike was ticked and began to cause a bit of a stink, blaming Marvel for tinkering and all that. Wasn’t Marvel’s doing, it was our own licensing department trying to actually make money off of secondary rights. 

At the same time…After Marvel bought Malibu, I guess they started looking at all the paperwork. One day one of our lawyers storms into the office and literally declared: “Fire Mike Barr right now!” As you might imagine, I was a bit keen to do that, but that’s not who I am, so I asked him why he wanted me to fire Mike. It seemed that Mike had been doing work with us with no contract and legal wanted him gone immediately.

But also…Mike had been attaching “riders” to his contracts. I was not aware of this when I became editor—everything was pretty much in place when they moved me to the title and I didn’t deal with contracts anyway, I just signed the pay vouchers that the freelancers had submitted the work so that they could get paid.

So, I learned that Mike’s attorney and Malibu’s attorney had apparently been going at it and Mike’s attorney essentially refused to answer. Thus, they told me to fire him.  

What I did, though, was bought a week’s time—a full seven days. I asked them to let me convince Mike to sign the contract so we could continue to work with him. I called Mike immediately and let him know what had happened, and that if he did not sign the contract, I could no longer hire him. He asked if he was being fired and I said no, technically, it isn’t being “fired,” I just couldn’t hire him because he wouldn’t sign a contract.  I told him I had one week. He had to do it or I couldn’t use him. He assured me he understood and that he would talk to his lawyer.

For the next seven days, either me or my assistant either called or faxed him a reminder that the final date was looming. When the time passed, he had not signed the contract and I could no longer use him. If I recall, I asked Jerald DeVictoria to write the next issue because, as my assistant, he knew was Mike was trying to do with the story and we were able to wrap it up while I sought out a new writer (I’ll admit I was very excited to be in talks with Ann Nocenti, a writer whose work I very much like and I felt would elevate the female character in a way that needed to be done in the comic).

I have not talked to Mike since that final day when he told me to remove his name from #4."

I have reached out to Mike Barr, and if he responds, I will provide his account of the story.  Tom Mason, who provided his insight on my earlier article on Hardcase, stepped in to write the last two issues because Moore 'needed someone to write the final two issues.'

It's not surprising to hear about this controversy--especially the part about the licensing department given that I expressed the belief that Mantra was a transsexual superhero in the last article and having people disagree with me--and knowing this, I'm also not surprised at how the second volume ended up.  The pages of Lauren in a bikini (and a shower sequence in a later issue) came off as gratuitous before Mr. Moore gave me his account, and that thirstiness that pervaded the first volume gets amped up in the second...and it's a little ickier considering Lauren is a high school minor at the time.  The bulk of the first four issues has Eden sidelined as a voice in Lauren's head or a shrunken body in a shoe box.  The circumstances by which Eden is written out is a little forced--and it is, once again, to Barr's credit that he managed to get her exit worked out in the way he did.

But there is something very integral to what made the first volume intriguing that doesn't quite work for me in the second volume...namely, that Lauren's circumstances lacks the hook that we had with Lukacz's.  She ends up becoming the 'teen struggles to perfect her super hero/life balance' trope which has been done before (and done with a great deal more attention when the CW presents Buffy The Vampire Slayer two years later).  To be fair, a lot of what Barr does in his four issues makes the best of the idea, and Mason's switch to a third person omniscient pov makes the new angle work better, as we're no longer comparing Lauren's narration to Lukacz/Eden's.  I also thought the shift of focus during the Mason issues to emphasize high school worked.

Not everything is well-done, however.  The sudden heel turn of Gus Blake (complete with a transition to some weird-ass creepy doll oversized head) never works for me, and neither does the strife depicted between the Blakes after where Barr left them in the last issue of Volume One.  I just don't get the appeal of Necromantra, who pops up in the third issue--I understand the appeal of an evil bad girl version of Mantra, I just never get a sense of why she's worth my attention.  A second version of the hero Wrath is set up as a foil for Lauren the way Warstrike was a foil for Eden only for him to be literally carted away in the fifth issue after him having little interaction with our heroine.  Rush kind of takes up precious air away from Lauren in her own book.

As mentioned before, Dave Roberts takes over on art except for Henry Martinez in issues #3-4, and its not bad.  As with Dodson in the first volume, it's very cheesecakey.  I will say I like Roberts' facial expressions quite a bit, which really did convey Lauren's habit of being at turns excited at being her favorite superhero and anxious because she's in way over her head.  As seems to be the custom with the character, Lauren goes through two costume changes before settling on a lacy little thing that doesn't seem very....warrior-like to me.

This is a letdown from the first volume.  It's not a hopeless case--I can easily see this book work more if they started with Lauren having sole control of the Mantra identity, with the events of the Barr issues being shown in flashback.  The structure in place at the end of the last issue, with a third person perspective and a stronger emphasis on high school, is sound.  According to Mason, the second volume sold extremely well, but not well enough to justify continuing the series.  I wonder if, had they continued an issue or two beyond issue seven, sales might have justified the two year run that other rebooted titles Prime and Ultraforce.

Of course, while the reboot was prompted by Marvel's purchase of Malibu, it was prompted narratively by a four part crossover event that became a line-wide jam...and we'll be covering the weekly flipbook story Godwheel next time!

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

Thanks to both Tom Mason and Roland Mann for their views and support.

If you would like to support my endeavors to keep pop culture honest, consider joining my Patreon  or buying me a Ko-Fi.  Please follow me on Bluesky Social @tdeja.bsky.social 

*--here's more signs of me getting old...for those who don't know, Pamela Sue Martin played Nancy Drew in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries in 1977.  When her role was reduced in the following year, Martin left the series (immediately posing for Playboy) and was replaced by Janet Louise Johnson, who was so forgettable I actually had to look it up on the interwebs.  That title references Johnson.

WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Hero-Fluid (MANTRA V. 1)

I suspect the casual comics fan may know the name Mike W. Barr without knowing why.  His major claim to fame is creating Batman and The Outsiders, a team book that appeared after the cancellation of Bats' team-up book The Brave and The Bold.  He's also known for another reason which we'll get to when we discuss the series in depth.

There are two things I took away after reading the first few issues of Mantra, Barr's main contribution to the Ultraverse:

1) You could easily drop this into the title into the mainstream Marvel Universe right now with only minor changes in continuity.

2) Damn, is this book...thirsty.  And I mean, really f'in thirsty!

Lukacz is a soldier in a magickal struggle for 15,000 years, being shunted from body to body.  When his boss the Archimage is captured by his evil brother Boneyard and his present body is killed in battle, Lukacz is shunted into the body of single divorced mother of two Eden Blake...but with a purpose.  It seems Eden has potential to become a great sorceress, and the Archimage has arranged for Lukacz to gain control of a suit of...armor (?), a mask and the Sword of Fangs to help them reach their full mystical potential.  You see, releasing Archimage from Boneyard's clutches has to involve the use of sorcery, and it's vital for Lukacz to be a sorceress quick....no matter how much he wants out of his present body.

Let's get this out of the way right now--this book's attitude to the sexes has not aged well.  Our heroine is constantly switching between whining about how weak and frail this body is while lusting after it, as well as any other woman who crosses their path.  The men in this book with rare exceptions are there to ogle Eden.  Frequently Lukacz uses Eden's sexuality to manipulate the men around her.  Boneyard is just obsessed with marrying Mantra solely so she can pop out a number of babies through fucking.  Mantra is constantly snapping at her enemies that she's a man.  And there isn't a henchman in this entire run who doesn't ask their boss if they can rape her.  While you would think having a transgendered hero would be remarkable in that time frame, the overall sexual attitudes expressed detracts from it.

....which is a shame, because when Barr learns to relax a bit, the book has its moments.  The first two issues are both dense and fairly serious, setting up the premise and the cast...but the third issue shows us Barr's fondness for punnily-named villains with the very...hippiesque Kismet Deadly ("Kismet Once...Kismet Twice...Kismet Deadly"), and that loosens him up leading to one of my favorite issues of the first volume, #5's "Mantra: The Animated Series," which features a demon possessing, and using tactics resembling, a cartoon character to engage our hero.  Barr's work still dives into dark territory, but now he's not afraid to indulge in a little humor here and there.  The book definitely seems to improve in both pace and tone from there and while it never quite reaches the heights of Firearm and Hardcase, it's still entertaining.  Granted, the weird sexual stuff gets even stranger and more uncomfortable the further the series gets.  Finding out that Boneyard's three wives were originally Archimage's three wives is strange enough, but the development that Lukasz becomes besotted with Eden once her spirit starts showing up in his mind is....something.

The wheels do start to fall off of Barr's writing once the book hits the one year mark with 'The Archimage Quest,' which also intersects with the 'Countdown to Ultraforce' storyline, and it's weird because the two prior crossover incidents (with Prime and The Strangers, respectively) are clumsily handled but results in pretty good characterization moments.  The Quest has to...well, not stop necessarily, but slow considerably just so Barr can do Gerard Jones a favor and introduce Topaz (It's to his credit that he ties said introduction into Mantra's lore in a way that only does not seem awkward), and after it's done Barr's not sure what to do.  There's a storyline involving someone taking Eden's identity while Mantra is doing her business in another dimension that is so sketchily introduced that I assumed that someone was a different character who had shape-changing abilities instead of the actual someone, who doesn't initially.  There's this quest to make a new body for Lukasz--so he can be with Eden physically, natch that doesn't end well....but does end in a wonderful little moment at the end of issue #20, where Mantra finally accepts that they are both a man in a woman's body and a woman in what should have been the series finale.

....unfortunately, there's still four more issues to go, including one (#21, "Little Miss Mantras") that I'm positive was written to be published during the series' first year, an encounter with Loki that helps speed the newly purchased company into the Black September crossover, and two stories that feel like fill-ins.  It's a weird, disappointing end given the really satisfying end that Barr reached for Volume 1.

Sadly, the Rotating Artist Curse that seems to befall all Ultraverse titles affects this title...which is doubly annoying considering the original penciler is Terry Dodson.  Dodson is one of these artists (along with Adam Hughes, his wife Terry and Amanda Conner) whose work transcend 'cheesecake' by infusing it with personality and swagger--and considering this is a title featuring a woman clad in a metal swimsuit wielding a sword, he was the perfect choice.  There is such an amazing synchronicity between the character and the artist, and there are moments in this phase of the series that outmatch anything else I've seen so far.  But Dodson only pencils ten issues, and the others fifteen issues (counting the Giant-Size Mantra special) contain three issues pencilled by Robb Phipps, Mike Heike and James Armstrong, two by Dave Roberts, and the rest by four individual pencilers.  I've said this before, but it applies here as well--the visual discontinuity is the biggest detriment to the series as a whole.

Mantra is very good overall.  It's not one of the best titles I've encountered so far...but it has its entertaining moments.  Maybe if Dodson was able to do more issues, I might look upon this more favorable.  I do think that of the titles I've perused so far, this one can be integrated into the Marvel Universe seamlessly with only a little bit of tweaking to the narrative and the unfortunate sexual attitudes.  Lord knows she would fit in extremely well in the more sexually and racial diverse universe that company has been working towards.

But the at-this-point Marvel owned Ultraverse wasn't done with Eden Blake or Mantra...there was a Mantra Volume Two, and I'll be looking at that--as well as the two part Mantra: Spear of Destiny miniseries next time!

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

If you would like to support my endeavors to keep pop culture honest, consider joining my Patreon  or buying me a Ko-Fi.  Please follow me on Bluesky Social @tdeja.bsky.social