WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Well, THAT Got Messy (PRIME V. 2, PRIME/CAPTAIN AMERICA, PRIME VS. HULK)

The end of Power of Prime #4, the last issue of the 'Origin of Prime' arc that closed out the first volume, Prime and his friends Turbo Charge and Phade were stuck on an island with a number of 'Prime Babies' asking what their future lies.

Prime Infinity, the first issue of volume two, has Kevin Green wandering the New York of 616 wondering how he's going to get back to his world and why his powers aren't working correctly...just before he get caught up in a battle between Spider-Man and...well, the comic insists it's Spidey's enemy the Lizard, but he sure don't look or act like it.

I've said in a couple of previous articles that the tightly interconnected continuity the originators of the Ultraverse came up with may have been more a bug than a feature.  If it wasn't true before, it certainly is in the post-Black September final months where Marvel has a firm grip on the reins.  Although this first issue does cite both Ultraforce/Avengers and Prime Vs. The Hulk in their explanation for what is going on, I only understood what they were talking about because I had vague memories from reading the former when it first came out.

To be fair, Prime vs. The Hulk is actually pretty good.  Split into two parts, written by Len Strazewski and Gerard Jones with plot assists by Peter David, it depicts Kevin's first day in Earth 616.  Looking for Avengers Mansion figuring they'll help him get back to his Earth, he runs across a scientist luring a teenager into his car so he can conduct his gamma ray experiments on her.  Understandably upset, Prime intervenes and ends up crossing paths with the Hulk.  There's a fight, there's an understanding between the heroes, and they bring the evil doctor to justice before Kevin runs away and ends up in the second volume of his own book.

And to be fair, the first couple of issues uses its Marvel connections to further the idea that this series is more about Kevin growing into himself.  Unlike, let's say, the Punisher showing up in Foxfire, Spider-Man is in Prime Infinity and Prime v.2 #1 to inspire Kevin to be more heroic.  Of course, that also results in him being Spider-Prime for a few issues, getting involved with the Ultra-world's version of the Spider Totem that I'm positive inspired J. Michael Straczynski four years later, and realizing that Prime is not just a body, but a union of that body with Kevin's soul....which is fortunate, because he has to confront his Prime body who's been running rampant in Ultra-Earth and overall being a dick.  Unlike some of the other reboots, the thing I like about this volume is how it builds upon the character as he was in Volume 1 instead of replacing him.

...and then we get a fill-in issue in  #5 that resolves a plot left over from Prototype, and Johns goes solo beginning with a three-parter that resolves plot lines left over from his series Solitare. Even though it has some great art from Scot Kolins, there is a definite sense that this was supposed to be a crossover between the titles that got retrofitted.  Solitare takes a lot of screen time away from Kevin, dealing with his paramour(?) Coco and the drug that empowers her hitting the streets.  On top of this, there's a big 'This is a message' vibe to the story that just doesn't quite fit.

But then, that seems to be the problem with Jones' solo work on the title.  He does stick around for two more issue to finally bring a conclusion of sorts to Prime's friendship with TurboCharge while also doing an amusing turn of the 'Superman-Flash Race' trope.  These two issues are elevated by Norm Breyfogle's brief return to pencils and the acknowledgment that the Ultraverse has a lot of speedsters, but overall Jones seems weirdly checked out of these issues.

Jones and Breyfogle also produced Prime/Captain America, which is easily the best issue of this second run.  Cap finds himself in the Ultraverse after some dimensional jiggery-pokery and ends up teaming with Prime to confront a plot to replace the President with a Bill Clinton from the alternative universe of the Ultraverse/Avengers crossover with the help of an alternate universe Prime who never grew out of his Rogue Prime phase and Liberty, an incidental character from the first volume turned into a patriotic-themed ultra.  It's lots of fun, the two heroes have equal time and there's a sense of humor--I really got a kick out of Chelsea Clinton figuring out Prime is actually her age.  And of course, it's a joy to see Breyfogle's take on classic Captain America (at this time Cap was running around in some awkward looking armor).

...and then V. 2 #11 comes along.  The remaining issues are written by Darrin Shaheen, although a lot is made of how Keith Giffen co-wrote the first three of the five remaining issues.  Art is by Al Rio and, while he has a fresh style that's more animation-based, he is made to draw this as if it is an Image comic; the posing of the female characters, even the non-sexualized one, is pure semi-broke back.

I think it's telling that these five issues focus more of Latin dictator Colonel Rinaldo and his supporting characters than Kevin.  Hell, outside of Kevin and his parents, a select few supporting characters only show up in one panel cameos during issue #14.  And the 'major new direction' that is teased in issue #10 is that the Green family is on the run after Kevin's secret is revealed.  The general plot is that Rinaldo wants to rule the world and wants to absorb Prime's powers....but he's also insane in the membrane, and there's members of his retinue plotting to overthrow him, and he's also growing Lord Pumpkin in a tube in a subplot that's not mentioned until issue #14, and...

It's terrible.  I think that Rinaldo was meant to be satiric ala' Giffen and DeMatties' lovely Justice League run over at DC, but whatever Shaheen meant is totally lost.  There just isn't anything there there, and it's doubly frustrating when you look at how this story totally ignores what Jones had set up.  Yes, those issues were written in what could have been interpreted as a closing of that chapter, but ignoring all the growth the character went through during the over two years of publication just rings false.  By the time we hit the last issue of volume two--it was released the same month that Ultraverse Future Shock was--I felt no stakes in either the story or Kevin Green.  And considering how much I had learned to like about this series in spite of the spectre of who Gerard Jones had become*, that's a pretty dire indictment.

To me, the potential of where a writer who wasn't Shaheen could take a more emotionally mature Kevin far outweighed what we ended up with.  I would have liked to see Prime interact with the Lauren version of Mantra, with the potential of the dynamics set up between Kevin and Eden Blake reversed.  Or seeing Kevin counseling Foxfire as she strove to become the heroine she wanted to be.  But what's done is done, and this five issue coda to what was overall a fairly effective series falls flat with a resounding thud.

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..which may very well be said about the other Black September reboots...but there's still two of those to go.

Next time, we look at the second of the three inaugural Ultraverse titles, Len Strazewski's other contribution to the line...a take on Iron Man's cover story if not Iron Man himself.  Join us for Prototype!

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

*--and don't get me wrong, that spectre never quite left me every time we saw a naked Kevin rising out of the goo of his spent Prime shell...although the biggest 'ick' moment was reading Len Strazewski talking about how he delighted in how Kevin wandered about after his Prime Shell ran out in the videogame and the debate over whether they should give him boxers in the Prime Ashcan Edition.