WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: TICKETS TO OUR DEMISE (ULTRAFORCE, BLACK SEPTEMBER, ULTRAFORCE/AVENGERS, ULTRAFORCE/SPIDER MAN)

 I really expected this article to be more upbeat.

Ultraforce was created to seal the deal with Galoob for a line of Ultraverse action figures and/or an animated series--I'm a little hazy as to the exact details--so customers can buy a comic with all the characters featured in one place. After fielding proposals from several creators, Gerard Jones and G.O.A.T. George Perez were tapped to make the title happen. The line-up consisted of Prime, Prototype, Ghoul (from Steve Gerber's satirical take on the X-Men, Exiles), Topaz (created by Jones but debuting in a key storyline in Mantra*), Contrary and Pixx (both from Jones' Freex). The initial storyline was designed to position Atalon, the leader of a hidden civilization, as the Ultraverse's Big Bad...even though they tried to make that already with Rune and, later, Lord Pumpkin. Ultraforce was supposed to be the line's Avengers, taking the tack of this group being banded together to be a self-regulatory panel for ultras.

None of this ultimately happened. Because of timing, Ultraforce can be seen as a clear account of how the purchase of the company by Marvel strangled it to death.

The initial six issues are pretty good. It does take advantage of where the characters are at this time in the Ultraverse--when Hardcase suggests the idea, Prime and Prototype take that idea and go to blows over who gets to lead--and even though Atalon was shoehorned into places he didn't belong prior to those first six issues (Solitaire? Really, Mr. Jones?), there is a definite effort to give the character the sort of nuance that would have made him a credible big bad for the entire Ultraverse. The choice to pull a Thunderbird with Pixx is clumsily handled, although Jones manages to squeeze in a rather neat scene where Prime wants to counsel and console her but doesn't for fear of revealing he's a thirteen year old. Also, Contrary pretty much proves useless to the point where I suspect the other heroes put up with her because, well, she's the one with the ride. It's competent if not great, and I could see a way forward with this title that would have been interesting....

Except that the Marvel purchase went through, and after a decent Ghoul solo story the main thrust of the next storyline is 'Hey, look! The Black Knight just dropped out of the sky!' You would think that Hank Kanalz and Marv Wolfman would have made more of a plot by a sinister corporation, Metabio, to keep 'angels of light' captive or the addition of Kanalz's character Siren to the line-up...but the shift of the book is very noticeable to emphasize the Marvel elements. Issue #8 features not only the Black Knight on the cover, but also Sersei and an summary of the Avengers' history featuring cameos by a good dozen Marvel heroes plus Utau The Watcher and just-defeated villain Proctor. Slowly, over the next three issues, the story becomes less and less about Ultraforce and more and more about the Black Knight. to the point where they actually visit the place Avengers Mansion is supposed to be in issue #10. Hell, the Knight is prominently on all the covers until the sixth issue of Volume Two!

I understand that having a Marvel hero in your book is a big deal, but I am willing to bet that Prime was a bigger deal than the Black Knight circa 1995.

So...this leads us into both the Black September reboot event and the Avengers/Ultraforce miniseries. Black September is...well, a mess. The climax seems to take its cue from Crisis on Infinite Earth, with the Ultraverse rejiggered so that some characters no longer exist and others are given new identities. It's very, very incoherent in its attempts at being profound and sweeping, and I literally couldn't remember anything about it once I finished. The way it impacts the crossover depends on which creative team is in charge--the Marvel issue, written by Glen Herdling and drawn by Angel Medina, sees the two teams sucked into the typical one-on-one fight games that's a Gamemaster favorite. The only noteworthy thing about this issue is that Herdling forces Starfox on the Avengers team so he and Contrary can snog. It ends with the Infinity Gems, which had been bouncing around the Ultraverse for the last few months, combining with a heretofore unknown 'Control Gem' to create Nemesis, who promptly undoes and remakes the universes ...

...leading us into the Ultraverse side of the crossover, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by a returning George Perez and it...sure is lively. Most of it and the Infinity issue of Ultraforce Volume 2 are composed of scenes from the alternate reality that merges the two universes, with a focus on Janet Van Dyne, who became the Black Widow after her husband Hank died and is trying to cope with her PTSD by sleeping with Quicksilver. It's pretty decent in a grand guignol way, not much plot but some gleeful screwing with characters (it took this reread for me to realize that Alec 'Firearm' Swan is this reality's Black Knight). By the end of the crossover issue, Ellis must've had a ball giving Perez nuts things to draw, like the Catholic version of Thor flying with the aid of his crucifix Mjolnir. It's definitely a step up from the Marvel side, even if it is a little incoherent.

And then Volume 2 officially rolls around with the three part 'Wave of Mutilation,' where Ellis introduces the new status quo--a new headquarters in an ill-defined metahuman prison in Arkansas, Prototype now back to being Bob Campbell, the regulation rude Brit character that always marks Ellis' work at this time serving as a merger of Jarvis and Gyrich--and two new characters. Wreckage is an ex-cop who gets back alley cybernetics so he can break up the mob who wrecked his life, and Lament, a Native American bounty hunter with stealth powers. Even though Marvel was really high on Ultraforce being the centerpiece of the rebooted line, reprinting the first issue in the back of the second at no extra cost, the story is a little too heavy on the punchy-punchy-run-run and light on characterization. After that, we get a Black Knight solo story and 'Smoke And Bone,' where Ellis gives Ian Edginton that Jack Hawksmoor solo story of Stormwatch to expand and rewrite into a three parter that ends with Black Knight firing pretty much everyone except for Prime and Prototype. Edginton is joined by Dan Abnett and has the team fight Future Ultraforce before having Foxfire show up for literally two pages so she could decide to go back to the future.

During this period, we get Ultraforce/Spider-Man, a single issue where the team teams up with Spider-Man and Green Goblin.

No, not Peter Parker and an Osborn. Ben Reilly and Phil Urich. This was, after all, when Marvel was constantly shaking things up in the effort to make their demented owner at the time money. This is more a publishing gimmick than a story, with the same beginning and end being printed in both issues but with a different middle of each issue, one focusing on Reilly and one on Urich. I think the plot, with a mysterious third party trying to trick the Marvel and Ultraverse realities into thinking they're being invaded by the other, is tied into the Tulkan/Demonseed story that ends up being the back end of Volume Two's run, but it's very unclear.

And speaking of all this Demonseed talk, Len Wein and the Deodato Studio are brought in to ring down the curtain. Wein does take a moment to try and give Cromwell a personality other than Standard Warren Ellis Jerk, but spends most of his time cleaning up the place and closing the doors behind him. The last Marvel characters stuck in the Ultraverse are sent home, the line-up is revamped in time for Hardcase to show up and try to explain what the Demonseed actually is and lead the team into a Big Ol' Blowout fight. By this time, the line was reduced to just this book and Prime, and this book shuts down on an ambiguous note before what remains of the editorial staff just give up and walk away.

And that's why my reread of this title turned out to be so bitter. The first six issues of the first volume build up to a definite setting of a status quo that will effect the Ultraverse as a whole--finally, we have a credible Big Bad, a flagship superteam with a unique angle, and a way forward. But the minute that status quo is set up, Marvel is in the driver's seat and literally drops a Marvel character into middle of the series and makes it increasingly about the crossover with the Avengers. By the time the second volume comes along, all the Ultraverse characters are playing second fiddle to the Black Knight. Hell, BK is featured prominently on all the covers! It seems obvious that the people in charge at the time cared so little for the properties they purchased that it must have repelled Ultraverse fans while not attracting new readers. By the time the book is back to being more Ultraverse centric, the end is in sight and the book has only two more issues before being canceled. That promised direction for the line as a whole is just tossed aside the moment it gets to take its first breath.

Ultraforce deserved better. The Ultraverse deserved better

*--I wonder, given what Roland Mann said in my article on Mantra, if Topaz was created specifically to replace that hero. I also wonder if the resistance to Mantra from partner companies also inspired the creation of Contrary, given the blatant thirst-trappiness of that character.