The Ultimate Annuals vol 1 review. What? I couldn't think of a better title.

Next up flakmagnet, better known to the CAGN board as Rocketmagnet, comes to bat with a review of Ultimate Annuals volume 1.

First thing’s first, the “Ultimate” line. For those still not in the know, Marvel’s Ultimate imprint debuted in 2000 as an alternate universe to the Marvel world most fans knew (commonly referred to as 616). The line was primarily developed as a good starting point for new fans who didn’t want to read 40+ years of back-story to understand what was going on in the current universe, as well as a testing ground where new and different twists could be tried on existing characters without affecting the regular continuity.

In this collection we’ve got something for most Marvel fans, the Ultimate versions of the Fantastic Four, X-men, Spider-man and the Avengers, (known in this continuity as the Ultimates), collecting #1 of each of their respective Ultimate annuals.

The first, and arguably weakest offering is the Fantastic Four annual, debuting the Ultimate version of the Inhumans. Whilst starting intriguingly, the story quickly falls into meritocracy and despite a good series of action panels, it fails to really draw in the reader, nor does it produce anything particularly memorable. The art in this issue is produced by Jae Lee and June Chung, which fits into the style of the UFF very well, but again is the weakest of the four on offer here, save for the cover art by Greg Land, Matt Ryan and Justin Ponsor, which has a great look. That said, the issue does leave a lot of avenues open for the next arc, it's just unfortunate that the story was slightly lacking.

Next we are treated to the X-men annual, a story revolving around Rouge, Gambit, and guest-starring Juggernaut. This issue starts a little slower, but much stronger, gaining momentum as it continues, leading to a very strong finish, with a great ending that will undoubtedly lead to some very interesting changes in the ongoing comic. The art in this issue has some nice contrast between the danger room pages and those in Vegas, along with some great emotive face work, which really compliments some of the best dialogue that has been written recently in the Ultimate X-men, a great story overall from writer Brian Vaughan.

Following that we are treated to some more X-men goodness, this time guest-starring in the Ultimate Spider-man annual. Pete is feeling down and lonely after his break up with MJ, little does he know that he’s not the only one. Featuring some great Bendis dialogue as usual, this issue is made even sweeter by being shorter than a usual Bendis arc, setting the pacing of the story much better, whilst leaving open some great possibilities for Peter to diverge more from his 616 version, but still retain most of what makes him tick. The artwork by Brooks, and Stewart in the issue is dead on the money, much like the current run, and sets the right tone throughout.

Last on the list is the Ultimates annual, though most of the squad barely have cameos, as this issue focuses primarily on Nick Fury and him setting up the reserves, (after all, you didn’t think the Ultimates were the only team S.H.I.E.L.D. were working on, did you?) most of whom are unknowns. The story is good, and a great set up for volume 2 of the Ultimates, but the dialogue is lacking in comparison to the X-men and Spider-man arcs. The ending to the issue has one particularly great panel, I’m not going to spoil anything, but let’s just say that Fury kicks ass. The artwork in this follows a similar vein to the original volume, although unfortunately Nick Fury looks a little less Samuel L Jackson like than he did in the previous issues. Most of the new characters are done well, especially Lieberman, though the Rocketmen’s armour looks far too chunky for my taste, they may be built on an early version of Ironman’s armour, but surely they could have trimmed it down a bit!

Overall this is a solid trade if you happen to like at least 2 of the Ultimate lines, and is definitely worth picking up if you don’t already own the issues, or are trade mad like myself, though unfortunately there are no extras except the reprints of the covers. If you don’t like any of the Ultimate lines, or just one of them, I would suggest giving this one a miss and just picking up the single-issue annuals.

However, if you are new to the whole Ultimate universe and either can’t be bothered or don’t have the cash to pick up the older trades, this is an excellent starting point, as no previous knowledge of the series is needed to understand any of the stories, and at least one of them is likely to make you want to pick up the next few issues of that series.

Final score:7/10 – A good read and a great jumping on point to the Ultimate universe. Due to it being a collection of different stories, it makes for good short reading.