Editor's Note: Ultimate Comics Avengers #2 arrives in stores Thursday, September 10.

"The Next Generation: Part Two of Six"

Dave Wallace:
Charles Webb:

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Dave Wallace:

After an impressive fast-paced opener, this second issue of Ultimate Comics Avengers slows down the pace somewhat, telling the origin story of the Ultimate Red Skull and laying the foundations for several new team members to join the Ultimates in the near future.

Most of the events of this chapter are the direct result of last issue's cliffhanger revelation, in which we learned that the Red Skull of the Ultimate Universe was the direct offspring of Captain America. After a brief opening scene (that seemingly exists only to spell out the fact that, yes, Steve Rogers must have had sex with his sweetheart before embarking on his final WWII mission), we see the full extent of Cap's reaction to this news, as he breaks away from the Ultimates to discover the truth behind the Red Skull's origins for himself.

This is the first time that I've really felt that one of Millar's Ultimate Captain America action sequences as being gratuitous and forced, as there's really no reason for Cap to attack Hawkeye and his fellow passengers in such a brutal manner in order to escape from the aeroplane that they're riding in. Still, it gives artist Carlos Pacheco a chance to pull off some solid action beats, including one moment that makes for a neat homage to Captain America's fall into the freezing arctic waters in Ultimates #1.

Readers who have been disappointed by Mark Millar's cynical approach to the Ultimates in the past will probably find nothing to change their minds here, as the writer's conception of the Ultimate Red Skull turns out to be more damning of the American military system than it is of the Red Skull himself. It maintains the thematic and structural traditions of previous Millar-penned volumes of Ultimates, suggesting that much of the blame for the team's problems can be placed on the past actions of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the military, whilst also providing a motivation for one of the team members to go "rogue" and have to be apprehended by the rest of the group (in the first volume it was the Hulk; in the second it was Thor; and now it's Cap).

Despite these repetitive themes and plot points, I quite like the way that the Ultimate Red Skull is characterised here, with even the ice-cool Nick Fury talking him up as an ethereal, legendary figure; a mercenary who has popped up throughout all of the major conflicts in American history to frustrate their initiatives. He could almost be seen as an Ultimate version of the Winter Soldier (from Brubaker's regular-MU Captain America run), but I'm not convinced that the similarity is intentional.

Carlos Pacheco continues to turn in solid visuals for the book. I can only assume that his original pencils must be fairly tight, as despite a multitude of inkers, his pages manage to maintain a reasonable level of consistency throughout. It's the more dynamic moments that really impress here, with a neat montage sequence that shows the Red Skull grow from a small boy to a young man before breaking out of his training facility, culminating in a gruesome splash page as he gives himself a new face. Pacheco also manages to make quite an impact with his double-page splash of Captain America taking on a whole cohort of soldiers, although I can't help but feel that this might have made for a more exciting closing page than the sequence that Millar leaves us with.

The final page introduces yet another new character to the Ultimate Universe, and it's yet another slightly-nastier counterpart of an existing Ultimates character -- implying that the "Next Generation" title refers as much to the new wave of Ultimates as it does to the Red Skull being the son of Cap. In addition to the mention of a second Black Widow and the repetition of plot points from previous volumes, I'm starting to grow concerned that the new ideas that Millar has planned for this series are going to be rehashes of existing concepts, rather than bold new ideas in their own right. Let's hope I'm proved wrong.

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Charles Webb:

Plot: The secret history of Captain America's illegitimate offspring.

Comments: In my review of Mark Millar's return to the Ultimates universe I criticized the book for being out of sync with the current zeitgeist. It felt like an awkward throwback to years' past with characterization that may have worked at the beginning of the decade but now feels stale. My estimation of the series has unfortunately dropped with the second issue as has my interest in reading further next month.

Ostensibly, this month's issue details the origin of the new (nu?) Red Skull and explores his relationship to Captain America. He's angry, you see, because the government wanted to make him into a weapon. Funny thing, that – how fictional governments keep making ultimate super weapons out of people, isolating them from human experience, and are then surprised when they go berserk. The Nu Skull's escape is visualized in a really fascinating way by Pacheo with armed soldiers piling on the erstwhile weapon and being cast aside. It's an interesting image that's also kind of silly when you think that maybe gas, fire, bullets, or bombs – anything from a distance – could have probably done more good with less collateral damage.

The image is actually pretty telling in the context of the story that shows us kinky sex between Steve Rogers and his main squeeze circa 1940 and informs us that the Nu Skull has bedeviled the United States off and on through every major conflict including Vietnam. It's telling because it's a stab at visual stimulation in a book that wants to provoke and prod without doing the heavy lifting of thinking why something is provocative. Steve Rogers having sex in and of itself is not particularly interesting – I should hope he does, otherwise it makes him dreadfully dull – and the girlfriends of superheroes wanting to get it on while their guys are in costume has been handled more artfully in the past by better creators. What we're left with then is something that really means nothing and feels like an extended play at relevance.

I don't care about this book, and I feel somewhat bad about saying that. I have enjoyed a lot of Millar's work in the past, but here it feels… I don't know… bloodless.

It should be noted that this issue of Ultimate Comics Avengers arrives on the same day as the seventh issue of Millar's Kick-Ass. I bring it up because the latter title is also dumb but in a wholly different and more enjoyable way. I would advise you to spend your money there instead.

Final Word: Giving the impression of going through the motions, the book has no time to do anything interesting or exciting – therefore I have no time for it.

If you liked this review, be sure to check out more of the author's work at Monster In Your Veins

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