Ultraverse... what was YOUR favorite title(s) and why ?

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:05 pm

Lightning Strike wrote:
Knightt wrote:You are correct... and oddly enough, I dig ALL of it.
Which titles were your favorite? I enjoyed Ultraforce the most but that's probably because Perez did the art. I also really enjoyed the Godwheel series since it involved Thor and Loki.

I was stationed overseas just after Ultraverse came out, so I had to wait for my monthly shipment but my favorite book that I would pull out and put to the top of the reading list was Firearm and Nightman and best team book was The Solution by far.

Firearm was just an ordinary guy fighting Ultras and actually kicking butt (well he got HIS butt handed to him in every other issue as well but you know what I mean).

I will admit, Night Man was pretty much my Batman replacement during those years. Too bad THAT veered off into the weird but the main 'bad girl' in his life was awesome. Her name escapes me.

The Solution was the closest thing to a military team book in the DU and me now being a 20 year Army vet, I have always had to lean towards military books (i.e. Armorines, Team 7, Wetworks, Stormwatch etc). The 'Vurk' (?) was awesome !!

There are MORE books that I liked as well but I have some weird kind of bug going through me tonight just whiggin' me out so I will keep it short.

Chiclo · Post by **Chiclo** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:04 am

There's a strong case to be made for Hard Case. Their first three titles (Hard Case, Prime and the Strangers) were pretty cool, but Hard Case always stuck out to me the most.

I liked his character. He had retired from the super-hero gig after being the only non-comatose survivor of his last super hero team and had moved on to acting, but he caught the bug again. I like his sidekick, Choice, even though the amnesia thing isn't exactly original. I enjoyed his corny villains, particularly Hardwire.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 1:41 am

The first dozen or so Prime issues were fantastic ... then the story and art went downhill in ways even Acclaim could not match. Bah.

After re-reading a while back, I thought Freex was done pretty damn well. And Sludge was good the whole way through. I guess I'll have to give Hardcase a solid look (not too tough since you can read some of those books in 90 seconds).

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 2:24 am

As a whole my two favourite books were Sludge and Firearm, both had art to perfectly match the writing (especially Loprestri's Sludge). Firearm was probably the best written, and alec Swann is a great character. Sludge was a great modern take on the classic muck-monster (the Heap, Man-Thing, Swamp Thing) using pollution as a more direct metaphor in his origin with the burning chemical touch and so on. Visually my favourite character. I also really enjoyed Solution and getting hold of the 0 issue of that book earlier this year was a really cool moment for me. I loved Outrage and Meathook's morphing abilities and the rendition of their species in the zero issue was so cool to read. Rune was another cool character.

Reading the Black September stuff recently I was really disappointed as the concepts were basically ripped apart when they were sound and certainly not broken.

Easy reading for the most part, which is no bad thing. Even the weaker 9pre-Black September) books were an enjoyable read for me. Some real gems.

Cyberstrike · Post by **Cyberstrike** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 8:43 am

I always thought the concept of Mantra was utterly fascinating about a real macho guy who gets stuck in the body of a very hot single mother
and how he tries to deal with a man stuck in a woman's body and with the
kids. It's just one of the stories that you could go for comdey, serious
drama, social commentary, and really weird gender bending stories all at
the same time.

I think it was Mike O'Barr who wrote most of the Mantra series and what I think is that Mike O'Barr when he was writing Camelot 3000 he found the idea of the man's man stuck in a women's body very interesting in Camelot 3000 it's Sir Tristan that gets reincarnated as a woman and while she's not enjoying it she really hates when Tristan's lady love Isidore gets reincarnated as a woman (again) and too top it all off Tristan has to deal with the feelings of Sir Tom who is falling with love with Tristan and her own feelings for Tom as well while the Tristan-Isidore-Tom love triangle was only a subplot in Camelot 3000 it does steal the show so to speak and I was more interested in it than whole Arthur-Gwen-Lancelot triangle which seemed more of a cliche' IMO.

In Mantra he was able to take the concept of a man in a woman's body and run with it.

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 1:49 pm

Cyberstrike wrote:I always thought the concept of Mantra was utterly fascinating about a real macho guy who gets stuck in the body of a very hot single mother
and how he tries to deal with a man stuck in a woman's body and with the
kids. It's just one of the stories that you could go for comdey, serious
drama, social commentary, and really weird gender bending stories all at
the same time.

I think it was Mike O'Barr who wrote most of the Mantra series and what I think is that Mike O'Barr when he was writing Camelot 3000 he found the idea of the man's man stuck in a women's body very interesting in Camelot 3000 it's Sir Tristan that gets reincarnated as a woman and while she's not enjoying it she really hates when Tristan's lady love Isidore gets reincarnated as a woman (again) and too top it all off Tristan has to deal with the feelings of Sir Tom who is falling with love with Tristan and her own feelings for Tom as well while the Tristan-Isidore-Tom love triangle was only a subplot in Camelot 3000 it does steal the show so to speak and I was more interested in it than whole Arthur-Gwen-Lancelot triangle which seemed more of a cliche' IMO.

In Mantra he was able to take the concept of a man in a woman's body and run with it.

OK... reading all of that made my head hurt so hard, that I got a bloody nose.

Fatal Rose · Post by **Fatal Rose** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:05 pm

Solitaire! Awesome martial arts action with a interesting story, great art for the first few issues, and a cool supporting cast.

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:02 am

I started liking that title a lot. Cool character, cool outfit, and the overall story seemed likeable but not surprising to me for some reason. But that was just me... I could read it here now and get a totally different spin on things but I dont think Ultraverse will be coming up on my radar to read here too soon.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 1:54 am

Fatal Rose wrote:Solitaire! Awesome martial arts action with a interesting story, great art for the first few issues, and a cool supporting cast.

I liked everything except the costume (although the Dave Dorman painting of the character on the card art was very cool). It was the asymmetry of the outfit that threw me. It was too asymmetrical and didn't make sense. Would you leave the house wearing odd shoes? Because looking at Solitaire's boots that is what he did...

Brother J · Post by **Brother J** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:43 am

really have to take the time to read these...

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:02 pm

Bottom line, these books are fun to read. Yeah, they dont take a lot of time to read, are a bit risque at times, they are cheap, sometimes the art is bad but they are just fun to read and collect.

DF1 can just 'suck it'.

FUN I tell you...... FUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rictor · Post by **rictor** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:46 pm

I liked Mantra a lot, but my favorite was Night Man. I found the story incredibly cool. Although now that I'm thinking of it in context of this site, it really is somewhat derivative of Shadowman. Hmmm . . . saxophone playing hero who has to fight at night. Anyway, once one gets past the basic concept it went in different directions than Shadowman. I love the mysticism present throughout and Rhiannon is one of my favorite antagonists in comics.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:01 pm

rictor wrote:I liked Mantra a lot, but my favorite was Night Man. I found the story incredibly cool. Although now that I'm thinking of it in context of this site, it really is somewhat derivative of Shadowman. Hmmm . . . saxophone playing hero who has to fight at night. Anyway, once one gets past the basic concept it went in different directions than Shadowman. I love the mysticism present throughout and Rhiannon is one of my favorite antagonists in comics.

Night Man was an Englehart creation, who also had some imput in Shadowman.

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:27 pm

leonmallett wrote:
rictor wrote:I liked Mantra a lot, but my favorite was Night Man. I found the story incredibly cool. Although now that I'm thinking of it in context of this site, it really is somewhat derivative of Shadowman. Hmmm . . . saxophone playing hero who has to fight at night. Anyway, once one gets past the basic concept it went in different directions than Shadowman. I love the mysticism present throughout and Rhiannon is one of my favorite antagonists in comics.
Night Man was an Englehart creation, who also had some imput in Shadowman.

While this is true, we have numerous characters through out the history of comics that get their power from the night, darkness and likewise. Sure, there are some 'inspired' characters in the Ultraverse but as a whole the way it started out (Jumpstart) IMO was innovative and it seemed like that universe really had existed for a long time, as did Valiant when they first came out. I think A LOT of thought went into creating a history and direction for the character and history alike. Nightman to me was very much a 'Batman rip-off' BUT added with the ability to 'hear evil', hey come on... that was cool. And Rhiannon is my ALL TIME favorite antagonist as leon mentioned as well. I looked forward to this title coming out every month, hell pretty much the whole universe. Upon re-collecting these books (I started at the begining and followed well into the Marvel months), I found books that I have NEVER read so when I dig these babies out to read, the ending of each title will be a pleasant (well maybe unpleasant) surprise for me. I lost my ENTIRE collection years ago (1999) in a divorce thing... Marvel, DC, Valiant, Ultraverse, Image, the list goes on).

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:36 am

Knightt wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
rictor wrote:I liked Mantra a lot, but my favorite was Night Man. I found the story incredibly cool. Although now that I'm thinking of it in context of this site, it really is somewhat derivative of Shadowman. Hmmm . . . saxophone playing hero who has to fight at night. Anyway, once one gets past the basic concept it went in different directions than Shadowman. I love the mysticism present throughout and Rhiannon is one of my favorite antagonists in comics.
Night Man was an Englehart creation, who also had some imput in Shadowman.
While this is true, we have numerous characters through out the history of comics that get their power from the night, darkness and likewise. Sure, there are some 'inspired' characters in the Ultraverse but as a whole the way it started out (Jumpstart) IMO was innovative and it seemed like that universe really had existed for a long time, as did Valiant when they first came out. I think A LOT of thought went into creating a history and direction for the character and history alike. Nightman to me was very much a 'Batman rip-off' BUT added with the ability to 'hear evil', hey come on... that was cool. And Rhiannon is my ALL TIME favorite antagonist as leon mentioned as well. I looked forward to this title coming out every month, hell pretty much the whole universe. Upon re-collecting these books (I started at the begining and followed well into the Marvel months), I found books that I have NEVER read so when I dig these babies out to read, the ending of each title will be a pleasant (well maybe unpleasant) surprise for me. I lost my ENTIRE collection years ago (1999) in a divorce thing... Marvel, DC, Valiant, Ultraverse, Image, the list goes on).

Oh I loved Night Man (well up until Ellis' one major failure in my book - Black September: Let's fix this, even though it is not even broken...

), especially with Kyle Hotz on art. His art on that book, Lopresti on Sludge, Perez on Ultraforce, Breyfogle on Prime, and one of the guys on Hardcase (whose name shamefully escapes me, but pencilled some issues in the teens) proved that when they tried they could really match the right artist to the right book so well. But then looking at the Prototype art...

rictor · Post by **rictor** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:13 pm

I really wasn't trying to slight Night Man by any means, I mentioned the Shadowman connection because it literally dawned on my as I was typing, so my comment likely came out harsher than I intended. That "Night Man" and "Shadowman" are two of my favorite books and I never made the connection in the past decade I feel really shows how different the two books were. I think that Englehart did a fantastic job creating the background of Johnny Domino, and made him a truly interesting character.

The artwork of Kyle Hotz was also phenomenal and really elevated the book for me. The one time I met him at a con he was all booked up, but if I ever see him again I'm definitely going to commission a Rhiannon.

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:40 pm

rictor wrote:The artwork of Kyle Hotz was also phenomenal and really elevated the book for me.

I totally agree with you there. I really started to cling to the book when Kyle Hotz started working on the book. It was cartoony yet very gritty in a weird way. I can always spot his art now a days.

I bet Travest Charest working on an issue or two would have looked GREAT.