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ULTIMATE ADVENTURES I'm all for including the people in deciding what comics take precedence over others. But in this case, I think Marvel knew which comic it wanted to produce before this little fiasco started. Ultimate Adventures' first issue appeared in November of 2002. It was guaranteed six issues and it was up against three other Marvel series to see which one would would enjoy continued existence on the comic racks at your favorite comic store. Well, we're now rolling into August of 2003 and we're only up to Ultimate Adventures #5. Anybody who watches network television knows how the game is played out. A show comes on that lots of people like. It's a good show and it has lots of quality and potential to be great. But the network shifts its time slot, delays new episodes, pre-empts it with other programming, then announces that the show isn't doing so well. Well, of course it isn't! People like to know that every Monday night at 8pm/7-Central, they can tune in to CBS and see the TV show they liked since the first episode. It's happened to me dozens of times. I see a show. I like it. I jot down the day and time and put a sticky-note on my computer monitor to remind me to tune in at the same time next week to see more. Next week comes, I tune in, and I see something totally different from what I'd seen the week before. I think that's the problem with Ultimate Adventures. There has been really no regularity to its release after the second issue. We got November and December of 2002. But the nothing for January or February 2003. Issue 3 appeared in March 2003, but nothing came out in April. Then another one appeared in May 2003. But June and July passed without Issue 5 appearing. It finally arrived on the stands on August 20, 2003, but I only lucked out in getting a copy. I got a copy from an employee's pull box, but only because another store had an extra copy. I hope I don't miss #6. Perhaps a one-month wait is all most people can handle before they kind of forget what happened in the previous issue. So they may see it on the stand and think, "Oh, I've lost interest in that because now I've gotten into these others and I hate the delays." But despite the waiting, this is a comic I've thoroughly enjoyed. I like characters who are different. I don't like reading Captain America comics. In fact, I don't really care for any of the mainstream superheroes. I like things that are either new, a little off-center, or which deal with immortality, elves, or people who wear costumes that look like they'd be horribly uncomfortable, but which accent the best assets of the human body to its highest advantage. Barry Blair did a good job of that in Elflord. A Hawk-Owl was different, to be sure. At first I thought, Man, how lame is that? What the hell is a hawk-owl? Is it a watchful wise ass? And I had a hard time thinking of any kind of owl hybrid as a superhero after many years of watching Winnie the Pooh. Still, I do like things that a different and I'm willing to undergo a paradigm shift to make my enjoyment of the comic a reality. And I have enjoyed it. I've enjoyed watching young Hank going through his character development, perhaps because I can relate to what he's going through in some ways. Well, I saw an ad for Ultimate Adventures in the August 2003 issue of Previews and the ad refers to Issue 6, saying, "In the conclusion to this...." So I guess that's it. Issue 6 will be the end of Ultimate Adventures. It's a real shame because I think it's a great comic. Probably it'll end with Hank finding some power of his own, and it'll just leave me hanging, wondering what adventures he and Hawk-Owl were in for. Oh well. Review by Damaeus Click on the images for an enlargement.
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