Ultimates 3, still ultimate?

Not so much, no. Not really feeling The Ultimates 3, the third series featuring the Ultimate version of the Avengers.

I was pretty pumped when I heard Joe Madureira would be penciling Ultimates 3, even if his art style was a large departure from that of Bryan Hitch. Marvel needed big guns on this book, and going in a totally different direction seemed OK to me. Ironically, it was during Joe Mad's run on Uncanny X-Men (back when I was buying one book a month — ha!) that I first saw Hitch's art in a fill-in issue, and really disliked it. I came to appreciate it during his runs on Stormwatch and The Authority, and definitely on The Ultimates. But with Joe Mad out of the game for years, I was down to see him in action again.

And for the most part the art is pretty sweet, aside from two issues. The digital painting over the pencils (I'm assuming that's how they did it) give the art an unfinished feel at times. More importantly, however, the flat, washed out colors don't complement Joe Mad's art at all. I want to see vibrant, full-on cartoony goodness popping off the page. I feel like they dulled down the colors in an attempt to keep things gritty and realistic. But if you're gonna sub in Joe Mad for Hitch, go all the way.

But the art's hardly the problem through issues 1 and 2 of Ultimates 3, it's the story from Jeph Loeb.

I mostly agree with Blair Butler's points on the first issue. In issue 2 we have some interesting things, Magneto and The Brotherhood on the scene (cool), Cap vs. Sabretooth (hell yeah). But the issue starts with an annoying, comic book cliche battle between Hawkeye and Spider-Man. And before that Spidey, swinging through the Manhattan night, enters the fray when he hears of a shooting over the police radio, which must have been pretty loud as it's clearly snowing, so the police car's windows are up, but Spidey hears the call while swinging through the air. He doesn't have super hearing, does he? Yeah, it's a comic book, but previous Ultimates series stood out for their realistic vibe. This silly stuff wouldn't fly previously. And where the hell's Black Panther? We're told he's on the team in issue 1, but he gets thrown into a park and we don't even see him in issue 2.

Ultimates 3 has generally been getting panned, and while I'm not loving it to date I can hang in for three more issues of the five-part series to see how it develops.

Tyger style

In the midst of looking for a couple Punisher issues from the first Barracuda storyline so I can get caught up, I found this Punisher: The Tyger one-shot from 2006 I hadn't read yet.

With the regular series we have Frank Castle defined as the Punisher in action. And while writer Garth Ennis' run will be known as a legendary one, and undoubtedly the best Punisher stuff ever, his moments outside the regular series in which he further defines how the Punisher came to be really stand out. Those being the Born miniseries and this Tyger one-shot.

Yeah, Castle's family was murdered by mobsters and he flipped a switch. But when the lights came on they powered by something there all along. In Born we saw its manifestation in Vietnam. The Tyger takes us back further, to the 10-year-old Castle in 1960s Brooklyn. He's already displaying skills he'll put to use as the Punisher, but it's the lessons learned, not necessarily the deeds done here, that inform the guy with the skull on his shirt.

Brian Wood was recently commenting on how Ennis would be leaving giant shoes to fill when he leaves the title, which will be soon (and that Wood wanted no part of attempting the filling). It's hard to imagine anyone else writing the Punisher at this point. Matt Fraction, who's writing the Punisher: War Journal series, might be a logical choice. I like Fraction, but haven't read War Journal, so don't have an opinion there. Assuming the title continues though, Marvel has a tough task.

Art on The Tyger was handled by awesome Punisher covers regular Tim Bradstreet, with interiors from comics legend John Severin (started in the business in the 1930s — wha?!?), whose pencils were pitch-right for this tale.