Twenty-two years ago, in the previous ‘hardcopy’ incarnation of this illustrious publication, I concluded a dismissal of the first issue of the 1989 Legion of Super-Heroes series with a phrase along the lines of, “Legion fans have long memories, and endless patience. We can wait.”
I’ve seen various approaches to the .1 jumping-on-point issues so far: just exposition to bring readers up to date; leaving the main character out of it completely; and a comedy single-issue story. This is closest to that final approach, except there is minimal attempt at comedy here, as far as I can tell.
I confess that I didn’t buy this: it came as a free bonus with Avengers 10, which strikes me as a good way to promote something where you have some faith in its quality but fear it might not find its audience. They’re pretty much right to have some faith in it, I think.
I’ve enjoyed this series. I said in a recent Shazam! review that I think writers taking on existing characters need to think about what makes them special, what their particular requirements and opportunities are. I know Mark has created most of these, but clearly the Ultimate characters are variations on established stars.
Dan Abnett has been writing comics for 25 years, and is best known of late for work on Marvel’s cosmic heroes, including the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy titles.
