Ultimate Secret #1

Taking Blood of the Demon #1 as an example, I came across a fair bunch of characters whom I'd never read about before. Yet, I found the book to be pretty easy to get into, and quite accessible. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Ultimate Secret #1.

The silver guy in the lead, his armour has quite a striking design. But, just who is he? Reading the book, I'd never have found out. Thanks to the chat rooms and forums I lurk on, I learned that he was, infact, Captain Marvel. Well, I remember thinking, didn't he have those negation bands on his wrist? Aah, I see, out here they've been replaced with some kind of a cosmic wrist-watch. Cute, but unfortunately, it's already been done, and done much better, back in the pages of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' crossover with Cerebus. Remember Lord Simultaneous, and the Digital Cosmic Quartz? As I said, much better. Warren Ellis was beaten by nearly 20 years. You don't see that often.

That apart, I don't think anyone needed the nerdy science fiction. Save the unnecessary dialogue for the movie. Out here, we need plot. The two page monologue on how the space shuttle is powered served absolutely no purpose in the story, and just came across as Warren Ellis showing off his scientific acumen. And padding. Yes. Throwaway jokes and splash pages do not a comic book make. And yet, ironically, that was the only time the book was engrossing, because the rest of the issue was dull, dreary, and beset by inertia. Hence, in this issue, we learned that the Kree are stealing a top-secret, experimental space shuttle.

The art is pretty good, nicely detailed, but the fight at the end is pretty poorly depicted, and there isn't much flow between the panels.

So a six page introductory setup is stretched out into an whole issue, and not a very interesting one at that either. Poor stuff.