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ULTIMATE EXTINCTION

I've been an admitted fan of THE ULTIMATES for a while now. I've been very taken with
Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch's accomplished, intelligent and often witty attempt to "update" the Marvel universe, at least in this one respect; I have avoided all of the other comics in the line in my ongoing attempt to ignore nearly all superhero comics except by creators I like (for example, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN or SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY, both great and both by Grant Morrison). I probably won't be reading THE ULTIMATES now that Millar & Hitch are done with it.

Superhero comics are no fun anymore. Between the "decompressed" or "widescreen" style, the rather 80s-like shame of creators of the "silly" aspects of these characters(one reason the two Morrison titles I cite above are fun is that they embrace this), and much else, superhero comics have become the leading edge of an anti-comics sentiment in the mainstream. Simply put, Marvel's notion with the Ultimate line has been to create treatments for potential films, material that can just go straight to production with little alteration. To do so, they eliminate all that is "comic-booky" about the comics-in style and content. You won't see any experimentation a la WATCHMEN with this stuff, nor any stylized cartooning-no Kirby would be published in this line. What you do see is art about as photorealistic as they can muster and about four panels at most per page(which is a great way of stretching out not much story into a trade paperback, granted)-drawn fumetti.

This isn't so bad a thing when you have a team like Millar & Hitch. Millar is a snotty, mean-spirited and smart writer who somehow knows how to pay respect to his sources even as he mocks them. He knows the things he's changing and so his changes are still "in character," and not merely an attempt to make a corporate product blander and easier for the masses to digest. And Hitch is a remarkably talented cartoonist, not merely a penciller. His characters emote and have individual personalities, and do not have the stiff, flat look of something traced from a photo. (Tim Bradstreet, I'm looking in your direction)

Unfortunately, they're the exception. Which brings us to Ultimate Extinction, the third part of Warren Ellis' trilogy informally titled Ultimate Galactus. I admit I kind of enjoyed the first part, ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE, which had decent art and told a fairly gripping little story. I did not read ULTIMATE SECRET. I did, however, read this, and given that

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