Marvel’s effort to introduce several new heroes and villains (including a new Wonder Man) has fallen flat. Their premiere appearances came in Ultimate Impact: Reborn #1, by Chris Condon and Stefano Caselli. However, the title of the book proves ironic, as none of the new characters (including the new cosmic villain Hostilicus) make much of an impact.
The story of Ultimate Impact: Reborn began with an earlier Marvel miniseries, Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion. It was here that Miles Morales accidentally traveled into the new Ultimate Universe. Before the heroes of that reality entered their final battle with The Maker, they made a request of the young Spider-Man. He was asked to transport several Origin Boxes – artifacts that could give a person superpowers – to the Iron Man of his world.
Ultimate Impact: Reborn finds Miles undertaking this mission. However, before he can meet with Tony Stark, he is ambushed by The Spot. Somehow, someone learned about the Origin Boxes, and paid the teleporting villain to steal them. The resulting battle leads to the Origin Boxes being scattered and winding up in the hands of random people at the issue’s end. This includes the soon-to-be new Wonder Man.
Marvel’s new characters leave no impression
All of these Marvel characters, good and bad, are introduced through vignettes over the course of the issue. However, these scenes are brief and barely introduce them. Hostilicus has four pages devoted to his background, including a two page splash. The new Wonder Man fares somewhat better with three unique pages. The other new characters only have two pages each, ignoring a panel showing all the Earthling characters opening their Origin Boxes.
The new Wonder Man, Vin Lerner. gets the most development of the new Marvel creations. We learn that he is a construction worker and a single father. He is also a genuinely good person, whose only weakness is not seeing himself as the hero his daughter imagines him to be.
Conversely, Hostilicus is from the Negative Zone of the new Ultimate Universe. His dimension is divided by a holy war between those who worship the villain Annihilus and those who worship Blastaar. He is established as a being of power, who wields the Nega-Bands of his reality’s Captain Marvel. However, nothing is said of his goals beyond defeating the followers of Blastar.
Even less is said about the other new Marvel characters called Sightseer and Mogul. Indeed, there are two characters (a pair of philosophical teenagers named Max and Lola) who did not get a cover or codenames. All in all, Ultimate Impact: Reborn #1 is a lackluster introduction.
Ultimate Impact: Reborn #1 is now available at comic shops everywhere.
