the geekocracy

Heralding in Ultimatum #1

So for those reading any Marvel Ultimate Universe books, you’ve known for a while now that we’ve been marching to Ultimatum for what seems like months now. Well the marching is done and Ultimatum is finally here. And it things get rolling hard and fast.

Ultimatum #1 written by Jeph Loeb with art by David Finch, starts off in usual Loeb fashion with a first issue that grabs your attention right away. Disasters happen, people die (at least we assume they die), and people are left wondering what the hell happened. Now I’m not going to go into spoilers here, not because I’m worried about people that haven’t read Ultimatum #1 yet, but because I have to voice some confusion left over from the Ultimate Origins mini series that leads directly into Ultimatum.

In Ultimate Origins the Watchers show up to the Fantastic Four and tell of a great impending doom that will most likely be hitting the Earth. We’re not sure what this is at that time because the Watchers don’t know what it is and of course because that’s going to be the subject of Ultimatum. Now here’s were things get a bit confusing not only for myself, but for a few others I’ve talked to as well.

The Watchers say that they will not be helping physically, but they will help us by choosing a “herald.” We later flash forward to Rick Jones who is suddenly glowing. So he’s the herald that the Watchers have chosen. But now how is he actually a herald? We already know the there’s something bad coming because the Watchers have already said that. So why do we need a herald? Now if Rick Jones is supposed to be a protector for us or maybe some sort of go between or ambassador for the people of Earth, that seems to make more sense. So I guess what I’m saying here is that what the Watchers chose for Earth shouldn’t be called a “herald” but maybe a “protector” or “hero.” At least that’s how I’m reading things. I’m hoping this will be addressed by someone at Marvel or maybe someone out there can tell me something I may have missed and please let me know if I have.

But so far we’ve now seen the bad stuff that happpened in Ultimatum #1 and it caught everyone by surprise, so if the herald was supposed to have warned us about this or protect us from it, he’s doing a pretty crappy job so far.

For now I’ll keep reading, the art is great as always from Finch, and hopefully Loeb delivers a nice cohesive story that all makes sense and is entertaining.

Here’s hoping.