Ultimate Avengers: The Movie

Ultimates was a comic book series created by Mark Millar, in response to a slump in sales across the board with Marvel historic intellectual properties.  The number of subscription and sales for Thor, Captain America, and the Avenger comics at the turn of the century were at a low.  Ultimates, Wolverine, Spiderman and X-men were doing much larger numbers than the Marvels usual brands, and executives gave Mark Millar cart blanche to retell the story, for a younger audience without any need to search for earlier issues for context; all readers would have ground floor start in this world’s iteration of Earth’s mightiest heroes. 

The genesis of each character remained somewhat the same, the story was told in modern day setting, and each story and its style was conceived in a way that it could be told in a theatrical movie experience kind of way.  Nick Fury of the 60’s was adapted from the cold war model of super spies; readers at the time loved James Bond and relate to this world.  Nick Fury was now a trendier African American who completed his tour in the Gulf War and became the head of Shield.  Thor though obviously powerful was not taken seriously as an entity having god like lineage, Captain America remains a man out of time, who dedicated himself to fight a war and went through a life altering process only to now find out there is no great war to fight.  The Ulitmates was created in a world post 9/11 were tragedy had consequences and collateral damage of say a Hulk smash affected your neighbors and the unknown bystanders in the vicinity; who might have been related to your co-worker.

It is very important to note that Ultimate Avengers: The movie was released in 2006,  two years before the theatrical release of Iron Man, the movie that  brought Robert Downey Jr. into the spotlight,  and introduced us to Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. After watching either version of Ultimate animated movies, victory does not come without a price; either a significant loss, or consequence of one’s actions.  In any true form, the villain rarely sees him or herself as a villain. It is a matter of chance and circumstances; or one bad day that lead down a path.  In the Avengers movie: Age of Ultron Tony Stark can be viewed as Villain, his intentions are noble; his PTSD and haunting nightmare drive him to create the Iron Legion, and the Ultron program. To protect the earth from an alien invasion or an extinction level event.  Tony devises a three day window before Thor leaves for Asgard by holding a party to keep Thor on earth, while enabling the God of Thunder continued visits to Jane; as he tries to interface the technology of Loki’s scepter to the A.I. of his Ultron program. That plan to interface goes awry when Ultron determines that man himself is the root cause of earth’s decay, and the avengers are the true threat which needs to be stopped to allow the fall of humanity.  Determined not to repeat his mistakes Tony convinces Hawkeye to leave the room to check on an injured Natalia while he convinces Banner to create a second murder-bot, with the Jarvis A.I.  to interface with; in order to undo the mistake he just made with Ultron, not fully knowing if this version won’t repeat the same results. In the Ultimates animated movie Bruce Banner is viewed as the villain. Like the greek myth’s Prometheus who stole fire from the gods, Banner’s desire to crack the code of the super soldier serum unleashed a god like horror to man, a rampaging beast of carnage.  Banner deliberately lies to Nick Fury and Betty Ross regarding trials of test subjects and uses all the vials of Steve Rogers’ blood on himself to gain control intellectually of his monster. The deceit and lies may have been forgiven if he was successful in controlling the Hulk, instead it compiled to the threat of an alien invasion with Hulk attempting to murder each Avenger.

Similar to the Phase one set up of the MCU which was influenced by Mark Millar’s work, Nick Fury and shield unearth a frozen Captain America trapped suspended since his days stopping hydra and a Chitauri invasion during the Second World War. Vibranium composes the haul structure of the Alien aircrafts, and Captain America is thawed out in time to lead a team of earth’s mightiest heroes to prevent Earth from being conquered.  It’s the team’s ego and not working in a team environment that causes the Avengers to fail, and nearly lose a member. The crushing defeat and learning to trust each other, and follow a plan allows the heroes to shine; However not all the heroes can be seen in the light as David Banner’s misguided attempts almost kills the entire team at the edge of victory.