Guest Review: Ultimo, Vol. 1

Editor’s note: A few weeks ago, I posted a manga lover’s take on the Hiroyuki Takei/Stan Lee project Ultimo. In the interest of balance, I invited journalist, blogger, and funny-book fanatic Martin Gray to offer a DC/Marvel fan’s perspective on the project and presto! a guest review was born. Martin writes for the The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh, and is a self-professed fan of police procedurals, musicals, cookies, cats and comics. He used to edit UK packages of DC comics (along with originating material for the “glorious” My Little Pony comic), and now maintains a comics blog, Too Dangerous For a Girl, at dangermart.blogspot.com. Please help me give a warm welcome to Martin!

ULTIMO, VOL. 1

ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY STAN LEE, STORY AND ART BY HIROYUKI TAKEI • VIZ • 216 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Kyoto, in the 12th century. Bandits encounter a mysterious old man and despite his warnings, force open the box he’s transporting. Inside lie two contrasting puppets, the light Ultimo and the dark Vice. It turns out that the man, Dunstan, is a philosopher inventor who has created these living dolls to be in conflict, to learn which is more powerful, Good or Evil. Cue lots of trash talk, slashing and transformations before the scene shifts . . .

. . . it’s the 21st century and Agari Yamato, atypically tall Tokyo teenager, isn’t fussed about such matters, he just wants to scrape together enough money to buy a birthday present for the beauteous Sayama Makoto. But what he wants doesn’t matter, as coming across the now dormant Ultimo in an antique shop is the cue for a tale of reincarnation, mystery and history. And of course, scrapping.

The man behind Ultimo is Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, co-creator of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and more heroes and villains than I’ve had hot dinners. His collaborator is Hiroyuki Takei, though ‘collaborator’ undersells his contribution. He’s writing and drawing this strip, taking Stan’s concepts and running with them. If I had to guess just what Stan contributed — apart from his likeness for trickster toymaker Dunstan — I’d say Yamato, whose luckless life reflects that of many a Marvel hero. And the idea of a godlike figure setting fundamental forces against one another has been used in many a Marvel tale, with such characters as the Beyonder and Grandmaster. There’s even a sidekick, Rune, a staple of Marvel since its earliest days.

But none of this stuff has been unique to Marvel, and Takei’s energetic script and black and white artwork (aided by an inker and, puzzlingly, a painter) is what propels this 200 page collection from beginning to end at breakneck pace. Stan’s big gift since he stopped writing comics regularly in the Seventies has been enthusiasm: if he’s involved with a project, he’ll hype it to the heavens. So while I suspect his main input into Ultimo was lending his name, that does have some value — it got me reading a manga, for one thing.

And as a manga virgin, I enjoyed Ultimo well enough. Being unfamiliar with the conventions of what seems to be a fighting robots genre, I was a tad bemused when characters would yell ‘karakuri henge’, ‘crane sword!’, ‘Millennium cut,’ or my favorite, ‘spider slayer’ (now that’s a direct Stan reference) before growing all jagged and ripping something or someone up. I’ve no idea what the meaning of ‘karakuri henge’ might be, but apparently it’s so bleeding obvious it’s not worth translating. Let’s just say it’s outside my, er, ‘hannya parameters’ and leave it at that.

Never mind, I got the gist of the story. My only real problem is the visualization of Ultimo and Vice, avatars of good and evil — whereas most characters are drawn in naturalistic style, the puppets are fey little things. Spikey-haired fairy boys in floaty clothing do not speak to me of power and awe. Again though, I’m the ignoramus here — there’s perhaps a long manga tradition of elfin spirits whose appearance leads you to underestimate their might.

My favourite scene sees Sayami walk in on Yamato innocently kissing someone else, throwing a spanner in the works so far as their getting a relationship off the ground is concerned. In a Marvel book the kissee would be a minx throwing herself at Peter Parker; this being a cheeky Japanese book, Yamato is giving Ultimo a peck, but so far as Sayami is concerned, Yamato’s about to service a sex doll. It’s an amusing moment that perfectly fits the logic of the story.

The sound effects are a bit literal: ‘shrug’, ‘rustle’, ‘blink’ and so on, but they make me smile. Takei’s depiction of the landscape around 12th-century Kyoto is pleasingly pastoral, but I like his scenes of today’s Tokyo even more — he really brings the metropolis to vibrant life, and his way with clothing could teach western artists a thing or two. I got lost a few times in the fight scenes, whenever the framing goes in super-tight on some spiky action or other. And I couldn’t tell what was meant to be the point of Ultimo’s forearms, which look like a cross between a Ming vase and a rainbow fish. Plus, the cover coloring lacks contrast, as Ulti’s freaky clown hair is set against a similarly flame-hued background.

All in all, though, Ultimo is big, loud, melodramatic fun. I’m not convinced I’ll come back for volume two, but manga fans may enjoy it more.

So, what’s Japanese for EXCELSIOR?

–Martin Gray