Because you aren’t a proper superhero universe without an archer. I guess.
Ultraverse Premiere #1
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (March, 1994)
It should be noted that this is a flip book, the other side being Rune #3. I don’t read that comic and the site I’m using is nice enough to keep the flip sides separate so I don’t have to read it. So I won’t be looking at Rune’s story, just the other stories.
Ripfire: “Genesis” part 1
WRITER/PENCILER: Darick Robertson
INKER: Jon Holdredge
COLORING: Moose Baumann & Foodhammer!
LETTERER: Dave Lanphear
EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
Warstrike: “Pilgrimage” part 1
WRITER: Dan Danko
ARTIST: Hoang Nguyen
COLORIST: Robert Alvord
LETTERER: Dave Lanphear
EDITOR: Roland Mann
Elven: “Gimme Shelter”
WRITER: Len Strazewski
PENCILER: Greg S. Luzniak
INKER: Tim Roddick
COLORING: Keith Conroy & Violent Hues
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
The first story is part one of a series going through this anthology that will later be collected into Ripfire #0. I debated waiting for that comic given it has an original story, but I don’t know if I’m going to want to read it, but that what I’m going to do not only because of that but because of what time I have available and the reading list I’m going with…and I still wish I could have found a release order instead of a supposed reading order given that it keeps me from reading certain comics when I want to…says it’s the only Ripfire solo comic. So briefer summary: gang fights rednecks, is grabbed by aliens, and now our lead character is being controlled. I’ll come back to him when I get to his solo collection.
So let’s introduce ourselves to Warstrike in the second story. There isn’t much to tell. A bunch of thugs are bumped off by Warstrike, who has some kind of probability scanning powers and serious murderin’ skills. He’s been hired to find a missing girl, which the head of the gang swears he knows nothing about. The story ends with someone pointing a gun at Warstrike’s back. That’s it. That’s all we get. I barely know what’s happening outside of “hired gun is trying to rescue a kidnapped child and doesn’t know why he still does this job”. It’s also a bit too violent for me.
Our final tale brings up Elven, a character I’ve heard of with ties to Prime. I’m betting that means the reading order list won’t let me read her comic since it seems to hate Prime. This…is not the character I’ve heard about. I’ll start at the start: a man breaks into a girl’s shelter looking for his wife, but while he has a gun, it’s empty and has the safety off, so the nun who runs the place chases him off as she used to be a soldier. He buys another gun, and bullets this time, and tries to attack a stripper only to get the daylights beat out of him by a muscly barbarian woman who shoots fire. Yes, this is present day. Like I said, I know she has ties to Prime, so I can guess how she’s doing this, the same reason Kevin Greene can. Beyond that, the dude’s a walking stereotype of a wife beater and Red Sonya would tell this girl to chill out.
Overall I can’t say I’m all that impressed, if only because this was too violent for me. We have two more of these, and they will also be flipbooks, which is just more evidence that this reading order is actually making it harder on me to read rather than easier. It really just wants me to follow Warstrike right now, but that’s not how to review these comics. Part three of his story is flipped with an issue of Prime that’s further along than I’m currently at, and since it’s the only one that I’m actually reading off of this list it throws my whole timeline out of whack. There are times I really hate this list. Unfortunately it’s either this or a simple alphabetical list, which would cause other issues with crossovers and the eventual Marvel purchase and run. Nothing’s easy with me, is it?
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