“How come you get weapons and I have to use my hand to shoot people?”
Ultraverse Premiere #2
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (April, 1994)
This is another flipbook, on the back of Mantra #10, another comic I wouldn’t be reading back in the day. So that means I would never have known about these books until the next issue, which flipped with an issue of Prime, that comic this reading list refuses to let me read. Since most likely these would have been on shelves and spinner racks on the Mantra side, all you’d see is a very expensive issue of Mantra at first glance. I don’t know. I don’t see this as a good idea since not everybody is going to read the comics on the flipside and not know about your three new characters unless they did.
Warstrike: “Pilgrimage II”
WRITER: Dan Danko | ARTIST: Hoang Nguyen | COLORING: Robert Alvord & Violent Hues | LETTERER: Dave Lanphear | EDITOR: Roland Mann
Warstrike, Ultrahero for hire, sees all the probabilities with the guy he’s fighting, but misses one other guy that manages to wound him. Will his tech-induced healing factor fix him in time? That’s pretty much all that happens. Not very exciting but the type of violence you expect from the 1990s comics.
Elven: “Exposed”
WRITER: Len Strazewski | PENCILER: Greg Luzniak | INKER: Tim Roddick | COLORING: Micky Rose & Violent Hues | LETTERING: Tim Eldred | EDITOR: Hank Kanalz | CREATOR: Norm Breyfogle
So why isn’t Norm writing her first story? Anyway, we learn Elven’s real first name is Elvira but not much else about her. She’s the teen girl, and she transforms like Prime does. She’s mentally called by Delacroix, an Ultra who got his powers after the moon incident, giving him not just the power to control women’s minds, but turn into a kind of demon form. Now he runs a fake wicca group, but he wants to be worshipped rather than worship an Earth goddess…and he’s as close to Caligula as the Comics Code would allow…if it followed the Comics Code. Even Elven can be controlled, and Delacroix wants her to destroy Prime, the only Ultra powerful enough to challenge him. So does that mean Elven could challenge him if she wasn’t under his control? That’s going to be confusing next issue, which is on the opposite side of an issue of Prime this reading list isn’t allowing me to read yet. I still wish I could have found a proper release date list instead of this alleged “proper” reading order.”
Ripfire: “Genesis” part 2: “Hard Rain”
WRITER/PENCILER/CREATOR: Darick Robertson | INKER: Jon Holdridge | COLORING: Moose Baumann & Foodhammer! | LETTERER: Dave Lanphear | EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
I wish this story didn’t keep jumping between the past and present day. To follow better, the alien infused to our boy Matt is Chi’arr, which the Grand Comic Database calls a guest-star, so I guess he won’t be here long. Matt and his friends agree to let the aliens take over so they can make contact with humans and clone themselves new bodies while offering their advanced knowledge. A cop comes upon them and one of the others decides to kill the cop, and Chi’arr isn’t happy about it. Now an observer through his own eyes, Matt is forced to fight his best friend as the two beings fight for command of the group. In the present, soldiers are after him and they find a body, which triggers one of the flashbacks, making me guess how this fight ends. I just can’t get into the story. The time jumps are annoying and I’m just not connecting with anyone here.
overall
I’m just not invested in any of these stories. Maybe Elven because I know she has a connection to Prime, which this list won’t let me read, but that’s it. The other two I really don’t care about at all. One more of these and these three stories will be done.
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