When I said I wanted to get back to reading Prime, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Ultraverse Premiere #3
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (May, 1994)
Okay, explain this to me. The flipside of this comic was Prime #12 and yet there’s another Prime story here. Ripfire just ended on a cliffhanger with our protagonist potentially being dead. What’s worse, Elven’s story continues in an issue of Prime that this stupid reading order won’t let me read for a while and we’re two issues away from catching up, and THIS Prime story concludes next issue of Ultraverse Premiere, which the reading order isn’t listing until after a bunch of other comics (screw that, we’re doing the next issue, which the reading order claims is in an arbitrary spot, but the conclusion of this story is in it so I’m moving up, list can go fish)…look, does anybody know of a proper release date list, because that would be preferable to this mess.
Ah well, on with the comic.
Prime: “Anatomy Of A Hero” part 1
WRITER: Len Strazewski | PENCILER: Frank Gomez | INKER: Troy Hubbs | COLORING: Violet Hues & Keith Conroy | LETTERER: Patrick Owsley| EDITOR: Hank Kanalz |
Prime stops a missile from blowing up downtown Los Angeles but crashes into the bad part of town just as Kevin’s time is up. (A rather adult looking Kevin if that’s still him. Again, thanks to this list I’m two issues behind.) Somehow his Prime body is still in tact and taken in by a funeral director. Days later, Prime is protecting this neighborhood. Why? I guess we’ll find out next issue. By the way guys, using “$#!T” as your curse sensor is not even worth the effort. You might as well spell the word. It’s not like this is a kid-friendly story the way Prime is tossing people around.
Warstrike: “Pilgrimage” finale
WRITER: Dan Danko | ARTIST: Hoang Nguyen | COLORING: Family Fugue & Robert Alvord | LETTERER: Dave Lanphear| EDITOR: Roland Mann
Warstrike recovers, the monster guy takes himself out, Warstrike gets the info he wanted from the jerk running this gang before tossing said jerk like Team Rocket, continued in his own comic. Doesn’t really seem like it’s worth the effort, does it? Meanwhile, Ripfire is dead somewhere and we have to wait for #0 to hit this reading order to find out what happens to him.
Lord Pumpkin
WRITER: Dan Danko | ARTIST: Aaron Lopestri | COLORIST: Albert Calleros | EDITOR: Chris Ulm
I only know this character from the Ultraforce cartoon, a recurring villain. This is origin story and I don’t remember the show covering it. Given the origin involves child murder, I’m not surprised a syndicated kids show…opted not to. The king and queen were wise, benevolent, and full of goodness. How they had a psychotic child is beyond me, but to keep him inline, the king had a wizard create a playmate for him. Since the wizard bewitched a pumpkin with a body, the child called it Lord Pumpkin. Naturally the kid made him suffer so much that he kills the child, then his parents, and having only know torment decides to evilize the kingdom. But he has another kingdom in his eyes as a new prize, and I’m betting it’s the Ultraverse. This is way too dark for my tastes, but it’s a 90s comic. Glad they left this out of the show.
overall
I’m jumping ahead in the reading order. If it’s arbitrary I’m not waiting that long to see how Prime’s story ends. I also hope to get back to Prime’s actual comic…someday. I’m sorry to keep complaining about this reading order, but it’s making it a pain to review the Ultraverse, and not all that fun for me to read as a result because it’s making me wait on comics I really want to read. As for these stories, I’m curious how Prime’s turns out and we’ll have to wait on Ripfire for awhile, while Warstrike’s story ends unsatisfactory as his search for the missing girl continues in his own comic, which would have been the next comic reviewed if I stuck to the list. So we’ll see that in two Malibu Ultra-Monday reviews.
BW Media Spotlight 