Awesome Story That Happens to Have Hawkeye In It
The best part of this book is the thing that works most to its detriment. It's so awesome that this book is happening concurrently with The Ultimates. It just comes at the cost of knowing anything about Hawkeye. It seems to me that he's a cocky, crack shot who's also good at cracking wise...like almost every other hero.
You know what? I'm totally fine with that. I don't need to care about Hawkeye to care about what's happening. The best part about the Ultimate relaunch is that it seems like the three mastheads (Spencer, Bendis, and Hickman) are working closer together than the other Ultimate writers ever did. Granted, only two books in the new UU have come out, both by the same author, but if they can manage to keep these books tightly intertwined without making them too dependent on each other we can get something really special going on here.
What a story they've got going on here too! The SEAR is doing something pretty big
So it feels like Hickman is doing something special here. The Ultimate Universe gives him the space to make really huge, sweeping changes and see where they go. How cool is that? That prognostication line that tied in with The Ultimates #1 was pretty chilling too. Can't wait to see how this ties in with Reed and the rest of the Ultimates.
On the art side, Pablo Sandoval does a good job of adhering to the "ultimate style". There are some neat sections where the action spills across panels, but nothing really caught my eye as special. It's not bad, it's just not great.
I'm really excited about what's going on in the Ultimate Universe. Way more so than 616, for sure. This has the potential to be something really great.
