“Ultimates 2,” issue #13, came out this week, a scant 4 months since the last issue, and only 3 and a half years since the first issue in this arc.
I would really like it if I were able to hold that against them, but I was just so glad to have it to finally read, that it was okay. In all honesty, while I understand the continuous argument that comic fans now expect more out of their art, and so it’s not easy to put the product out there in a timely fashion, it’s still pretty unacceptable. Comics are a constantly dying and returning art-form. Derided, even while the subject matter contained within them is turned into other entertainment properties; an old fashioned form of entertainment. In an era where technology has come so far, it must be possible to use it in a way that improves, not slows the release of the product.
And especially in the case of a series with a limited run [which "Ultimates" does in a way, as they chose long ago to do it in "seasons" of 13 issues], I have never understood the willingness of a publisher to throw away as much money as they do, by not producing the full run prior to release. It’s just bad business - if X-Men, or Detective Comics is a few months late, it won’t affect sales, because people have been reading those titles for years. If issue 13 of 13 is a year late, half your readership will not remember that the story wasn’t finished, and a good number of the people you want to start buying the book, will not be able to get the back issues, and will not buy the book. If you are on time, and meet expectations, you will reap rewards with limited series. Fail that, and you’ve given up on actual financial success for a project purely for short-term minor gains associated with getting the first book out the door.
You want to see proof? Wait until Kevin Smith’s “Daredevil: Target” issue 2 comes out, and see what sales on that are like.
So, it pains me, when I’m so very passionate on this topic, both from a fan perspective and a business perspective, to say this, but the issue was totally worth the wait, and despite the fact that it would have pushed the release into 2011, I think they should have made it longer, or included another issue. Or, better still, they probably should have included this issue directly with issue 12, which was far superior.
In the middle of the book is an enormous multi-page pull out which shows the battle to end all battles, and which is probably what took Bryan Hitch so long. I don’t think I could fit that many standard comic pages on my drawing table at one time, myself — I imagine he had to build a special drawing table just for that scene, and that must have taken time.
I wish more time was spent on the Hulk, who clearly has made a great deal of progress since being blown up. I can only hope that Jeff Loeb picks up on that, as he starts his run with my absolute favorite artist, Joe Mad. The ironic part is that Joe Madureira, whose 10th issue of “Battlechasers” is currently 65 months overdue (with caveats. admittedly — in that he hasn’t really claimed it was coming out since 2001), may actually end up being more on time because of the delays caused by Millar and Hitch.