Tuesday, March 05, 2024

"I can't feed on the powerless, when my cup's already overfilled..."

This was an "Age of Ultron Aftermath," but not what I thought it was going to be, and it leads right into another event because of course it does. From 2013, Hunger #1, written by Joshua Hale Fialkov, art by Leonard Kirk.
I no longer have an innate sense of when crossovers were or in what order, since I thought this was going to be after the Galactus appearances, with Ultron, in Infinity Countdown, but this was five years earlier? Really? So, I wasn't expecting the lead for this one to be Rick Jones--the Rick Jones from the Ultimate universe. Boo. Rick Jones has cosmic power here, from a Watcher, which in the Ultimate U. isn't a big bald guy, but a really judgey-sounding fancy pillar. Rick didn't seem like he was getting a lot in the way of training or even basic instructions, but "abandons his post" to go to earth for a burger (those Ultimate kids love their burgers!) which he doesn't get to eat, as he's teleported to the middle of the Kree/Chitauri War. Which is interrupted by the arrival of the Gah Lak Tus swarm.
The Watcher doesn't so much guide Rick, as much as tell him how momentous everything is; particularly when Galactus from the 616-proper Marvel Universe arrives, is swarmed by, and then merges with Gah Lak Tus! Directing the swarm as a herald, Galactus hungers...Rick would get an upgrade a bit further in the series, but that feels like they just wanted to get that character into the Ultimate Universe before wrapping it up; since this leads directly into Cataclysm. Of course, the Ultimate U. is being rebooted again now, so... 

 Anyway, I went into this expecting something else, so that's on me.  

  There was a sequence that reminded me of a bit I like a lot better, in Baron and Rude's Nexus: Alien Justice, where the Merk "phases out" Horatio as Nexus, to give aliens a shot at the job: he later complains, the demon he gave powers to took them and the costume and hadn't been seen since!

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid said...

Could just be me, but the moment someone on the scale of a Galactus casually enters an alt universe should be played up as a much bigger deal than it feels given how his arrival was laid out. Could just be me, but THIS is the time when a heavy, verbose dialogue-laden intro & description you used to only find on old comics would apply to accurately convey how momentous this all is. Then it’s comics, and doing the impossible on a regular basis is the norm for the medium right?
Anyhoo, how cool was it that Galactus & his UU counterpart met, merged & went to go eat EVERYTHING? Having not read the miniseries, I can only imagine how much of a Herculean effort it took from both universes to fix this one.

LOVE Hunger Strike. That whole album actually. Definitely a shame the group didn’t last much longer than its initial purpose as a tribute to the lead singer of Mother Love Bone. I know Cornell & Vedder had their own VERY successful bands as it was, but I’d have loved for them to have reunited at least once more before Cornell’s death.