Okay, we’ve gone on about it enough. Time for that one last push to make you read Ultimate Human.

Ellis is the kind of writer who’s very polarising. There’s a lot of personality about him, and he’s undoubtedly often more interested in hanging a story off his futurist concepts than the other way around. That said, this seems to be the best way to deal with his quirks – give him a series that’s free to play them out.

In Ultimate Human, Ellis brings together the ultimate technological and biological expressions of humanity – Tony Stark as Iron Man, and Bruce Banner as the Hulk – and allows them to bounce off one another in a spectacular fashion. The examination of how the Hulk’s biology adapts to hostile environments is particularly entertaining, and something that fits into the Ultimate universe beautifully.

Even as Bruce and Tony appear to have finally found a cure for the Hulk, the Ultimate Leader hatches a plan and attacks their base. Or rather, he gets someone else to, he largely sits around ranting. It’s a typically Ellis take on the character, but certainly an entertaining one. Presumably, the next two issues will follow the usual path of Hulk “cures” and it’ll fail just in time for Banner to save everyone and thunder off into the distance.

That said – we can’t be sure. There is absolutely no doubt that this is the true sequel to The Ultimates – it’s the only place where the characters and themes are preserved. More importantly, it’s a story that you can only really tell in the Ultimate universe, which is still young enough that Banner and Stark can realistically be attempting this for the first time, and we genuinely can’t be sure of their success or failure.

Cary Nord brings to the table some great comedic timing and a flair for action, proving with this series that he’s more than ready to become the next superstar artist – his work is starting to shows all the good elements of the Kubert brothers who were also helping to define the Ultimate universe shortly before they were snapped up by DC, so let’s hope Marvel have the good sense to keep him around. With Ultimates 3 dying on it’s arse, the whole imprint needs to make sure it clings to anything good that comes along – Ultimate Human would be a good start.