Vol. 2
(by Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei, Viz Media, $9.99)
FROM THE BACK COVER:
"Ultimo and Vice are Karakuri Dôji, the mechanical embodiment of pure good and pure evil, devoid of human emotions that can cloud one's judgment. Their purpose: to battle to the death to prove once and for all whether good or evil is the most powerful force in the universe.
Things just keep getting more complicated for Yamato since Ultimo showed up. Now Yamato and Ultimo must face new dôji and deal with people whose intentions aren't always so clear. Can Yamato find the strength to meet these challenges and solve the mysteries of the Karakuri Dôji?"
EVIDENCE FOR:
The battle of good and evil rages on ... and it has so many gray areas, which is what makes Ultimo fascinating. If Volume 1 was about laying out some big ideas about morality, then Volume 2 is the one that actually starts to put those ideas into action, beginning with a battle sequence where a villain does the right thing (shock!) and Ultimo shows surprising signs of ruthlessness (double shock!). The best part, though, is in the middle chapters when new characters start showing up: Stan Lee is clearly having a ball playing with the themes of the Seven Sins and Seven Virtues (although it's somehow condensed to six), while Hiroyuki Takei is having the time of his life designing the characters to match. Good versus evil just gets that much cooler when you have entire teams of fantastical warriors getting into the fray. Takei also has a few tricks up his sleeve for the main hero, borrowing from the tradition of combining and transforming robots. The spindly, delicate linework also adds a certain elegance that one might not expect from a beat-'em-up hero series—and that, among other things, is why Ultimo stands out.
EVIDENCE AGAINST:
The only real reason Ultimo stands out is because it has become yet another vehicle for Stan Lee's insufferable ego. The self-insertion and self-promotion isn't as bad as in Volume 1, but his overbearing presence can still be felt as the mad genius Dunstan who created all these mechanical virtues and vices in the first place. The ultimate result of this ego-stroking is a plotline that is more spectacle than story—just shove in as many cool characters as possible, have them battle it out, and to hell with development. That certainly seems to be the plan as Ultimo and friends mince about getting into scuffles with various forms of the Seven Sins (which, by the way, is near-impossible to do these days without eventually ripping off Fullmetal Alchemist—here it happens when they get to Gluttony). When they do try to add complications to the plot, it always ends up sloppy, with lots of characters standing around talking while the poor reader has probably started to doze off at all this roundabout dialogue. And goodness gracious, the human characters are all stupid-looking (like rejected Shonen Jump protagonists) compared to the mechanical dolls. Why so inconsistent, Takei-sensei?
FINAL VERDICT:
Despite Stan the Man's best efforts to hype this up as something special, it really is just a middle of the road action-hero title, that kind that C- grades are reserved for.
