That cover, oh that cover, wow. I definitely prefer the Cho cover of the very sexy (is there any other kind of Cho Woman?) Scarlet Witch over the Joe Mad cover of a dinosaur eating his trademark-bestial Wolverine. And it’s not just a preference of a beautiful woman over an ugly man – at least Wanda is a member of the title team, whereas he’s not. What is the recent need for X-Men characters in Avengers stories of late? Aren’t the Avengers characters good enough?

There was quite a buzz regarding Frank Cho’s other cover for Ultimates 3 #3, a backview of the nude Wanda (or is it Magda?) in Logan’s arms. Now Cho does some wonderful female nudes, but I hate to say this – when it comes to this particular image… I’ve seen him do better. That said, of the two potential Cho covers, I prefer the clothed (or semi-clothed, if you will) version of the Ultimate Scarlet Witch. More views of her like this on covers and she might not have bitten the dust quite so quickly.

Again the cover is great, but as with the last issue of Ultimate 3, it is more in line with the metaphor of gift-wrapping a box of crap. It sure looks nice, but oh my, look what’s inside…

I’m beginning to think that the ‘Previously’ pages at Marvel are not written by the writers but the editors and/or represent a major lack of communication between the two. It has happened far too often in the Avengers titles with Brian Michael Bendis, and it happens here for writer Jeph Loeb. The first words -spoken by Wolverine- on page two are almost literally the same as the text on page one. I paid for the same words twice, and I don’t like it.

It takes less than a page for Wolverine and Hawkeye to go at each other in a big needless two-page posturing splash spread of testosterone. What sets them off is almost embarrassing and makes the old Lee/Kirby superhero slugfests of old seem sooo mature in comparison. We already know from the last two issues that Hawkeye himself has issues. Loeb needs to seriously stop beating us over the head with Hawkeye being suicidal. We get it. Really, stop it, we get the point. The only thing that could be worse would be a neon sign over Hawkeye’s head saying it. Annoying just doesn’t cover it.

Page four’s close-up on Wolverine demonstrates my major problem with artist Joe Madureira’s work – the feral, bestial pug-nosed doggy face. It would be fine if only Sabertooth had it, and maybe Wolverine to an extent – but dude, Thor has it too! And Mad’s art doesn’t show us clearly enough that Wolverine has struck Hawkeye. I sat wondering for a moment or two why Clint’s goggles and mask were shattered and ripped suddenly. And, um, how is that piece of body armor stuck to his elbow? Crazy glue?

And Captain America stands and watches. He does nothing while Hawkeye and Wolverine try to kill each other just a few feet away. I have to wonder if Jeph Loeb forgot who he was writing. This is more the Austen or Bendis Cap than the Ultimate version. My instincts say that the Ultimate Captain America would have torn the two of them apart.

Thor’s appearance gets the team back on their feet again – I was just glad it wasn’t Wolverine who was the guiding factor. It is sad however because he is accompanied by Valkyrie, who was in this series’ first issue my favorite character, and is now an annoying stereotype. Talk about first impressions gone awry. That said, I couldn’t help but smile at her “dinosaurs are pretty cool” later on in the issue.

With the Ultimates’ attention rapt by an X-Man in their own title, Wolverine then spins a tale from just after ‘the war.’ He sought out the witch of Wundagore, in an attempt to end his apparently painful nearly-immortal life, and he finds Magda, the mother of Pietro and Wanda, and beloved of Magneto – and she’s a dead ringer for Wanda – perhaps explaining the odd alternate nude cover by Cho.

In a truly sinister Bendis-ian twist, we find that Magda and Wolvie were involved in a hot one-night stand. Now, as if the origins of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were not muddy enough and many-storied in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Loeb seems bent on making it just as complicated (if not more) for the Ultimate versions. Why he would do this, I don’t know, but many things he’s done so far in Ultimates 3 are completely indecipherable.

Pietro and Wanda are not just possibly lovers, but also possibly step-siblings. Wolverine makes the claim that possibly the Scarlet Witch could be his daughter and not Magneto’s. This makes things rather interesting. With a possible latent mutant healing factor, could she in fact survive that fatal gunshot?

That implied, but never stated, twist is one of the things Loeb does right this issue. The other is Wolverine’s words, “…Pietro wasn’t protecting Wanda from the world – he was protecting the world from Wanda!” Nice. He comes to this conclusion while on a mission to kill Quicksilver, sent by Magneto, and stopped by the Scarlet Witch and her reality-bending powers.

This is the part I just don’t buy, or maybe with the limited information presented here, I can’t get my head around. Because Magda was human and not mutant, Magneto thought his children inferior and wanted only his son dead? I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s something like the Wasp’s new race-changing powers that we will just have to hope gets explained.

Loeb seems to be bringing the concepts that destroyed the 616 Scarlet Witch into the Ultimate Universe. I just don’t get this. Wasn’t the whole idea of the Ultimate Universe to give things a new spin, a more relevant spin? Loeb redoing the whole reality-changing danger of Wanda’s power is kind of a slap in the face to Bendis’ interpretation – that is only just three years old? Is Loeb saying that Bendis didn’t do it in a new and realistic way? Not that I was all that happy with “Disassembled” and House of M, but this really bugged me a lot.

Curious things happen when the Ultimates split into teams to tackle Magneto and investigate Wanda’s shooting. Wolverine almost suggests that Hawkeye might have shot Wanda, then kind of shrugs it off as if a joke. What was that about? Captain America assumes that the missing Black Panther is among them when choosing teams. Before anyone asks, the Wasp immediately takes command from him and reshuffles the teams. And Cap lets her, just like he let Wolvie and Hawkeye almost kill each other earlier. Is Cap on Prozac, and what’s he hiding about the Panther? Loeb should be renamed the king of the obvious.

The Wasp gets a shocking surprise once the Savage Land team has left. It appears that Iron Man is not Iron Man, but a robot of some kind. Could be an automaton sent by Magneto but I have another thought… the first thought that should come to any Avengers reader’s mind when presented with a nasty robotic entity. Could this be Ultimate Ultron? Oh well, when it rains it pours, I suppose.

Next issue will be interesting if nothing else. At the end of this issue we are introduced to Ultimate Ka-Zar and Ultimate Shanna the She-Devil. While we have seen the Savage Land in this universe before (with a different origin) I believe this is my favorite jungle couple’s first appearance here. Again, I am befuddled by more characters being introduced who are not part of the team. At least Joe Mad will have fun as he seems to enjoy drawing dinosaurs, albeit with those weird glowing eyes I tend to associate with “Ultraman” foes.

More than a few questions linger for the final two issues, questions that will hopefully be answered and not kicked over into Ultimatum or Ultimates 4 (if such an animal comes to be). What does Wanda dressing like her mother have to do with her getting killed? Why is the Wasp no longer Asian? Where is Tony Stark? And most bizarrely, why is Captain America pretending to be the Black Panther? Unless of course it’s really Hank Pym…

Frank Cho’s art has saved more than a few badly written issues of Mighty Avengers in my opinion, but even his cover can’t save this one completely. I give Ultimates 3 #3 a firm two and a half stars out of a possible five. Now that that ordeal is over, I’m going back to looking at that great Frank Cho cover.

	Glenn Walker
	Glenn has been a fan of Marvel Comics' Avengers since the early 1970s, when their current adventures were chronicled by Steve Englehart and their early exploits by Stan Lee in classic reprints featured in Marvel Triple Action. He has persevered through many incarnations of the team and he still loves the Avengers to this day.