Three things immediately come to mind when I hear about the work of Mark Millar: (1) excessive scheduling delays, (2) the inability to collaborate well with others, and (3) extremely enjoyable stories.  Usually the payoff you get from the third is very hard-pressed to overcome the pitfalls involved in the first two.  Somehow Marvel seems to have finally accomplished this with how they have set up the new run of Ultimate Avengers books.  What did they do, you ask, that was so revolutionary as to finally overcome those first two well-known and potentially devastating hurdles since they’ve failed a few times at this effort in the past (*see Old Man Logan)?  To address the first, they seem to have set him to writing a whole pile of issues well before their actual solicitation, so that when the actual due date comes around, it’s done.  They also partitioned the story arcs into distinct segments almost like complete volumes, and at the same time changed up the artist between them so that the artist for the next arc can get to work prior to completion of the current one.  For the second Millar pitfall, they basically just set him free in his own little out-of-continuity sandbox and let him play by himself with his own invented characters so-as not to affect anything that might be happening in Ultimate U proper.  So with those hurdles seemingly overcome, the payoff is indeed noticeable.  And that brings us to this week’s release: Ultimate Avengers 3 #1 (i.e. first issue of the third arc).

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