Defenders of Ultramar

This is one of the latest minis in Boom Studios series based in the Warhammer 40k universe. Now a little background about my relationship with Warhammer 40k, it really doesn't exist. The closest I got was playing Space Crusade which was tabletop wargaming watered down really far to a very simple level. I know those who play the real thing would scoff at this, and for me it didn't lead on to the full fledged expensive hobby, but on the other hand it engaged my interest in the universe as well. The 40k universe I always thought would be a great place to tell stories. Despite this I've never read a book based in it or played any of the computer games so when Boom announced they were going to do some 40k comics I was intrigued. I picked

up their #0 Black Templar sampler issue when it was released a few months ago, and was impressed. As well as normal "Marines blow stuff up" stories, there was a great piece with the thoughts of a dying marine, and a brilliant story about a primitive village and how they perceive the empire and marines as gods, gods they fear after marines respond to an ork invasion.

Now, I missed the first few stories they wrote, just wasn't looking for them, but managed to catch this little 4 part story.

The story focuses on the 4th company (Memory is hazy so forgive bad spellings etc) of the Ultramarines. Under the command of Brother Sargent Leurchs. We initially see a group of new recruits being selected after a clearly hard race. There is some unknown background which I think comes from a tie in Novel about how Leurchs is acting Captain while the actual captain is missing on some sort of penance. However soon the 4th company is sent out to find the fate of an Ultramarine frigate which has been out of contact. They find it being stripped down by Orks and eventually have to protect an Ultramarine city form the invasion.

As a criticism, it sits more as a middle chapter, I haven't read the preceding story and issue 4 ends on a cliffhanger which is rather a pain for a 4 issue mini. Some parts are confusing, I made the assumption that the scout company who remind Leurchs of his duty to protect the planets Citizens was comprised of the two friends we see in the first issue but neither the art nor the writing makes this clear and the story is a bit rushed. I think i was expected to know more about the characters of Leurchs, the admiral in charge of the ship, the chaplain and the apothecary but we only really get to know Leurchs and his fears and doubts.

These problems don't get in the way of what is otherwise a rip-roaring adventure, where squads of marines get to take on Orkish hoards. The action is well drawn and it does feel pretty epic at times. What helps (I'm sure there are fans of the game who would disagree) is that the ultramarines are about as close as you get to good guys in the morally dubious corps of space marines under the oppressive imperium of man. The religious fervour of the chaplain and some of the Xenophobia is touched on but ultimately Ultramarines are about Courage, honour and protecting the innocent (Provided the innocent in question are human) which I'm sure misses the point of the dark 40k universe but makes me enjoy reading a bit more.

In short, this series made me want to read more, which is a good thing, but perhaps could have used 6-8 issues to expand on characterisation and slow the breakneck pacing. In fact, if this was an ongoing, and it didn't suffer from FP's patchy cover of smaller publishers, I'd really consider picking it up as I'd like to know more. In that respect the book is a success. Overall, I couldn't tell what an actual gamer would think, but for an action packed piece of space adventure you can do a lot worse.