Look out! It's Mr. Chair's comic book pick of the week!

File this one under, "comic books I never imagined I'd collect." I mentioned last week that Warren Ellis (Planetary, Transmetropolitan, Authority) is on fire, and on that note I'm giving the week's gold star to Ultimate Fantastic Four #13. Like all of Ellis' mainstream comic book series, he uses the established Marvel Universe as a dumping ground for all of his mad ideas.

It's important to note that the British writer is something of an anti-Luddite. He worships progress, technology, invention and anything he may use to further explore what he considers a very strange and beautiful world. His heroes have been a journalist from the future, a team of super-archaeologists, an astronaut, and an interplanetary weapons inspector, to name a few. That said, another running theme in his books is routine disappointment and disillusionment with that same technology. In his flagship title, Planetary, the villains happen to be a thinly veiled Fantastic Four that regularly rape and abuse science for the greater domination of the world. Reed Richards is sort of a Nazi scientist and the rest of the Four his minions/specimens.

So when Ellis took the helm of UFF (after Brian Michael Bendis did a few issues, overextendended his hackery and needed help fast) everyone was a little puzzled. After all, this was a writer who just a month or two earlier announced he was nearly finished with comics altogether, notorious for hating superhero books.

The result: a wild-eyed, fiery Reed Richards, optimistic in his young genius. Ellis uses the Ultimate version of Richards as a mouthpiece for his own sinister curiosity, creating stuff just because he wants to see what the stuff will do. Sue is his in-charge, lovesick partner. And Ellis out-Bendises Bendis with dialogue between Ben and Johnny Storm. The characters are good, but again, the fun here lies in the sci-fi playground the Four explore. What happens to Reed's organs when he stretches? If light passes through Sue, why isn't she blind? Why doesn't Johnny's skin burn? What the hell is Ben? And so on and so on. It's fun. There are explosions, and bazookas, and fire and spaceships.

Warren Ellis has a dark perspective, but it masks a bright-eyed, aw shucks amazement with the world that is so genuine, you have to enjoy it with him. And UFF is a perfect outlet.

Runner-up: The Drowners #4, by Nabiel Kanan. Black and white murder mystery. Amazing stylistic art and a twisted plot with media CEOs and junkies alike. This week's is the last in the series, but it's worth checking out if a TPB comes out.