Ultimate Endgame / Ultimate Universe: Finale Review – The End(?)
[Spoilers for Ultimate Endgame and Ultimate Universe: Finale follow.]
Writing this feels weird. I still remember the start of this universe, with Ultimate Invasion #1. I still remember going to the shop to buy Ultimate Spider-Man #1. I remember predicting that Deniz Camp was writing Ultimates before that book got announced.
And now here we are at the very end of it all.
To be frank, I think the second year of Ultimates was a mixed bag compared to the first. The first year was tight, it was bold, there were a lot of cool ideas and ways they were being expressed on the page. The second year felt a little loose, the ambition was still there, but the executions were a little lacking. Part of it was the monthly experiment not quite working (across all the books really, something that Hickman’s talked about too, even though he’s glad they at least did the experiment, and I agree), part of it was the restraint, that there was more that could be said but instead they had to hold back on.
Ultimate Endgame was something I was genuinely excited for when it got announced. Compared to the general reception, I thought it was cool to give something an ending, especially when the whole deal with superhero stories now is the “endless” story. Did everything have a de-facto ending? No, after all, every book in the line ended on the tune of “the fight goes on”, and that’s something that repeats in Ultimate Universe: Finale as well, but even that too is an ending to me. All five of those books are complete thoughts, they have thematic throughlines that they stick to for their runtimes and what they leave hanging are threads for the next story.
Ultimate Endgame itself I thought was interesting. There’s less of this in Ultimates than there is in his other work, but I appreciate that Camp kept playing with wielding form to tell a story to the very end. For this one, he was joined by Jonas Scharf & Edgar Delgado and Terry & Rachel Dodson. Scharf and Delgado were on art duty for the story inside the dome, while the Dodsons were in charge of art duty for the story outside the dome. Similarly, time outside the dome progressed how it did in the Ultimate Universe, in real time, while time inside the dome progressed as though things were happening one after the other. Giving those two an artistic distinction was cool.
I thought the way the team came together was a little clunky, but even then it wasn’t that big of a deal because I felt that Scharf & Delgado’s art was a hit and I really dug how Camp wrote what was going on inside. To follow up Hickman’s Maker is a big ask, and Camp took that bat and swung it as best he could. All of what went on with Doom and Maker was awesome.
Spider-Man’s death was also something I thought was great. Carnage saying he “died for nothing” juxtaposed with his last words to MJ was pretty powerful and, for me at least, moving.
Which is why Ultimate Endgame #5 is such a complicated send off for me.
I love most of it (and most of Ultimate Endgame at large). Tony rallying up every hero to strike the Maker, the framing of it all really being one fight. All the weird formal stuff Camp does with both art teams is really fun. However, what stood out to me the most was how they won. Doom going back in time to stop the Maker and only being able to make one choice to do it – and that choice being to save Spider-Man feels thematically sound with Hickman and Ribic’s Secret Wars, where the universe isn’t just saved because of the Four, but also because of Spider-Man (Men, in that case). I love that thematic pull, but what I don’t love is bringing Spider-Man back.
Spider-Man is a character whose engine, to me, is one of tragedy. He doesn’t win without suffering a few losses, that’s just integral. Similarly, the Ultimate Universe felt like this to me too, with all of its talk of revolution, you can’t win without losing something. To bring back Spider-Man is to essentially give a clean win rather than something dirty, and that to me is what brings down Ultimate Endgame right as they reach the finish line.
Granted, I do like how the Ultimates story in Ultimate Universe: Finale frames the neverending fight. The world doesn’t just magically change, we see everyone involved putting in the work to really “fix” things, to make life better for everyone, and I found that to be cool.
Overall, that’s what I’ll remember fondly from this universe. That you have to cherish the small wins but also not get caught up in being complacent, because the fight is neverending, and we have to do what we can every day to make the world a better place. Flaws and all, I respect what they were going for, it was ambitious, and I can’t wait to come back to all of this when the online discourse poisoning has left the brain so I can really assess it all.
Also, the last two teasers were cool, and I’m curious to see where that all goes.
View on Kindle Store
Buy from Third Eye
This post contains affiliate links. We receive a small commission if you buy through this link.
