Out this week in trade paperback is what many call the best series of 2024: The Ultimates! It’s the flagship series if you’re looking for worldbuilding and a larger sense of where the universe is going. Sure, Ultimate Spider-Man technically started things, but The Ultimates is the only series that gives us a larger sense of what the ultimate big-bad, The Maker, is up to. It’s also a fantastic superhero comic remixing what we know while adding plenty of familiar political elements from our own world. In a word, it’s excellent.
The Ultimates: Fix the World opens with Ultimate Universe, a one-shot establishing the first members of the team. That includes Captain America, Iron Lad, and Thor. It’s a good primer to get us situated in this new world.
From there, the first issue expands on the world quite a bit – we already know Iron Lad is the architect that gave Spider-Man his powers – and reveals a take on Avengers in a world where they’re more a secret covert operation than anything else.
As we’ve seen in the trailer and Free Comic Book Day issue, the Ultimates is comprised of Captain America, Doom, Iron Lad (Tony Stark), Lady Sif, and Thor. Thor is down for the count, so their heaviest hitter can’t aid them. The issue is divided into two parts. The first is Iron Lad and Doom’s plan to create an Ultimates v2.0. The second involves an attack by one of The Maker’s placed rulers of a select sector of Earth. In these two parts, we see a team willing to do anything in their power to give heroes an edge in a world where most of them were never created or died outright.
Things only get more bold from there. Ultimates #2 opens outside the White House on the Fourth of July. Most of the Ultimates are fighting through guards and they’re looking for something. Captain America makes it quite plain when he says the enemy can go with or through. He means business and his experience is the framing device for the entire issue.
These scenes add context to Captain America’s point of view and give the reader a sense of how The Maker has manipulated the world. The Marvel 616 was the correct path, but we see the Savage Land destroyed or how the Punisher became a terrorist. When Cap hears a little girl asks what the A stands for on his head, his pause says everything: Captain America has lost everything he stands for and will stop at nothing to get it back.
The series also seems to find real-world connections to the allegory of this series. In Ultimates #5, the issue opens with quotes from Tȟašúŋke Witkó, “Crazy Horse,” and Theodore Roosevelt. It’s a reminder of the racism whites displayed toward Native Americans and the notion that Native Americans hoped for peace.
Love Captain America’s reaction.
Credit: Marvel
Hawkeye’s rebelliousness in issue #5 is key to showing how their approach is needed in this world. The Ultimates are more of a terrorist organization than a superhero team since they’re fighting government establishments, and Hawkeye fits right in. Their dialogue is good, too, and they back that approach up. While Iron Lad and Captain America are more by the books, writer Deniz Camp makes you believe Hawkeye is a bit more dangerous and a risk-taker.
Art by Juan Frigeri lives up to the epic nature of the only superhero team in this universe. Frigeri has great strength in drawing a lot of characters on the page, which helps when there’s a big showdown in the issue. There’s also a good sense of scale and realism, which was common in the original Ultimates and is seen here in a key few moments near the end of the issue. Panel layouts are well crafted, with cinematic wide panels running down pages to classic nine-panel grids. Even though this issue is heavier on dialogue and character work, Frigeri always keeps your attention with not a single boring panel when it comes to the talking heads.
The creators fundamentally understand superhero comics while building on what we know about the characters and putting new spins on them. Ultimates is one of the most exciting superhero comics you’ll read all year. It’s ambitious, with deep ideas and awesome action.
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