Years in the making, Steve Orlando has been developing Marvel’s 2099 universe in exciting and highly entertaining ways. Back in 2022, Miguel took center stage, but since then, Orlando has pulled in Logan as a Nova and even made Dracula a cosmic threat. Now in The End 2099, a Knull-infected Galactus is killing planets and eating souls in the form of Abyssus, and it might take all of the wonderful 2099 toys developed by Orlando in the last three years to defeat him… or die trying.
One of the strengths of The End 2099 is how it keeps you guessing and keeps the ball rolling till the very end. There isn’t much fat in this book, and while you may feel a touch lost here or there with who the characters are, Orlando does a great job checking in on all the characters that’ll be appearing as the story continues. It helps that Abyssus opens the issue by eating a world, and for much of the issue, is barreling towards Earth to eat another. The stakes are high from the start, building towards a Battleworld-style action throw-down once the issue concludes.
Opening the issue is Bloodweilder, the herald of Abyssus, who used to go by the name Dracula. He informs the people of Iodan that they shouldn’t bother running, which leads to a double-page splash of Abyssus slurping up the world like a giant plate of spaghetti. Matter and souls are sucked up, making him somehow far scarier than Galactus ever was. This leads directly to a montage of all sorts of worlds affected by the destruction, helping to convey how large the story spans as mutants, Kree, and the like are tapped into the stakes.
Abyssus is cranky after a big meal.
Credit: Marvel
While many characters get a check-in, a major player in this story is Mephisto. We first see him sitting in an epically drawn throne, bored to tears, but hearing out how the loss of souls will seriously hurt his bottom line. Abyssus is stealing souls from him, and thus, he needs to enter this fight or be the fool. His entry in the story makes it easy to see there are two sides to this fight, but unfortunately for all the heroes, both sides are rather evil.
Along the way, Orlando plucks at the heroes who will be leading the charge, namely, Spider-Man 2099. One of the strongest scenes involves a fight with Punisher 2099, which is a bit of a fill-in conflict, but it’s also a compelling development as we see Punisher is now a puppet. How this fits into the larger combat remains to be seen, but it’s nice to see Orlando still developing elements in his years-long approach to the 2099 universe.
Ibraim Roberson draws a heck of an issue, with a level of detail we’ve come to expect from superhero comics. There are great splashes and many characters near the end of the problem, as dazzling cosmic powers come into play. The comic has a triple-A look and feel that lives up to the event-level stakes in play.
The End 2099 is the ultimate culmination of Steve Orlando’s ambitious, years-long reconstruction of Marvel’s 2099 universe, delivering a relentless cosmic disaster story that feels both earned and electrifying. With Abyssus devouring worlds, Mephisto scrambling to protect his soul economy, and Spider-Man 2099 standing at the center of collapse, the series fires on all cylinders. Roberson’s explosive visuals and Orlando’s expertly layered mythology transform this into a true event-level spectacle that proves 2099 is no longer a side experiment, but a fully realized corner of Marvel’s future.
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