This week we look at Ultimate Endgame #3, Inglorious X-Force #3, Iron Man #3, Predator: Bloodshed #2, and Fantastic Four #9.
Note: the review below contains MAJOR SPOILERS. If you want a quick, spoiler-free buy/pass recommendation on the comics in question, check out the bottom of the article for our final verdict.
Ultimate Endgame #3
Writer: Deniz Camp
Artist: Jonas Scharf and Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson
Colorist: Terry Dodson and Edgar Delgado
Letterer: vc’s Cory Petit
We’re now at the midpoint of the farewell tour that Deniz Camp has for this iteration of the Ultimate Universe. This Ultimate Marvel proved that anything could and would happen. Reed Richards could be Doom. Mysterio was five people. A council ruled the world while keeping everyone from their full potential. Also, readers met living Vibranium. Reading these books month to month presented excitement and surprises sorely missing from the mainline books.
So, it’s fitting that this final battle against The Maker in Ultimate Endgame is not going by anyone’s rules. Camp has crafted a brutal conflict with a character that has never been easy to defeat. The heroes are out gunned by a Maker who is now a sentient city infecting anyone that comes into contact with his miasma. Their hope in Howard Stark proved fleeting as he had become Immortus (we’ll get back to that), seemingly living and dying multiple times over eons while fighting The Maker, which of course drove him mad.
Camp and artist Jonas Scharf convey the impossibility of this battle. Scharf frames the battles so that the heroes get dwarfed by hordes of enemies. He frequently depicts The Maker as a massive gaping mouth bearing down on his enemies. The colorist on these pages Edgar Delgado fills panels with bleak blues, grays, and beiges. How do you fight a villain who can outthink you and now can warp time and reality? Oh, and there’s the possibility that anything they do might unleash him on the world outside his prison. Heroes are at their best fighting impossible odds and if anything this story reads like Infinity Gauntlet by way of hard science fiction.
Now Ultimate Kang, last seen way back in Ultimate Invasion, returns. Kang stands revealed, to no one’s surprise, as Tony Stark. This seemed pretty obvious by Howard Stark’s disappointment when he took off. That said, it remains possible that the Immortus we’ve hung out with and saw die last issue might be an even older Tony Stark. Time travel can induce headaches.
What does surprise is what happens on the last page. To really up the stakes on this series, Ultimate Peter Parker dies. The Maker, to show how far above things he is, takes control of Peter’s pico tech suit, turns it into Carnage, and brutally murders him. Twisting the knife in deeper, The Maker tells him there was nothing special about him. It is a particularly brutal finish for the character and a reminder there are no guarantees in this series.
Outside The Maker’s prison, everything seems like a stalemate. Not much is moving forward here other than both Killmonger and the characters from Ultimate X-Men show up in Latveria outside the prison. Yep, for folks who spent the last two years wondering if that book would actually tie into anything finally get these characters interacting with the bigger picture. Admittedly everything outside the dome is far less exciting but artists Terry and Rachel Dodson do what they can. At least there is some really beautiful page layouts and dynamic panels.
So far Ultimate Endgame is delivering on being the biggest thing to happen to these characters. Camp delivers a story worthy of closing out this story while Scharf and the Dodsons provide blockbluster, mind bending visuals. Even if it feels too short a time spent with these characters and concepts, at least the ending so far seems fitting of this line’s legacy.
Verdict: BUY
RAPID RUNDOWN
Inglorious X-Force #3
Like Jed MacKay on Moon Knight before him, Tim Seeley excavates the weirder (and forgotten) corners of the Marvel Universe for fertile storytelling material. Issue one dealt with X-Force’s early years and last issue had the new team face of against the Blasphemy Cartel from MacKay’s era of Doctor Strange. That issue used those villains to examine the desire of Akihiro aka Hellverine to forge a new path from his evil past. This issue does the same with Boom Boom with Seeley using it as an excuse to revisit her time with Nextwave. Yep, Seeley briefly revives one of Marvel’s greatest books as X-Force has to fight Dirk Anger, H.A.T.E., and of course, broccoli clones of Boom Boom. Artist Michael Sta. Maria gets to do his best Stuart Immomen and even letterer Joe Caramagna gets in on the fun with a panel that’s nothing but sound effects. Seeley and Maria revisit the spirit of the book without trying to copy it and that’s for the best.
Predator: Bloodshed #2
A Predator story works best as simply as possible. Predator hunts military team in jungle. Cops and gang members in future LA becomes the prey for a Predator. 18th century Native American warrior fights Predator. Synth and young Predator explore alien world. All of these are pretty simple premises. So a Predator taking out various participants in a MMA style tournament seems like a slam dunk, right? Who wouldn’t want to read Predator meets Bloodsport? The problem with Jordan Morris’ scripts for Predator: Bloodshed is that there’s too much story. All of the characters have cookie cutter backgrounds and motivations. The bad guy isn’t even the Predator but the billionaire throwing the tournament. Predators and humans finding common group to team up and fight xenomorphs? Awesome. Predators and humans finding common ground to fight rich people? Less exciting. Unless in a future issue, our evil billionaire gets into a giant robot or something. Even less exciting is the art by Ruairi Coleman and Roland Boschi. The fights aren’t excitingly staged and for a Predator comic, the violence seems relatively tame. Look when Marvel puts out a comic where a Predator cuts off a dude’s face, there’s expectations on how violent a comic should be.
Fantastic Four #9We’ve always known that Sue was the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four, and gave the most dangerous title to Reed, but writer Ryan North has made the case for Sue to be both. After receiving a distress call from deep space, the FF set off to render aid to Galactus, leaving the kids at home as the junior squad to defend the Earth with the rest of the world’s heroes. On finding him, they also discover what dropped him, a doppelganger of Sue, the Invincible Woman. Longtime FF readers are familiar with Sue’s darker side and wardrobe choice with her Malice persona, but this other Sue takes it up to 13 on the “Sue Scale”. Besides bringing the Devourer of Worlds to his knees, Invincible Sue accidentally killed everyone on her Earth, and to avoid the guilt of murdering billions, she lobotomized herself, removing the empathy that made her the hero of that world. Bringing the visuals to this issue are penciler Humberto Ramos, inker Victor Olazaba, and colorist Edgar Delgado, and they are having fun. I generally don’t associate the FF with body horror, but watching the Invincible Woman use her powers to make the inside of someone’s head visible was bananas. They also do a nice update on the Malice-like outfit, but the number of butt shots could have been scaled back, there are a lot of them. This current Invincible Woman arc can be either a cautionary tale, a road not taken, or, but for the grace of God, hell, it could be all three, and I’m ready to see where this takes Marvel’s First Family down the road. – G. Carmona
Iron Man #3
Iron Man #3, written by Joshua Williamson and illustrated by Carmen Carnero, is a great follow-up to this new arc of Tony Stark’s life. As he continues to deal with villain Madam Masque’s machinations, the story has really picked up here with Iron Man forced to protect M.O.D.O.K and delivering some funny one-liners the entire time, all while bringing up some more mysteries for audiences to digest. The best part of the issue has to be the date between Luna and Tony; not only is it nice to see characters get romantic with each other, but Tony’s charismatic nature really shines through as he talks with Luna. The highlight has to be when not only Luna but also various characters bring up what may be Tony’s emotional arc in this run: having to build something on his own. It’s an interesting question to ask Tony Stark of all people, so it’ll be fascinating to see how Williamson and Carnero answer the question in later issues. Speaking of Carnero, their art is stunning as usual. The way they draw characters’ expressions, especially M.O.D.O.K’s, is great, and they make great use of the pages for action scenes, flashbacks, and more, ensuring that, even with a lot of information, nothing feels overly crowded. There’s one panel in particular of Iron Man flying with M.O.D.O.K that is purely chef’s kiss. If you’ve been hesitant to get into this new Iron Man series for any reason, I think this issue, combined with the last two, will really convince you. It’s going to be a good run, that’s for sure.- L. Marable
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