The Marvel Rundown: The Ultimate Universe is dead in ULTIMATE ENDGAME #5

Excelsior! Welcome to another edition of the Marvel Rundown! This week, after much delay, the Ultimate Universe comes to a hasty conclusion with Deniz Camp, Terry and Rachel Dodson, and Jonas Scharf’s Ultimate Endgame #5, as well as the star-studded epilogue Ultimate Universe: Finale. Plus, George Carmona III joins me to review the end of the first year of Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti’s Captain America. Face front, True Believers, The Marvel Rundown starts now.

Ultimate Endgame #5

Writer: Deniz Camp 
Artists: Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson, and Jonas Scharf
Colorists: Edgar Delgado and Terry Dodson
Letterer: Cory Petit
Cover Artist: Mark Brooks

When writing criticism, I hate to talk about the business of comics. I want to discuss the art and the artists. But right now, it’s impossible to write about Marvel and not address the realities of the business. The ending of the Ultimate Universe was controversial, but the reasoning was sound enough. The allure of having a product on bookshelves that has a beginning, middle, and end fills a major gap in Marvel’s portfolio. Better for the line to go out on a high before it runs out of steam and overstays its welcome. Fair and reasonable arguments. But the handling of the decision has felt like a bungled mess. To wit: both Ultimate Endgame and Ultimate Finale are unceremoniously releasing this week after consistent delays, diminishing the impact of the latter and overall making the line feel like it is simply being dumped to the side rather than getting a triumphant exit. Maybe none of that matters in the long run, but for monthly readers (or at least this reviewer) invested in the Ultimate line it feels like the company has abandoned the tight attention that elevated all of these books to the point where these final two issues felt like a formality or an afterthought, particularly with the final page in Ultimate Finale, which confirms a major bait and switch. 

With that out of the way, let’s talk specifics.

Up until this final issue, Endgame has felt like an unfocused mess scrambling to lop off loose ends and pull out shock moments that simply do not have the room to breathe. This final issue doesn’t resolve most of those problems but it does conclude by landing on some of the pathos that is a hallmark of writer Deniz Camp’s work. There’s some fun high concept story beats here and cool meta ideas (and even a funny lampshading of Camp’s tendencies) but it’s in service to a final conflict that ends up feeling a bit pedestrian for what has been such a subversive line of comics. Ultimately, the fight to defeat The Maker comes down to a big knock-down drag-out battle with little to make it stand out beyond that. Camp repeatedly has his characters state that the fate of the entire universe is at stake but really all we see is a big crowd fighting a tentacle monster. It’s a bit of a letdown. There is no thematic and metaphorical victory in this book like Superman engraving “To Be Continued” on a gravestone.

There are a lot of elements Camp tries to pack in here, some work quite well, while others left me scratching my head. What he, along with artistic collaborators Terry and Rachel Dodson and Jonas Scharf, manage to do to sell the concept that has run throughout the Ultimates and the loosely connected line of Ultimate books, that every small battle is really all the same fight for liberation and freedom, lands like a freight train. The Maker is spreading out throughout all of space and time, and small groups of heroes are each fighting their own individual battles, with different segments drawn by different artists. The heroes rallying to victory as they all come together across the many fronts, their distinct visual styles colliding onto a single page, is a fist pumping climax. Maybe one of the most exciting single moments in a superhero comic this year. 

But that’s also the problem with Ultimate Endgame as a whole. There are great individual moments that never totally gel as a cohesive narrative, Where the book is its least successful are the smaller, personal moments, which seems like a lingering problem of the real-time monthly schedule that never allowed creators to dive deep into their characters’ inner lives and machinations in the typical way serialized comics do. As a result, it is difficult to decipher what exactly is going on in these final moments with Ultimate Doom, which makes what should be the issue’s most powerful moment fall flat.  It’s just one example where it felt like there were too many things the creators wanted to cram in that they did not have the page space for—in service to an arbitrary publishing mandate.

Visually, Endgame #5 is as much of a mixed bag as the previous issues. Alone, both the Dodsons and Scharf’s art look great. Scharf’s gritty cartooning, mostly reserved for the battle within The Maker’s citadel and Ulimate Doom’s story, is funky and weird and dark. He gives the Maker’s monstrous form an appropriately frightening presence on the page. The nature of his lines gives the fight a dangerous edge—the heroes constantly look on the verge of defeat. The disconnect is in its juxtaposition beside the rounded, bouncy visuals of Dodson, whose beautiful characters and smooth detail are out of step with the material. It looks good, don’t get me wrong, but almost too good. The streamlined look would be one thing if it was more clearly delineated as purposeful within the structure of the book but there’s no real rhyme or reason for who draws what page here except geography. It makes for a book that never coheres visually. Terry Dodson colors his own work, and it is his usual, pleasingly pastel approach. Again, it’s a stark contrast with the other half of the book colored by Edgar Delgado, who gives Scharf’s grungy lines bold, flat colors that pop off the page. Both halves are well executed, but look odd together. Cory Petit gives the book some visual cohesion with his fantastic, expressive lettering, and his work is a huge difference maker in selling the emotional impact of the issue.

The final pages offer a somewhat unexpected happy ending that, despite the rushed feel of the actual Endgame story and the gaps between issues, feels satisfying and earned after two years with these tortured heroes. Camp ends his superhero opus on a point of hope, that no authoritarian is inevitable or eternal, and that we are all, together, capable of writing our own destinies. It may not have been the sprawling epic that the Ultimate Universe deserved, and it certainly has its flaws, but in its final moments, Endgame finds a way to be emotionally resonant and powerfully relevant.

Verdict: Browse

The Rapid Rundown

• Ultimate Universe: Finale #1
  • Throughout most of this issue, I had the feeling that this epilogue was more like one of those Free Comic Book Day teasers for upcoming stories than a farewell. The creative teams from each Ultimate title (Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checcchetto, Marcio Menyz, Bryan Edward Hill, Stefano Caselli, David Curiel, Peach Momoko, Chris Condon, Alessandro Cappuccio, Bryan Valenza, Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, and Federico Blee) return with a bit of a coda for their heroes, establishing where they are a month following the events of Endgame (a beat that lands with a thud reading these issues immediately back to back). These short stories are less about wrapping up plot threads and more about teasing possible futures for the characters, some of which are quite intriguing. But why spend the time to do that kind of tease if the line is being shuttered? Well the final page of this issue answers that question, in a frustrating reveal completely at odds with months of publicity and public commentary from editors and artists alike. Another Marvel marketing ploy to juice sales not on the content of its stories and quality of its art but on gimmicks and misleading endings! Why play so coy with readers and customers? Did they think this was a cute wink? Beyond that—there’s not a ton of meat on the bones except for the scenes dealing with the cast of The Ultimates, who never received a satisfying ending in their own title. Most of them  get a moment in this issue and it delivers the personal and emotional character focus missing in the final two issues of Ultimates and throughout Endgame. The framing narrative where Iron Lad reflects on the hard work of rebuilding is also quite inspiring. That cap on the line—and company’s— best title is worth the price of admission alone. But can you please stop with the ending-but-not-really publishing model, Marvel? 
• Captain America #12 
  • Cap isn’t a stranger to mystical adventures, but Steve Rogers trapped in Hell was never a concept I thought I would see in comics. Leading up to the newest Marvel event, “Avengers Armageddon,” Captain America faced off against the Red Hulk, aka General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, in Latveria after the fall of Doctor Doom, and it didn’t end well. Severely injured is the nicest way of saying that Steve got got! This is up there with how bad the Champion beat the stuffing out of the Thing back in the 1982 Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7. Steve has “damage to his brain, liver, and lungs,” and while his mortal shell is in a coma, his spirit has been pulled down to hell to come face to face with Victor Von Doom. Chip Zdarsky’s spin on The Inferno, placing Cap alongside Doom against Mephisto in this hellish civil war, is a fun look for the beacon of light and hope that is Steve Rogers. I’ve been enjoying artist Valerio Schiti’s work for a while, along with colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., they’re doing some great work visualizing Steve’s march through hell. Their Mephisto has a classical look with a very menacing feel that I really dig. Juxtaposing Steve’s journey are the quiet pages of his core friends, rotating in and out to be with Sharon as she waits for him to come out of his coma. And then there is the chef’s kiss surprise ending. – GC3

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