Ultimate End #1

Background

The Multiverse was destroyed in Secret Wars (Vol. 2). Now all that remains is Battleworld, a patchwork of worlds that no longer exist and all ruled over by Victor Von Doom.

Each domain holds its own mysteries.

This is Manhattan.

Story Details

Now: The Punisher prepares for the end and sets his sights on multiple heroes from the Marvel (616) Universe and the Ultimate (1610) Universe as they fight!

Three Weeks Ago: Spider-Man swings above Battleworld's Manhattan until he hears a FABOOM! He investigates and finds the Ultimate Serpent Squad robbing a bank! He begins to fight them and is joined by the All-New Ultimates (Cloak and Dagger, Bombshell and Jessica Drew/Black Widow)! They quickly subdue the Squad and Spider-Man thanks them for their help. Aside, Spider-Man talks to Black Widow about whether or not she actually is his illegal genetic clone. She confirms this and that she also knows his secret identity. Spider-Man awkwardly leaves for a meeting he has been invited to...

...at the Triskelion. Ultimate Nick Fury chairs a meeting with Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Cyclops, Storm, Emma Frost, Scarlet Witch, Doc Green, Ultimate Iron Man, Ultimate Hawkeye and Ultimate Ben Grimm. The two Iron Men soon get into an argument over why they are both there and who is responsible. Spider-Man interrupts them by arriving and immediately demands that they put everything back how it was as the Ultimate Peter Parker's death now means that everyone knows who he is! Ultimate Nick Fury moves on to the point of the meeting which is to set up a brain trust to fix the problem without Victor Von Doom knowing. The Iron Men begin fighting again over whose fault this until Ultimate Iron Man explains it to all of them...

Ultimate Iron Man and Ultimate Doctor Amadeus Cho were studying the dimensional gateway (from All-New X-Men #31-35) when it overloaded and Iron Man appeared from nowhere!

The meeting concludes with them agreeing to work together and trusting each other.

The Marvel heroes leave in a Quinjet, knowing that the Ultimate heroes are not to be trusted.

The Ultimate heroes hope to bridge the gap, but don't have time to consider how as Doom knows what is going on! He has sent the Thor Corps!

General Comments

As Brian Michael Bendis spends too much time on a pointless introduction, has too much emphasis on Spider-Man's identity issues and way to much panel space on the Tony Stark interactions with himself, this issue is a pretty confused mess.

There is a mesh of characters, fonts and concepts that are nowhere near explained enough as we know that the real actual Spider-Man is in the liferaft (Secret Wars #1) and therefore don't know who this Spider-Man is or whether we should root for him as our Spider-Man. Presumably not so his problems don't matter to me.

I seem dismissive, but if the amalgamation of characters had been explained a little better to me than the mysterious blurb at the start I might have grasped the concept and point of the series a little stronger. There's room to do it as the things I mentioned in my opening paragraph serve little use to the reader.

As it is, they chat about a dimensional tear that brought Iron Man (the real Marvel Iron Man?!?) and then agree to figure out what's going on.

On the plus side, there is a brilliant splash of Thors for the Ultimate mainstay Mark Bagley to get his teeth into and a double-page of Spidey that's a sight for sore eyes. He can't do much to sell the numerous talking heads, though a few more panel interruptions (like there are on pages 10 and 11) might have helped.

Overall Rating

A confusing and awkward start of the end of the Ultimate Universe.