The Ultimates #20: Visions of the Past

Time has run out. The two years of “peace” have passed. The Maker has returned, and the Ultimates and their allies THOUGHT they were prepared, but we all know the saying about best laid plans. With battles raging all over the planet, the Endgame is finally here. 

After the revelation of Vision in the last issue, the tide of battle turns again, this time in favor of the Ultimates. While Nick Fury and the H.A.N.D. scramble to regain their bearings against the hero’s renewed assault, the curtain is peeled back on the Vision’s carefully laid plans and show just how far the heroes are willing to go to succeed. 

Last time we saw Jim Hammond (AKA The Human Torch) was issue 13 when he told Tony that he was going to “start the fire” needed to defeat the Maker. This issue shows just what that plan entailed with Hammond going back in time to 1947 (16 years before Maker arrived on Earth-6160) in order to lay the groundwork for what would become The Ultimates Network. 

As we wait to see just how Tony’s team is fairing inside the city, Camp continues to expand upon the war happening outside of the dome. The exposition given by Hammond about his mission tends to cross over into a bit of word salad at points, but it’s overall still an engaging tale as we watch this world shift and form around him. Plenty of depth is given to Hammond and while Camp introduces that Jim and Nick Fury had formed something of a rivalry across the decades (which Fury can’t remember due to the nature of his programming) it sadly ends just as quickly as it’s introduced, mostly because the universe is coming to an end. Camp might have planned to expound on this relationship further, but that can only be left up to speculation for now (or you could just ask him on social media). Camp also puts in a nod to the Wandavision TV series, with Hammond’s transformation into Vision containing a monologue about the ship of Theseus, similar to White Vision’s monologue at the end of the series proper. Keepers of Marvel Comics lore will also catch that Hammond turning into Vision also brings their respective character’s full circle since in the 616 universe Vision’s body was made from Hammond’s decommissioned body (granted this body was a temporal clone created by Immortus but that’s neither here nor there). 

Phil Noto steps in to illustrate the issue (as he usually does with the ones containing character flashbacks) and while his pencil have their usual flair, they are somewhat hampered by the colors done by Edgar Delgado. That doesn’t mean the colors are bad, quite the contrary, but they tend to make Noto’s illustrations flatter than they normally would be as opposed to when Noto does it himself.