Ultimate Endgame #1: Fear and Loathing In The City

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. 

Ultimate Endgame opens not in the present, but in the past. Specifically three months after Maker arrived on Earth-6160. His first act was to wipe this universe of the Eternals, and by extension the Celestials. He reasons that he does this because the Eternal system is “antithetical to change”, contradicting himself almost immediately when he says that he will “burn it all down and start again” if it doesn’t bend to his will. 

This is the moment that the line has built up towards since Ultimate Invasion. While not every book in the Ultimate line has been building towards this in the more overt sense like Ultimates has, the specter of the Maker has been ever present in every single moment of this fractured universe. What results is an all out battle on all fronts that leaves the resistance almost entirely on the back foot. The Ultimates Network is down, and Iron Lad, America Chavez, Doom, and Spider-Man are trapped in The City. With everything starting to crumble around him, Tony finds himself at a loss for what to do, which does not bode well for the Ultimates.

Deniz Camp tells the first part of what will be the final Ultimate Universe story in only the way he can, with bombast and style. Battles on every page, shocks and betrayals, and it’s only the first issue. 

There are also a few fun surprises as well with the debuts of Ultimate Death’s Head and Deathlok inside the City. However, through it all the main conflict of this first issue (and possibly the entire Endgame story) rests within Tony Stark. Ever since coming back to life in Ultimates #12, Tony has been everywhere at once, trying to make things perfect for the attack against the Maker’s forces, the problem that’s been alluded to and finally made real here is that he may have spread himself too thin. It is here that he learns that he had been training to fight a man, but the Maker has been far beyond that for a very long time. The twist being that the Maker never left the City, he became it. 

Artist duties in this issue are split between the Dodsons (Terry and Rachel) and Jonas Scharf. Each of them do their jobs well, giving each scene the gravitas and weight they deserve. Scharf is the MVP of this opening issue, his pencils (backed by Edgar Delgado’s atmospheric colors) highlighting just how twisted and deformed the Maker has become visually.