Ultimate Endgame #5: Grand Closing

Secret Wars 2015 is one of my favorite comic books of all time. Underneath the bombastic battles and cataclysmic multi-versal destruction lies a story about heroes, family, and what ties them all together. While not as grand in scope as that series, the ending to Ultimate Endgame still managed to give me that same vibe.

Deniz Camp pulls out all the stops to finish off this colossal tale of defiance and struggling through oppression. Heroes do hero things, and it hasn’t been this glorious in a long while in the Marvel universe. Camp makes a powerful parallel between this world and ours, showing that in the end that only community can destroy the oppressive structures that we feel we are trapped in. Ultimates was full of messages like this and it reached it’s climax with this issue where every major character in the universe came together to triumph over the Maker. The real MVP however is Doom, whose powerful final moments made for a beautiful end to a story that began way back in Ultimate Invasion. It even brought a tear to my cynical eye. Even if there are a couple of loose ends that need tying, and a couple moments feel contrived just to get to the happy ending, it all still works to get the story where it needs to be.

The entire art team ends things with a bang as well, producing some of their best artwork for the end of this story. Scharf, Delgado, and the Dodsons use bold lines, explosive colors, and dynamic panel layouts to showcase just how grand this spectacle of a story truly is. This is the “end” of an era, and giving anything less would have been insulting. Fortunately everyone is at the top of their game and there are even a few pages that break through the fourth wall to give some truly spectacular visuals.