The Ultimates is a title that I wish I was enjoying more. Thus far the title has not hit on what should make it special within the Ultimate Universe. That is the fact it is a team title. With all the other Ultimate Universe titles leaning more towards being solo or slice-of-life, The Ultimates is not finding its own footing. It is something that really needs to be turned around given the importance of the stories this series is handling. Specifically with The Maker’s Council being such a focus on the antagonist side. Let’s see if things turn around with The Ultimates #10.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Deniz Camp
Artist: Juan Frigeri
Colorist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Travis Lanham
THE ULTIMATES #10 SOLICITATION
“NAMOR AND THE RED SKULL! Captain America and the Human Torch lead a team to recruit their old comrade – Namor! But they’ll have to get through the Red Skull Gang first!” – Marvel Comics
REVIEW
Now this is what I’m talking about. The Ultimates #10 is easily the best issue of the series yet and all it had to do was actually show the team in action. Simply seeing most of the team in action did so much to elevate the importance of the story. Which made the world building that was done that much better.
As the solicitation mentions, The Ultimates #10 went in on positioning Captain America and Human Torch as the leads in this team mission. Deniz Camp utilized The Ultimates strike team attack on the Red Skull militia’s territory to flesh out both of these characters. Particularly positioning Human Torch as the narrator worked well because of how their history as an android was fleshed out. There are points you do wonder if there is some unreliable narrator things going on because of what is mentioned with how his memory back-ups work. This led to greater personality given to Human Torch so they did not come across as purely robotic.
The best part about Human Torch being the narrator is how Camp paced out the World War II backstory. Camp made sure to spread out Captain America, Bucky, Namor, and Human Torch’s role in World War II throughout The Ultimates #10. It was done in a way that expanded on the greater narrative playing out in the present. This made it so this issue felt like an Ultimate Universe history lesson rather than an info dump, a problem previous issues of this series ran into.
While this did a lot for Human Torch, the mission did even more for firmly establishing Captain America as the leader of the team. Because of how he was recovered from the ice Captain America had to take a backseat to Tony Stark and Doctor Doom/Reed Richards. But with both of them out of commission at the moment Captain America naturally stepped into the leadership role for the Ultimates. The difference in leadership was clear as Captain America showed his experience leading teams is what the Ultimates need, something Tony failed to do as Iron Lad.
The effectiveness of The Ultimates strike team approach to defeating the Red Skulls militia was impressive. Especially when you compare this to how terrible things went for the team in the sixth issue. It was truly night and day as Captain America knew the team was outnumbered. So instead he went with an approached that maximized the teams strength so they can swiftly and efficiently take down the Red Skull militia.
Which in turn made the dramatic narrative beats hit much harder. Just as we see the Ultimates working so effectively Camp ratches up the drama by first revealing Namor’s corpse being hung as a prop inside the Red Skull militia. The visual image done Juan Frigeri was on point. Your heart dropped seeing the visual. This then led in well to dive deeper into the history of the Ultimate Universe as we learn about Namor’s downfall, which was likely, but not confirmed, orchestrated by The Maker.
The Namor reveal immediately threw up even more red flags for the bigger reveal of this issue being that Bucky Barnes is the current Grand Skull, leader of the Red Skull militia. This was a strong twist to end The Ultimates #10. It works to create even more questions about what plans The Maker had in place as it was driven home he ignored the Red Skull militia operation. Bucky being the Grand Skull hints at The Maker possibly having several different Winter Soldier-like operations as we see over in Ultimate Wolverine.
Just as interesting is how The Ultimates #10 makes us further question if Tony Stark and Reed Richards did think through their actions in trying to give classic Marvel characters their powers. We see yet another example here with John Walker being sent the Super Soldier serum even though he was part of the Red Skull militia.
Adding this to things like Carol Danvers blowing up because she lacked control needed for her Captain Marvel cosmic powers it does not look good for Iron Lad and Doctor Doom. This hopefully means the rest of the team will question Tony and Reed’s decisions and get them more active in the rest of the universe.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Ultimates #10 is easily the best issue of this series thus far. That is accomplished by simply showing the Ultimates operating as a team. It is a simple adjustment from previous issues that goes a long way with everything that is done with the world building of this issue. There are so many great team moments that help elevate the importance Captain America and Human Torch backstory to the story. The revelations made are game changing and leaves you excited to see where the series goes next.
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
For more opinions on anime, comic book, movies, and sports you can follow Kevin on Bluesky, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter/X.