The Ultimates have not have the best end to their 2024 or start to their 2025. That’s because they followed up their terrible loss at the hands of Hulk and the Immortal Weapons by learning about their dark fate. That dark fate they learned was from a future version of the Guardians of the Galaxy who came to the present to reveal what the future holds for them. That has created a lot of questions what the Ultimate Universe’s Avengers will do next. Let’s find that out with The Ultimates #9.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Deniz Camp
Artist: Chris Allen
Colorist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Travis Lanham
THE ULTIMATES #9 SOLICITATION
“LUKE CAGE AND THE ULTIMATE PRISON BREAK! Stormbreaker and innovative artist Chris Allen joins Deniz Camp to bring us the history and the future of Luke Cage! Spider-Man isn’t the only success story of Ultimates 1.0… meet the man who has been quietly sabotaging the Maker’s Council from behind bars!” – Marvel Comics
REVIEW
The Ultimates #9 highlights what both the strengths and weaknesses of this series are with the spotlight on Ultimate Luke Cage’s. When it comes to character development Deniz Camp has really nailed for all of the cast members. Though that also brings up the weakness of this series not fully committed to being a team series, rather an anthology for solo characters who couldn’t get their own Ultimate Universe comic book.
As an origin story for Ultimate Luke Cage, Camp is really shows how talented he is in writing a complete story in one comic book issue. The one-shot approach to telling Ultimate Luke Cage’s origin keeps you constantly engaged. Even when we are going back and for the between different years in Luke Cage’s life your never lost. Camp structures the pacing so each year, whether years or decades apart, inform the reader about Luke’s journey.
And right away Camp presents Luke unique in the Ultimate Universe. While not directly stated, The Maker did seem to see Luke Cage as a threat he had to take off the table. At the same time, unlike others that he killed, The Maker had Luke locked up. This indicates that The Maker intended to use Luke as a pawn in the future like he did with transforming Ultimate Reed Richards into Doctor Doom.
Though we never get an answer to what The Maker’s endgame was for Luke was locked up. This is the one element to the structure of Luke Cage’s origin story that was a miss. Especially considering Earth-616 Luke Cage did not have a history with The Maker it did not fully line-up why his Ultimate Universe counterpart was singled out this way. The same goes for Danny Rand, who is also locked up and conveniently ending up in the same prison. It is likely the reasons will be revealed in the future but would’ve been better timed being shown in The Ultimates #9 to connect Luke Cage more to The Maker and his Council.
But to Camp’s credit he does absolutely nail characterizing Luke as someone that won’t be broken. Even when the system completely turned against him that he is not viewed as a global citizen he did not break. With the terrible cards that were dealt he made the best of things to improve himself so that he can eventually escape. In doing so we get a lot of great looks at how Luke builds a rebel outlook that positions himself as a leader.
Showing Luke in this way before he ever gets his powers made the moment he does a stronger moment. It led this moment to be the payoff to Luke building himself up mentally and physically. And because of when this happened it was understandable he didn’t jump at the chance of joining The Ultimates. Afterall, he doesn’t even know who Tony Stark is or any of the members of the Ultimates. So, it is understandable that with his indestructible powers he would use them to become the rebel leader he bided his time to become.
Then there’s the ending of The Ultimates #9. While there was a clear intention to develop Ultimate She-Hulk’s character more and make Tony Stark’s revival a big moment it does not live up to that. More than anything, the way we just get back to this at the end comes across as a last-minute addition because there was a note made that this is a team book. As a team book this should at least have other team members in it. But the end result is just a forced return that is a reminder of how much time the Ultimates have wasted waiting for Tony’s revival.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As an origin story The Ultimates #9 accomplishes its goal presenting Ultimate Luke Cage as a compelling character. Though as a team comic book the ball continues to be dropped with the lack of development time for the team. Not being able to properly balance out the fact this is a team book with the desire to spotlight individual Ultimate Universe characters is really hurting this series.
Story Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
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