Ultimate Endgame #1 // Review
It’s 1963 on Earth-6160. The Maker has been around for three months. He’s on the Eternal city of Olympus. The Maker is killing an Eternal. He’s decided that he wants to embark on a grand experiment that happens to involve killing King Zuras. Given how much power The Maker has, it’s not like there’s anything that Zuras can do about his own death. This is only the beginning of the end in Ultimate Endgame #1. Writer Deniz Camp begins to close-down the new Ultimate Universe with artist Jonas Scharf, inker Rachel Dodson and the coloring team of Edgar Delgado and Federico Blee.
Without much else to do, Zuras asks The Maker what he’s going to do if his experiment fails. The Maker says that he will burn it all to the ground and start over. Then he tears Zuras in half. Shoot ahead to December 2025. The Maker is due to return in 30 minutes. Peter Parker is trying to say good-bye to his family. He has power and there’s a responsibility that goes along with that. Mary Jane was hoping for a little more time with him before he had to head out to save the world with the others. He tells her he’ll be fine. He DOES happen to have the smartest people in the world on his side for the coming conflict. He’ll be home soon...
Camp has a tremendous amount of work to do to try to bring everything to a close. There are quite a few different characters that all need to come to some sort of satisfying conclusion at the end of it all. There's no way that it's all going to feel as climactic as it needs to feel in order to really bring everything to an end. That being said, there's a definite sense of the larger continuity. That_is every aspect of this first issue of the finale. It feels like the end of the Ultimate Universe is in good hands.
Scharf and Dodson I have a lot of moving around to do with respect to the visual rendering of the reality of the story that Camp is bringing to the page. Everything has its own distinct setting an atmosphere. The Kirby and Ditko foundations of the Marvel Universe are firmly in place in a visual universe that captures a lot of ominous and weighty intensity. The multiple locations and large ensemble would be really difficult for any artist to bring to the page. However, the art team does a remarkable job of rendering everything in its own reality. This allows each moment to feel strikingly distinct even as the script rushes ahead to handle everything that needs to happen in order for the Ultiamte Universe to draw to a satisfying close.
In one format or another, the Ultimate Universe goes back 25 years now. It was an effort to reinvigorate a faltering comic book industry. A lot has happened since then both in and out of the comic book industry. This latest attempt at an Ultimate Universe has its own gravity and its own momentum, but that momentum HAS been slowly running its course. Camp and company seem to realize that it’s time to bring it all to a close. Hopefully that realization can result in something great.
