Ultimates #12

It’s the final showdown at The City. Reed Richards has Tony Stark right where he wants him, but Tony has a final trick up his sleeve.

The Pros

This is the long and anticipated finale of The City story arc and it’s a winner. The stakes are at an all time high, as Tony reveals his last desperate attempt to save the U.S. and his own ass. Throughout the last few months, the story arc sort of hinted to Tony’s master plan, but I never saw this one coming. The solution is kind of farfetched, but makes perfect sense in a comic book world and I totally embraced it. We also get a special treat as we’re witnessed to a version of the Hulk we’ve never seen before. Hulkzilla smash!

The Cons

This was a really good issue to an interesting story arc, the problem was that it was way to long and could’ve easily been reduced to less issues. What also hurt the series was an amalgam of different illustrators collaborating on the same issue, 2 or 3 or sometimes 4 artists would pencil the same issue. It takes you out of the comic and that really didn’t work for me. Had they kept the stunning artwork of Esad Ribic as regular illustrator, I might of felt differently about this review. Hickman & Humphries are fine writers and did the best they could with this series, but let’s face it, the best of The Ultimates is and will always be the earlier works of Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Nemesis) & Brian Hitch (America’s Got Powers). You can’t deny it.

The Outcome

This issue wraps up the story arc into a nice package, but sadly this was my final issue of The Ultimates and I’m not about to start Ultimate X-Men & Ultimate Spider-Man, especially with the upcoming crossover Divided We Fall. If there’s one thing I despise is inter-series crossovers. Written by Sam Humphries & Jonathan Hickman. Illustrated by Luke Ross, Ron Garney & Butch Guice. From Marvel Comics.