Ultimate End

Its critics said the Ultimate Universe would never last, and fifteen years later they were proven right.  Took a while, though.  That’s because for the majority of its run, the Ultimate Universe stood as an inventive reinvention of the Marvel Universe that kept throwing out new twists with each arc of its ongoing titles and miniseries.  It also offered up the most consistently good take on Spider-Man that I’d recommend to anyone looking to check in on the wall-crawler’s adventures.  Yet the imprint couldn’t maintain its popularity forever and things started going downhill once Marvel started relying on “Let’s Blow Everything Up!” events like “Ultimatum” (its reputation has kept me from reading it) every so often to rejuvenate fan interest.  Putting B-list talent on most of the titles in its later years didn’t help matters either.  Now it comes down to Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, the definitive team on “Ultimate Spider-Man,” to wrap up the saga of the imprint in a five-issue miniseries.  If you think that sounds like an impossible task, then you’d be right.  The best thing that can be said for “Ultimate End” is that it is not entirely without its charms.

Accessibility, however, is not one of them.  Amazon tells me that the “Secret Wars” hardcover won’t arrive until March 15th, so until then I’m going into the “Battleworld” and “Warzones” miniseries without the context of the main event.  That wasn’t an issue with “Old Man Logan” or “Renew Your Vows,” but right from the get-go I was left feeling that I was missing some key knowledge here.  After all, vol. 4 of “Time Runs Out” left off with the war that broke out when the Ultimate Universe invaded the Marvel Universe.  Things pick up here with (Peter Parker) Spider-Man teaming up with the All-New Ultimates in a New York that looks relatively unscathed by the carnage.  Also, both Ultimate and regular Marvel characters are now living together somewhat testily and trying to figure out some way to get their worlds back the way they were.

This is where the fun starts as Bendis gets a decent amount of mileage in having the characters from the two universes interact with each other.  While it’s always fun to see the writer take on the adult Peter Parker, it’s even better having the character deal with an entire universe that knows his secret identity.  Also, even though it’s basically a rehash of a bit from “Spider-Men,” it’s still nice to see Peter interacting with Aunt May and Gwen Stacy here.  Miles Morales also shows up at the end to get a big boost for his upcoming ongoing “Spider-Man” series and to set up his role in the climax of “Secret Wars” (I imagine).  I like the character so the blatant promotion doesn’t bother me too much.  Better is how Bendis uses the anything goes continuity reset button of the event to reverse one of the most unnecessarily dramatic bits of Miles career as Spider-Man.

The writer also warms up for his “Invincible Iron Man” run by having the Tony Starks of the two universes try to work together for most of the miniseries.  They work together about as well as you’d expect from a version of the character who still drinks and one who doesn’t and share the same level of arrogance.  It’s actually pretty entertaining to watch their relationship go up and down over the course of the miniseries and bodes well for the writer’s run on the new series.  That said, if you’re expecting an explanation as to why the Marvel Universe version of Stark isn’t “Superior,” then you’re out of luck here.  That appears to have been swept into the bin of “Things We Shall Never Speak of Again.”

In addition to these things, we also get to see what happens when Banner/Hulk diplomacy breaks down, the Punisher’s attempt at redemption, a pretty decent explanation as to why this particular realm exists, and a really creative use of the grid of characters that appears in every major Bendis project.  Looking back on all this, that’s a lot of memorable stuff for a crossover tie-in miniseries.  Where it falls down is that the plot of “Ultimate End” is about as throwaway as you can get.  It’s just a glorified take on the “heroes meet, they fight, then team up to fight the real threat” plot stretched over five issues.  Bagley’s art does make it all look professional and helps keep things flowing from one plot point to the next, but he deserves better than this.  I know that trying to give us some closure on the Ultimate Universe in this limited amount of space was a fool’s errand, yet the core narrative here is basically a vehicle for fanservice and the moments mentioned above.  Taken on its own merits, it is worthless.

Thinking about it now, I don’t think that Bendis should’ve tried to do a story to wrap up the Ultimate Universe.  He should’ve ducked expectations entirely and just done the kind of quiet, character-driven stories that helped make his and the imprint’s name.  Just five one-offs showing how the characters from the two universes interact without trying to untangle an impossible task.  Yeah, I’m being a whiny fanboy here, but that’s the kind of inspiration I was left with after reading “Ultimate End.”

Is all the stuff off to the side of the main plot of this miniseries good enough to be worth your money?  Even if you’ve been reading about the Ultimate Universe for as long as I have, I’d say that’s questionable.  It’s the closest thing to closure regarding the imprint that you’re going to get.  It still manages to fail at that.  File this one under “for completists only” I guess.