Ultimate Universe

I don’t know why this one-shot wasn’t collected with “Ultimate Invasion.”  Maybe it’s because Bryan Hitch didn’t draw it, but this still features very capable work from Stefano Caselli.  I wonder because it contains some story beats that flow directly from that miniseries and directly set up events for the first three “Ultimate” titles.  The feeling is that if you don’t read this, then you’re going to think that there are a couple steps missing when you start reading those titles if you skipped this one.  I imagine a lot of people will since it looks like a stray one shot that Marvel put out to extract another $7 from its readership because they could.

That’s a moot point for me because I read this on Marvel Unlimited.  So I read about the Jailbreak of Thor, the Heist in Latveria, and The Framing of a Terrorist for a value that’s as close to “free” as you can get from the company these days.  All of these story beats are handled perfectly well by Hickman, even though I’m going to bang my drum again and say that there was still a lack of surprise in these developments.

So if you’ve got Marvel Unlimited and are following this new Ultimate Universe, be sure to check it out as it’s a decent read that bridges “Ultimate Invasion” with what’s coming next.  If you don’t, then you’re either going to have to shell out $7 or read a summary of it online.  Were I in the position described by the previous sentence, I’d go with the summary.  This isn’t a bad comic by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn’t say it’s “$7 for 39 pages” good.