The Purpose of An Alternate Universe Can Be Rough, Subtims Tough To Define, Specially after a time of time. It can shift, drift, and semingly lose that Purpose Along The Way. The original Ultimate Universe was Ostensibly Launched to Bring in New and Lapsed Readers Without The Baggage of Decades of Continuity. Though what exactly that meant in execution, as I’ve Stated Before in these dives into the line, is debatable.
RUGARDLESS OF THAT EXECUTION, AS THE LINE GOT OLDER, IT DEVELOPED ITS OWN YEARS OF CONTINUITY. ITS OWN POTENTIAL BARRIERS FOR NEW REDERS TO Jump ON. Even if it was a Shorter Timeframe and Increasingly There Wikis and Forums Available to Fill People in on What The’d Missed. An in-universe solution, though, to Characters Getting Long in the Tooth was to implement Number of Catastrophic Events That Radically Changed The World And Once Again Give New Readers A New Starting Point.
EACH TIME The Ultimate Universe Faced A Devastated End, The Picked Up The Pieces Afterwards Going off in New Directions, Radically Different Boch from What Had Happened Before in the Line Iself and Further Deviation Away from The Mainline 616 Marvel Universe. Mostly. ARGULY UP UNTIL THE DEATH OF PETER PARKER AND INTRODUCTION OF MILE MORALES, Ultimate Spider-Man OFTEN SHRUGGED OFF THE DESTRUCTION IN NEW YORK City and the Annihilation of New Jersey. Though it all changed and came to final conclusion with Secret Wars and Ultimate End. The Ultimate Universe was finally Gone.
“You’re The Smartest Man in the Universe, Reed, and Now There’s an Evil version of You Loose In The World. ”
And Then, After Almost Eight Years of Laying Fallow, Jonathan Hickman, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Alex Sinclairand VC’s Joe Caramagna TOOK A SWING AT CREATING A BRAND NEW Ultimate Universe In Ultimate Invasion. Though it’s not the Earth-1610 Universeit’s submissive new.
Towards The End of the Original Ultimate Universe, The Maker Had Discovered The Mainline Universe, Hung Outh With The Cabal and Thanos, Went Through the Secret Warsand revealed that the half-ased redemption he was Going Through was Half-Ased Baser He was faking it. And Got Involved in a Whole Load of Nefarious Stuff with Knull and Such. I WHOLLY REF Avengers and The Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, & Co.’s Venom For the Brilliance of the Maker’s Villainy Yourself. The he was imprisoned setting the Stage for This Story and His Break-out. It’s Interesting in How It Deals with Him Side-Spapt The 616’s Heroes and Setting Up a Brand New reality, A Better Reality in His Eyes, Where Superheroes Have Been Essentially Sidelined from Existing.
As One of the Architects of the Original Ultimates, It’s Fitting That Bryan Hitch Would Be Involved Here at the Genesis of a New Ultimate Universe. His artwork, with Andrew currie providing finished inks, is detailed, Crisp, and as clean-lined as you’d expecto. On many pages, it’s a tighter, closer, more claustrophobic bit of action. Although there are numberus, Gorgeous Double-Page Sp pread Where Things Really Kick off. There’s a Bit of the Widescreen Feeling to the original Book, but the differences are angray to give This story a family, but different Feel.
Alex Sinclair’s Colurs are Interesting Here. The First Chapter, Set in the Main Marvel Universe, you have Almost Entirely Color Washes. It’s Only When the Universe Shifts That A Broader Colour Pallette is Introduced. I’m not surre If it was intentional (Specially Since Single Color washes Are Again used in late sequences), But It Gives an impression of the new Universe Being More Real. And We Get Another Delineation in Joe Caramagna’s Letters of All Caps and Mixed Case Letters Between The 616 and New 6160 Universes. There’s Also A Really Nice Handwriting Font used for a closing Letter of Howard Stark to Tony.
“I Think You Should Fight Them. “
Ultimate Invasion From Hickman, Hitch, Currie, Sinclair, and Caramagna Put at the end Nail in the Coffin of the Original Ultimate Universe, But Also Served As The Catalyst for a Brand New One. It Left Miles Morales Behind in the Main Marvel Universe and Spotlit A New Universe Designed by The Maker. A New Universe where all of the potential of superheroes were suppredset and by Cabalins (Sub Which May Surprise You) Reigned Over The World. Until Sub Folks Decides Not To Play by The Rules.
Unlike the previous incarnation of the ultimate universe, The New One Potentially has a Hard Out. There’s a Sword of Damocles Hanging Over It When the City Recoens. WHHO OR WHAT MAY EMERGE WHEN THE 18 MONTHS ARE UP IS ANYONE’S GUESS, AN EXPERIENTIAL THREAT THAT APPARENTLY ONLY A FEW IN-UNIVERSE ARE AWARE OF AND WORRIED ABOUT. It Gives an Interesting Time Frame for the Events of the Universe’s Series to Occur and sets up the possibility Again for Major Change. And that time is coming really soon.
Classic Comic Comndium: Ultimate Invasion
Ultimate Invasion
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Penteler: Bryan Hitch
Inker: Andrew Currie
Colourist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date release: June 21 – SEPTEMBER 27 2023
Read Past Entries in The Classic Comic Compendium!
Check out other Recent Review Pieces From The Beat!
