Synopsis
Ultimates² (2017 series) #100 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
The opening page this time is taken up by the One Above All not telling us what's happened previously but just saying he finds it interesting.
So we jump right in with Galactus and his Eternity Watch (Ego The Living Planet, the Infinaut and Psi-Hawk) standing outside of everything and telling us what's what. Eternity, the multiversal version who is the whole of the multiverse, has collapsed to a single universe which is being consumed by its ancestor/foe the 1st Firmament while its minions the Dark Celestials are keeping the Watch out. Galactus predicts they won't survive long out here, and he also mentions stuff going on elsewhere. In Prime Earth (616, but surely with only 1 universe there's now only 1 Earth) the Secret Empire event is getting worse (we see AI Iron Man fighting Hydra Captain America). On Counter-Earth the Maker and the High Evolutionary caused the multiverse to collapse to *save* it. We see Death with Oblivion, and Big G says Oblivion will be the only winner. But he has 1 last hope, his Heralds the Ultimates ...
... 4 of whom (America Chavez, Blue Marvel, Captain Marvel and Spectrum) arrive in front of the Maker and High Evolutionary courtesy of the other member of the Eternity Watch, the ghost of the Shaper Of Worlds (sent by Galactus near the end of last issue). America tells Maker to stand away from his gizmo. Maker says his gizmo has just freed Eternity, but she replies that he's just made it easier for the 1F to eat it. Maker (the alternate Reed Richards from the dead Ultimate Universe) protests that's impossible because his consciousness stretches across all of the multiple universes (or at least used to). And he also has backup (since the end of last issue) in the form of some of the Ultimates from his old universe (Captain America, Giant-Man, Hulk, Iron Man and Wasp).
The Ultimate Hulk commiserates with Richards how nobody likes smart people like the 2 of them or Bruce Banner. And then the cannibal 'strongest 1 there is' attacks our Ultimates because he's hungry. However Blue Marvel stops him with 1 uppercut to the jaw. This astonishes Giant-Man and makes Iron Man think maybe they should negotiate. But Cap never surrenders and he leaps to the attack. America Chavez spars with Captain America for a long while and he seems to win, but Captain Marvel blasts him from behind and AC then restarts the fight. And CM and IM have an aerial battle. Meanwhile Wasp asks GM if he remembers how they got here. Henry Pym recalls that they both died (separately and before the end of their universe) and turns on her for prompting that memory. Tony Stark tells them to calm down but Carol Danvers knocks Pym down. CapA finally gets round to asking AC who they are and is stunned when she claims they're the Ultimates. Reluctantly he calls for a cease fire and a parlay.
Angry Maker complains that he didn't bring them here to play nice. But Steve Rogers is also beginning to remember things that suggest the Maker isn't the best person to take orders from. So Maker alters reality to rip Cap to pieces, and asks if anyone else has any objections. And then he turns ice-blue and Spectrum's lightform exits his body to say that she's absorbed *all* his energy. Stark is impressed because it means she's reduced him to absolute zero, but he wonders if they have a backup plan for when he gets out of that trap ...
... then Evolutionary smashes the ice statue to pieces, saying that Maker betrayed HE's very ideals. He promised to evolve the cosmos but the result feels like stagnation. Herbert Edgar Wyndham explains that he thought that the universes bound together would be stronger, like the fasci symbol of a bundle of sticks. But Dr Adam Brashear counters that sticks rot down, the true symbol of strength should be a growing tree.
But anyway HEW doesn't know if he can reverse the process because of all the enhancements Richards made to his machines. Step forward the Ultimate Tony Stark who takes a preparatory drain of his hip flask. Carol Danvers, a recovering alcoholic like the Earth-616 Stark, is worried but he explains that alcohol fuels the nanomachines in his bloodstream which are what enables him to mentally control his armour. Then he spits on the Maker's control deck to let his nanos interface with it. With the info they extract he deduces that it's too complicated for even him to operate alone (Maker had the brains of all his counterparts across the multiverse). But he has a room full of geniuses, and Chavez pipes up as a multiversal expert who knows where everything should be, and Monica Rambeau says she can link them all together with her living neural electricity. In case it doesn't work, Brashear says it's been a pleasure to work with Stark, and Tony says he always wanted to join the Ultimates (but I'm pretty sure Ultimate IM *was* in that team).
As they work Eternity starts to remember what it was and should be, and Galactus senses this as does the 1st Firmament. Eventually Eternity bursts free (looking rather young). Logos panics as the Dark Celestials report that the single universe is reverting to the multiverse and the Superflow is reconstituting between the universes. The Eternity Watch watch Eternity fighting off the infection, and Galactus hopes that the barrier keeping them out of the multiverse is weakened enough. They dive into Eternity ...
... and appear where Logos is protected by a ring of Dark Celestials/Aspirants. Galactus accuses him of crimes against Eternity (and against him). Logos replies that he *is* the Law and so Big G is guilty of the crime of disrespecting him. And he will execute him for it as he did the Celestials. His blast does send the Lifebringer and the Eternity Watch reeling. But then another voice is heard from ...
... as the Tiger God, black-furred now rather than white, attacks Logos. He claims that the Law is just a candle flame to try to keep at bay the darkness outside the cave where he reigns supreme. And within him, as well as meditating on Earth trapped behind Hydra's Planetary Defence shield, is Black Panther the other member of the Ultimates. (Presumably he won last issue's contest against the Tiger God.) He explains how the power of the God enabled him to reach this plane, but now he wields his own power. He knows that here combat is metaphorical but he himself is a symbol, a King (of Wakanda). And he knows personally how fragile law can be when vested in 1 being. And he rips open Logos to reveal Lord Chaos and Master Order inside welcoming(?) their liberation. Galactus is amazed that a human (albeit encased in a God) can succeed when primal aspects like himself failed. And he begins to think anything is possible ...
... and outside reality the Queen Of Nevers responds as the personification of what *might* be. She preserved 1 Celestial from Logos' cull, the top dog called the One Above All. Or it seems she preserved the possibility that he might have survived. And now she fans that possibility into a flame of becoming, symbolised by the OAA opening his chest to let loose a new/reborn 5th Host of Celestials. (The latest iteration in the pre-Secret Wars universe was the 4th Host.) They then destroy the Dark Celestials who corrupted Chaos&Order in the 1st place. And those 2 burst free along with their minion the In-Betweener.
Meanwhile outside the multiverse the angry 1st Firmament confronts the still weak Eternity and says if he can't devour him then he'll destroy him. But Eternity calls out to some beings he's always felt are out there. Both sets of Ultimates on Counter-Earth sense something, especially America Chavez who feels the Multiverse/Eternity getting stronger. They are joined by the Shaper's ghost who repeats his mantra that he saw the others on the far shore where nothing dies, waiting for the call. And Eternity calls for *his* Ultimates ...
... and the personifications of the previous multiverses appear:- The 2nd Cosmos (the 1st Multiverse) who created the Omega Force. The 3rd who created Lifebringer 1, the 1st hero. (The 4th is missing because he is the Pilgrim journeying into the mystery.) The 5th who created magic. The 6th who invented science. And the 7th is Infinity the sister-self of Eternity. The 1F rebels against the impossibility because he watched these Cosmoses die. But the 5th tells him that the 1st secret of magic is that nothing ever really dies, and he finds it poetically appropriate that the 1st should be bound in the chains he created to hold Eternity. Then they take him away to heal beyond the far shore. Infinity turns to look back at her brother to say that beyond is where everything begins, and she'll be seeing him there.
Galactus tells his 5 Ultimates (and us) how the aftermath is proceeding. The Multiverse is back in its old shape, and its Living Tribunal is restore to deal with Lord Chaos and Master Order. Ego has ditched the body he created in #8 and his head reverts to being the Living Planet. The 4 remaining Ultimates from the Ultimate Universe are travelling the Multiverse tracking down versions of the Maker. Big G tells our Ults that he *can't* help them get through the shield around the Earth, but his power may be able to help someone (presumably Captain America) to heal which would give them hope. And he sends them back to Earth with that hope. He is left musing with Shaper's ghost in its force-globe. (We even get a glimpse of the Troubleshooters from earlier issues.)
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: Blue Marvel (
Adam Brashear), Infinaut, Never Queen (
Queen Of Nevers), Psi-Hawk, Spectrum (
Monica Rambeau), Tiger God, Ultimates.
EnemiesPlus: Captain America (
of UU), First Firmament, Giant-Man (
of UU), Hulk (
of UU), Iron Man (
of UU), Logos, Maker (
Reed Richards of Ultimate Universe), Wasp (
of UU).