Synopsis
Ultimates² (2017 series) #3 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Galactus summarises the starting position again:- The Ultimates helped him evolve from Devourer to Lifebringer. He made Anti-Man his next Herald who brought the team back together to help discover who has Eternity in chains. The ghost of the Shaper Of Worlds has come to warn about that being and others. Meanwhile Master Order and Lord Chaos petitioned the new Living Tribunal (of this new post-Secret Wars multiverse) to reverse Big G's change, and when he refused they killed him. He also mentions that a group of humans called the Troubleshooters have been hired by the US Government to monitor the Ultimates in case they did try to reform.
The issue opens with a flashback to retired Lt Col Jim Tensen lecturing a group of people in the same 'uniform' as himself about a war between good and evil, spring and winter. He wants them to be warriors for spring, Justice Warriors. A man scoffs to another that he came here for advanced combat training, not some mystical stuff. Tensen calls him over and stuns him with light from his hand and then tosses him aside with a wave of the other hand. The man accuses him of being a mutant. Tensen says he's just learned how to do stuff.
But he's interrupted by a man he knows, Philip Nelson Vogt. They retire to his hut and Vogt asks him to join a squad he's been put in charge of to monitor a major super-group. Tensen says he quit the 1st Eternity Battalion, but Vogt tells him of a terrifying member of his team called Simon Rodstvow - and he needs help to control the team and stop his bosses taking it out of his hands and turning them into warriors of winter.
Now we have a current meeting of Vogt's team, the Troubleshooters, where Tensen has just been remembering the fb. Besides him, Vogt and Rodstvow there are Lt Col Dionne McQuaid and 1st Lt Kathy Ling. Vogt reminds them that they are tasked to make sure the Ultimates don't reassemble to deal with cosmic matters again. He reports that at a meeting of the Alpha Flight board (last issue) Col Carol Danvers and King T'Challa (of Wakanda) left abruptly at the same time. Ling points out it's not a crime to hang out with a co-worker, but Vogt says that these days they are enemies and they need to find out what they're up to.
But we look in on the Superflow where cosmic entities live and where Galactus and Conner Sims have just seen Chaos and Order kill the Living Tribunal. While Chaos gibbers Order explains that (as the LT said last issue) a new hierarchy is forming in the new cosmos, and so he and Chaos intend to take advantage of that. Big G orders his Herald to go warn the Ultimates. And then Chaos and Order join forces to try to change him back from golden to purple.
Meanwhile Rodstvow has used a star-shaped portal (like those created by America Chavez) to bring the 4 Troubleshooters (Vogt doesn't go on missions) to the undersea Kadesh Base of Blue Marvel. A 5th member Col Terry Jessup, an invisible being of psi-energy, has already disabled all alarms. He then interfaces directly with an immense computer system and ascertains that Dr Adam Brashear is currently somewhere unknown outside the Solar System. And so is his companion Monica Rambeau. Rodstvow detects the energy signature of the Anti-Man, but much more powerful. Tensen orders him to follow its trail.
Back in the Superflow Galactus is resisting being de-evolved. He says he has a duty to Eternity which he intends to follow. Chaos says that with the Tribunal gone there is no more Law and so no more duties. Order realises that's the problem. With no hierarchy they are on the same rank as Galactus and so they can't compel him. So they must establish a new ranking system. Chaos of course prefers chaos but Order's orderly arguments confuse him, and the pair go elsewhere to do something about it.
As we saw last issue the Ultimates are on Galactus' world-ship Taa II listening to the Cosmic Cube Shaper's ghost. Spectrum (Monica Rambeau)'s cosmic awareness can't make sense of his ramblings. Black Panther (T'Challa) and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) accept that America Chavez should be their new leader, given her lifelong multiversal experience. But they are chary about the team working for Galactus. Ms America Chavez reminds them how they all glimpsed something wrong with the multiverse (in the previous series) - that it's in chains and being fed on by something else. Only Galactus (and Conner Sims) can see it clearly so she believes they have to work with the big guy to sort it out.
Carol accepts MAC's word for it for now but she needs to get back to Alpha Flight before they get suspicious. America creates her a portal, but Anti-Man staggers through it in agony to tell them what's happening to his master. And then another portal opens and the Troubleshooters step through to arrest them.
Elsewhere on a planet named Mancuso-IV the In-Betweener is here to deal with a butterfly whose next wing flap will cause a storm on the other side of the world which will affect a battle in a war which will lead to the world's inhabitants spreading order through a galaxy. He does his job of maintaining the balance between Order and Chaos by destroying the butterfly. Then Master Order and Lord Chaos turn up. Chaos starts to swallow IB and Order in turn swallows *him*. And from the merger of the 3 comes a new being who calls himself Logos, the new Law in the cosmos.
Characters:
Plus: Anti-Man (
Conner Sims), Blue Marvel (
Adam Brashear), Dionne McQuaid, In-Betweener, Jim Tensen, Kathy Ling, Lord Chaos, Master Order, Philip Nelson Vogt, Simon Rodstvow, Terry Jessup, Ultimates.