What happens when you piss off one of the most powerful mutants on earth? Well to start he floods your whole freakin’ city. Running straight from the pages of The Ultimates volume 3 comes Ultimatum a story that should bring the Ultimate Universe out of Marvels shadow and set it on a path all its own.

As far as first issues go, this one is interesting. Jeph Loeb brings all the major players into the story in their own unique ways and brings together a great set up for an epic slugfest. Things start out pretty typically for our heroes Spider-Man and the X-Men as they get set to enjoy a night out with their friends on a seemingly normal Tuesday night. But at 4:13 pm that all come crashing down as New York is suddenly and instantly flooded.

The book has its silly parts to be certain, like Susan Storm using her powers to push back all the water that flooded New York (that’s a bit of a stretch) and Magneto holding onto and possibly using Thor’s Hammer which is almost sacrilege. But despite that it all seems to get the job done of setting the table for the rest of the story.

If you’re not reading Ultimate Origins then you don’t know one major difference between the two Universes that makes this story so compelling. In a nutshell, the mutants in the Ultimate Universe might very well be manmade! This combined with the death of his daughter might have been enough to push Magneto over the edge.

The death of the Scarlet Witch came as a bit of a shock in the Ultimates book, and I wasn’t sure where they were going with it, but now it looks like it will be a huge sticking point for this story. Jeph Loeb did more than enough to pique my interest about this story and get me wondering about the how and why of it all. Definitely a series worth keeping an eye on.


Crave Online Rating: 7 out of 10