Ultimate Endgame is, at least for now, the end of Marvel’s latest Ultimate line. Starting at the end of 2023, the line rebooted the Marvel Universe in an Earth tailored by the Maker, the evil Mister Fantastic of the last Ultimate Universe. Ultimate Endgame is meant to pay off two years worth of growth, as the heroes of Earth-6160 battle to save their world from the multiverse’s smartest psychopath. Written by Deniz Camp, writer of the beloved The Ultimates, with art by Jonas Scharf and Terry Dodson, so far the series has continued building its story, with the third issue marking the halfway point, and dropping a major death on readers.
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Ultimate Marvel has had a fall lately, and unfortunately that has affected Ultimate Endgame. The book itself feels remarkably stake-less, and this latest death doesn’t really help at all. Big deaths have always been a part of the event book; it honestly doesn’t feel like an event unless there’s the death of at least one major character. However, there’s something about this one that just feels especially hollow. Another factor in deaths in events is knowing they are never going to stick and there’s a good chance this one will, but that honestly works against it. There are several factors to this whole situation that rob this death of any meaning.
SPOILER ALERT: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ULTIMATE ENDGAME #3
Marvel’s Latest Death Is Ironically DOA
The Ultimate Spider-Man is a perfect example of the Ultimate fall. When it started, it was the most beloved book in the comic industry, with Spider-Man fans celebrating the return of a mature, older Peter Parker married with children to Mary Jane. The book was on fire for the first year, but stalled in the second year. Its ending was fine, but fans had lost faith in it months before. Spider-Man and the Parkers showing up in Ultimate Endgame isn’t surprising, since it was the bestselling Ultimate book, but some readers felt they knew that one of them was going to die.
Peter Parker is killed in the latest issue of the book, and it honestly feels completely anti-climactic. For one thing, Peter has been calling his death since the beginning of the story, so seeing him eat it in an attack by the Maker, who uses his picotech suit against him (he transforms it into Carnage and kills him, hinting at what the future could have held), just never really feels surprising. It just sort of happens and then we move past it, picking up with the Parkers in an extremely emotionally manipulative sequence that doesn’t really land for a big reason: the death doesn’t matter in the slightest.
The end of the new Ultimate Universe was a huge shock because Marvel never really ends anything. It’s always about the reboot, the relaunch, building to the next event. On the one hand, announcing that something is going to end is a big step for the House of Ideas, on the other we get things like this death. Peter dying is meaningless, because we’re not going to get anymore of his story. His story was already over, as far as we knew, so what is there to miss with him gone? Marvel may continue the Ultimate Universe as a shock to drive sales, but that makes this moment even worse, because it takes away a character that we loved that didn’t get enough development (he stopped being the main character in his own book in the second year).
Another factor in the whole thing is Marvel’s well-known grudge against letting an older, married Peter Parker exist. The publisher constantly pushes his status quo back to poor, single, unlucky guy. One of the things that fans loved about The Ultimate Spider-Man was that it gave readers the version of Peter they’ve wanted to read about for years. Killing that character kind of feels like Marvel thumbing its nose at readers who were hoping that the Ultimate Universe would somehow continue and we’d get more of Peter and his family. Finally, there’s the chance that this is also going to be undone in the story, which makes the whole thing even more manipulative and wasteful. This death is a waste on every level.
Even With a Big Death, Ultimate Endgame Still Doesn’t Feel Important
As far as grand finales goes, it doesn’t really feel like anything in Ultimate Endgame is landing. The first issue was too boring and had to do too much set-up, since not everyone read The Ultimates and that book set up most of the Maker storyline (another mistake of the new Ultimate line), the second issue was fun sci-fi and lore but not much else, and this latest issue just never really comes together. The death feels like a moment meant to get eyes on this book, but it’s a huge mistake.
Killing Ultimate Peter Parker is a completely toothless bite. Unless Marvel pulls a bait and switch, his death doesn’t matter as anything but a “moment” in the story to make it memorable. If they pull the bait and switch (which I’m betting on), it robs readers of a favorite character in the future. Marvel seems to keep making big mistakes, and this is yet another one for the pile.
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