"Ultimate Invasion," #1 Sets a Lot of Intrigue in Motion

Jonathan Hickman is a writer who has done a lot of cool comics and written some big stories at Marvel, especially. He took the Ultimate Universe Reed Richards years ago and helped start him on a dark twisted path to becoming The Maker. He did a massive run on, "Avengers," and, "New Avengers," which led to the last, "Secret Wars." He relaunched the X-Men into their current status quo of having the big island of Krakoa (then either left the books a bit early of his own volition or was pushed off, it seems unclear). Now it has been revealed Hickman will be relaunching the Ultimate Universe in some fashion, with, "Ultimate Invasion," kicking things off via a four-issue mini-series. The artist for this is, fittingly, Bryan Hitch, a man who was there quite early in the life of the original Ultimate Universe with, "The Ultimates."

This debut issue lays a ton of groundwork, with The Maker breaking out of a specialized prison in the, "Regular," 616 Marvel Universe and the Illuminati coming together after he takes a ton of their tech. We also witness as the Maker/evil Reed makes an offer to Miles Morales to go back to the Ultimate Universe as they are the only two refugees from there and Miles politely declines. Eventually, the Maker does seem to escape and the 616 heroes worry just how bad his plans might be. If I may spoil the issue's end, something interesting happens that shows we are possibly getting a different Ultimate Universe indeed. It's the present yet events from the past are just about to happen with a unique spider nearly biting teenager Peter Parker...before a somewhat-disguised Maker stops it. 

This seemingly new Ultimate Universe might end up being familiar but also have some big differences. I'm eager to see how Hickman and Hitch tweak the Ultimate Universe formula. After all, the original take was basically, "The Marvel Universe, but more modern, more edgy, and lots of characters are kind of jerks." Then it spun off in all kinds of wild directions with twists way different than the main Marvel Universe and ended up being destroyed along with a variety of other Universes during, "Secret Wars." I'm quite curious what Hickman and Hitch are going to give us as, "Ultimate Invasion," concludes and a possibly new and significantly different Ultimate Universe hits the scene. It'll be fun to find out what happens!

5 out of 5 stars.