Ultimate Invasion #2 Review

Written by: Jonathan Hickman
Art by: Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie
Colors by: Alex Sinclair
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Bryan Hitch, Alex Sinclair
Cover price: $5.99
Release date: July 26, 2023

Ultimate Invasion #2 pays a visit to the Maker’s revised and perfected version of Earth-6160 during a time of complete peace and prosperity. But if things are so great, why are Variant Avengers from the future appearing to destroy the Maker?

Is It Good?

Ultimate Invasion #2 is a perfect use case demonstrating the need to use caution and care when mixing the multiverse with time travel in storytelling. Jonathan Hickmans’s tale about the Maker’s utopia coming under siege makes sense until it doesn’t, and the issue quickly devolves into confusion.

When last we left the Maker, he escaped his carefully-designed prison with a more carefully designed plan that would allow him to escape into the multiverse to remake the previously-destroyed Earth-6160 as he saw fit. Hero-making events were prevented, altered, or delayed to suit the Maker’s grand design for the express purpose of creating a perfect society. Now, all is right with the (6160) world when Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane are called to participate in a global summit at the rarely-seen Maker’s request. Before the summit begins, a group of multiple Avengers (several Captains America, several Thors, etc) arrives via a portal to annihilate the Maker. Eventually, the variant Avengers assault is put down, and the Maker lets Howard Stark in on a little secret – Stark is the one who built the time machine that’s causing all the trouble, he just hasn’t done it yet.

“Huh? What? How does that work?” you’d rightly wonder. Honestly, I don’t know. If this new Ultimates universe is a fresh creation under Maker’s complete control, how could Howard Stark build a time machine without the Maker knowing about it? How could variants of the Avengers come to be from the future if Maker stopped their creation? If the Makers version of Earth is so great, why stop it? Why do the future versions of the Avengers look like the current version of the Avengers on Earth-616?

All good questions, and because there are so many questions, this issue is more confusing than entertaining. Confusion can be a distraction when a writer doesn’t get a handle on it quickly. Hickman does not get a handle on it quickly, leaving readers sitting with those questions for a month before the next opportunity to dispel that confusion presents itself in issue #3. Oy!

The second down point is the disconnect between the world and the conflict. Again, if Earth-610 is so perfect, why mess with it? Hickman doesn’t establish what’s wrong with the world, so the attack by the future Avengers comes out of nowhere and seems unwarranted. You could presume that 6160 citizens perceive the Maker’s manipulations as oppression, but if they don’t know they’re being oppressed, and their lives are practically perfect, how would they have a desire to fight the Maker? One piece of ugliness under the perfect veneer is all that it would take to move this comic from ‘okay’ to ‘great.’

How’s the art? Under Bryan Hitch’s expert hand, the art is fantastic. Andrew Currie’s inks lend a grounded realism that gives the characters life, and Sinclair’s colors are perfect. In all, the art is fantastic, even if the story is confusing.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces

Ultimate Invasion #2 takes a peak at the Maker’s utopian society on Earth-6160, right before variant Avengers from the future arrive to kill him. The art is fantastic, and Hickman’s sci-fi elements are certainly creative, but Hickman delivers more confusing questions than answers, which damages the satisfaction level.