Ultimate Invasion #4 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: $8.99
Release date: September 27, 2023

Ultimate Invasion #4 brings the prelude event to a close when Howard Stark and Doom Richards give the maker what he wants before taking it all away.

Is Ultimate Invasion #4 Good?

I must be a dummy because I don’t understand half of what happened in Ultimate Invasion #4. Jonathan Hickman is trying his darndest to get fancy with Time and Reality, eventually leading to a cataclysmic… something… between a Kang, the Maker, and Howard Stark/Iron Man. Something blew up, there’s a time bubble, and who the heck knows at this point? What a pretentious mess!?

When last we left the 6160 version of Howard Stark, he learned an uncomfortable truth about the Maker’s utopian world – wars are pre-arranged to keep the populace focused on the enemy-of-the-moment instead of entertaining curiosity about the Maker’s projects. Now that Howard is in the know, the Maker “invited” Howard into a secret lab to help recreate an Immortus Engine so the Maker’s rule over Time and Space, including a troublesome version of Kang, will be complete.

Now, Stark finishes the Immortus Engine with the help of Doom Richards. Realizing that the Immortus Engine is too much power for the Maker to possess, Stark hatches a plan with Doom Richards to do something. They disrupt the city’s shields to let Kang’s forces in, but close it again, and the Maker jumps to the end of Time to check if his plan works, but a “secret” version of Kang is waiting for him. Then Stark shows up, something explodes, and a Time bubble spawns over the city. It gets hazy from there and may take multiple readings to figure it out.

If you hadn’t gotten the tone of frustration, yeah, this issue is frustrating. Hickman’s return to the Ultimates was generally applauded as a positive. But instead of a clear, straightforward story set in the Ultimates universe, we get this confused, chaotic gobbledygook.

What’s great about Ultimate Invasion #4? Hitch’s art is pretty sharp (more on that in a minute), the multiversal Avengers battle led by Kang feels big, and Tony Stark/Iron Lad’s epilogue has a spirit of promise for things to come.

What’s not so great about Ultimate Invasion #4? Except for the first and part of the second issue, the arc’s plot is a mess. Part of this issue gears up for a mysterious reveal about Kang’s true identity, which never gets paid off, and the Ultimates universe is left in an uncertain state. In fairness, much ado has been made about this mini-series acting as a prelude to bigger things from Hickman, but if the goal was to get people pumped for another series, Hickman missed the mark by a country mile.

How’s the art? Hitch, Currie, and Sinclair produce impressively detailed art in this issue. There are lab scenes, vistas, and scenes with dozens of characters fully rendered in jaw-dropping detail. It’s clear the art team made the most of this issue, even if the same can’t be said for the writing.

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 #4 looks great, but it’s a mess. Hickman tries to get fancy with Time and Reality in the Maker’s bid to create a Utopia in opposition to Kang, but the plot gets lost in the shuffle halfway through. Truly, I can’t describe exactly what happened, so if the goal was to lead into and get hyped for future Ultimates stories by Hickman, this mini-series missed the mark.