• Written by: Deniz Camp
• Art by: Juan Frigeri
• Colors by: Federico Blee
• Letters by: VC’s Travis Lanham
• Cover art by: Dike Ruan, Neeraj Menon (cover A)
• Cover price: $
• Release date:

The Ultimates #12, by Marvel on 5/21/25, unveils exactly how the Ultimates survived their fight against Ultimate Hulk in “Heaven,” but it’s not what you think…or want.

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Is The Ultimates #12 Good?

Recap

When we last left Earth-6160’s heroes in The Ultimates #11, Thor and Sif traveled the Nine Realms to drum up support for their war against All-Father Loki. Presented in epic poem format, the issue ended with our heroes gathering a handful of allies and Iron Lad seeing a disturbing vision of everyone’s death at the hands of Ultimate Hulk.

Plot Synopsis

In The Ultimates #12, everyone agrees that nothing they’ve done up to this point works – much like this series. The issue begins with the Nick Fury LMD holding a private conversation in his office with a mole who reports on the Ultimates. What’s the big reveal? When the team faced Ultimate Hulk in “Heaven” in The Ultimates #6, the entire team died.

Tony Stark pulls everyone together, some in-person and others remotely, to explain that everyone died. He recovered by attaching his nervous system to the Immortus Engine, and the Engine allowed him to see through time. In this case, Tony learned that Doom used time travel, against Tony’s wishes, to pull the team out of Ultimate Hulk’s clutches at the last second before the moment of their deaths. In effect, Doom secretly used time travel to rewrite history.

Several members voice their concerns about messing with time because the wrong move could undo reality. Doom, humbled but unapologetic, explains that drastic measures need to be taken because nothing the Ultimates have done or will do will stop the Maker. Ultimately, everyone agrees to toss out everything they’ve done up to this point and start planning with outside-the-box ideas.

The issue ends with Fury congratulating the mole on presenting good information. That mole is Janet Van Dyne.

First Impressions

If you’re wondering, yes, that’s all there is. The Ultimates #12 is an issue-length conversation where the team acknowledges they’ve wasted everyone’s time, and they’re undoing Tony’s one rule – No Time Travel. In other words, the first twelve issues don’t matter except for a few bits and pieces.

How’s the Art?

Juan Frigeri’s art looks amazing. Unfortunately, he’s not given much to do since the script relegates Frigeri’s talents to page after page of people and floating heads on screen talking. In fairness, Firgeri gets to flex with brief flashes of gore when Tony relives the alt-timeline events, but the rest of the issue is chest-high talking heads.

What’s great about The Ultimates #12?

If nothing else, Deniz Camp undoes Tony’s “no time travel” rule, which never made sense in the first place, giving the Ultimates a fighting chance to come up with a better strategy. With roughly six months to go, can the Ultimates (and Luke Cage, who is now inexplicably part of the time) come up with a plan to combat the Maker? Time will tell.

What’s not great about The Ultimates #12?

The obvious flaw of this issue is both a confirmation and an insult. Deniz Camp’s big twist – time travel is now on the table because nobody could come up with a workable plan – confirms that the last twelve months were stuffed to overflowing with water-treading efforts that weren’t meant to go anywhere. The entire creative team, including the editors, decided to waste a year of the readers’ time and money with nothing issues and nonsense plots until the series got close enough to the Maker’s return to make it count. That, my friends, is an insult to the reader.

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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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Final Thoughts

The Ultimates #12 upends Earth-6160’s status quo by tossing out the last year, acknowledging nothing works, and starting over from scratch. Every passing issue confirms and bolsters the idea that Deniz Camp was the wrong writer for this series, but at least you have Juan Frigeri’s amazing art to make nothing look good.

4/10

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