Comic Book / The Ultimates (2024)

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The Ultimates is a 2024 comic book series by Marvel Comics, written by Deniz Camp and drawn by Juan Frigeri. It's part of Marvel's second Ultimate Universe line.

Although it's linked to the wider Marvel Universe, the Ultimate Universe is an Alternate Universe within the same continuity, where the meddling of the supervillain known as the Maker has ensured that the world, Earth-6160, and its superheroes, take a very different path.

Following the events of Maker's entrapment, his shadow council tighten their grip on the world he created. Iron Lad (Tony Stark) and Doom (Reed Richards) work together to organize a resistance network of heroes who origins were robbed by The Maker and free the world from his control.

The first issue was released June 5, 2024. In December, 2025 it was part of the Crisis Crossover Ultimate Endgame, also written by Camp. The series ended with its twenty-fourth issue in May, 2026.

A preview of the series was given in Free Comic Book Day 2024 Ultimate Universe/Spider-Man.

General trope examples:

• Mythology Gag

The Ultimates (2024) contains examples of the following tropes:

• Academy of Evil: Emma Frost runs a school known as Frost's School for Wayward Youngsters. While she is genuine about teaching kids, as it's her passion, she also teaches them to be remorseless killers who support those who call for (and can afford) her services.
• Adaptational Badass: Even without taking in account the fact he rules most of East Asia and Oceania, Bruce Banner is portrayed as the most powerful member of the Maker's Council, not only being the World's Strongest Man but, thanks to his conquest of the Seven Heavenly Cities, also a martial artist on the same level as Iron Fist and a brilliant strategic mastermind. Notably, while in The Ultimates (2002) the team managed to defeat the Hulk as their Starter Villain, in Issue #6 the Ultimates are absolutely trounced in their fight against him.
• Adaptational Curves: She-Hulk isn't just an Amazonian Beauty, with her body being more or less as muscular as that of the Hulk.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: This is the first version of Hawkeye who isn't cisgender, but a two-spirit who uses gender neutral pronouns.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • The Ultimates in general. The original incarnation of the team was a band of government stooges assembled to deal with America's problems, consisting of amoral scientists, soldiers, secret agents, and former terrorists (Thor was the Token Good Teammate but even then for a while was ambiguously insane). By contrast, the Ultimates of Earth 6160 are freedom fighters who are actually against the authority that governs the world and are made up of people who had been oppressed and wronged wanting to make the world right again upon realizing what the Maker had done to it.
  • Although still pretty unscrupulous and aloof, this version of Doom isn't a supervillain like Victor von Doom, but is instead a member of La Résistance against the Maker.
  • Giant-Man isn't a domestic abuser who betrays the Ultimates. In fact, his reason for being so insecure is that he fears he might hurt Janet like his 616 or 1610 versions.
  • The America Chavez of Earth-616 was (initially) a Smug Super who only became a superhero out of boredom with no real interest in helping others, but the America of Earth-6160 is genuinely altruistic and when faced with a "Leave Your Quest" Test chooses to keep fighting for what she's told is a hopeless cause without a second thought.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Vernon van Dyne, who is pretty much every other depiction of him has been nothing but a loving and supportive (if occasionally dead-from-eldritch-horror) father to Janet, is a distant and aloof businessman at best, never mind his attitude towards an injured Hank.
• Adaptational Mundanity: Downplayed. Monster Isle's creatures came from nuclear testing, not from the warlord Kro's experiments.
• Adaptational Name Change: Both Doctor Doom and Doctor Midas drop the "Doctor", being just Doom and Midas. In Issue #17 a Running Gag is new recruits calling Reed Doctor Doom, with him insisting that it's "just Doom".
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • This version of Tony Stark's motivation for becoming a superhero is based on him wanting to free the world from the Maker's regime, as well as avenging his dead father, while Tony usually starts as an arrogant businessman before a personal tragedy makes him see the error of his ways. He is also an idealistic Nice Guy, instead of a sardonic, snarky Knight in Sour Armour.
  • Captain America lacks 1610 Cap's jingoism and blind obedience to the American government, instead being more in line with 616 Steve Rogers as loyal to the American ideals.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Captain Britain and the Hulk are superheroes in 616 continuity, but here they're depicted as members of The Illuminati, with the former being an arrogant Smug Super and the latter, a hypocritical Mad Scientist and Blood Knight.
  • On Earth-6160, without any superheroes to rein him in when he went too far, the Punisher's rampages were far more indiscriminate. One of the glimpses Cap sees in Issue #2 is him apparently shooting up New York, with random civilians killed or huddling in terror. Later on his skull symbol is co-opted by the Red Skull who's revealed to be none other than Bucky Barnes, with U.S. Agent as The Dragon to him after having joined the Red Skulls at sixteen and becoming a neo-Nazi.
  • Mixed with Revisiting the Roots. Most modern comics depict Loki as a villain with a great deal of nuance, if not an outright Anti-Hero. Loki's portrayal here is closer to how he was depicted in early Lee/Kirby Thor comics, as a cruel and vindictive bastard obsessed with becoming ruler of Asgard.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Since he is a Composite Character with Reed Richards, Doom lacks the magic skills associated with the character as well as Reed's Rubber Man powers, instead relying solely on technology.
  • Giant-Man was robbed of his Super-Intelligence by The Maker, and initially often got the short end of the stick during fights due to being such a big target and so-so combatant.
  • Hawkeye lacks the Improbable Aiming Skills of their Prime Timeline counterpart, relying on Tony's tech to land their shots.
  • Midas lacks his Super-Skrull powerset, instead relying on very fragile Powered Armour.
• Adipose Rex: Loki. Flashbacks show he was a lean Pretty Boy once, but his conquest of Asgard meant he grew complacent and indulgent, and now has a noticeable gut.
• Aerith and Bob: The Guardians of the Galaxy preserved their future from erasure through the combined powers of Captain Universe, Giraud the Phoenix, Molecule Boy and Gary the wielder of the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Affably Evil: Midas politely welcomes the Ultimates to the White House, argues his personal philosophies and seems to genuinely try to make a deal with them, only attacking them when it's clear that they aren't going to back down.
• Age Without Youth: Loki hoards the Apples of Idunn, which the Asgardians need to stay looking young and vital, even to his supposed allies, leaving everyone but him and Idunn herself ancient and feeble. When Sif frees her while Thor distracts his forces, this ends up happening to Loki.
• The Ageless: The Immortus Engine fused to Iron Lad's nervous system keeps him perpetually frozen one second prior to his death at the hands of Banner. As seen under "Futureshadowing", this is likely a very bad sign.
• A God I Am Not: Despite his long list of accomplishments and impressive abilities, Shen Qi didn't refer to himself as a god. His followers did, and the actual gods of the time took extreme exception.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Deniz Camp's version of the Guardians of the Galaxy is basically Legion of Super-Heroes in a Marvel setting. They hail from the far future, have highly-advanced technology because of it and they have far more members than any other superhero team (250,000 in the Guardians' case).
• Always Someone Better: The Ultimates meet the Guardians of the Galaxy in Issue #8, heroes from a wiped future who have also accomplished more, are stronger, smarter, and defeat the Ultimates in a brief fight without putting much effort into it.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Midas isn't sure whether America Chavez was simply violently redirected from something in the future, or running from it. Issue #8 confirms she was running from it.
  • At the end of Issue #10, Jim notes with some concern that despite his apparently having been detained by the Maker since 1948, records exist through the following decades of someone matching his description, and he has no idea if it was him, or a knock-off. Whether it was his partner Toro, who may or may not exist, is equally unclear. Issue #20 would eventually answer the question, showing that Jim was sent back in time with the Immortus Engine to sow the seeds of the Ultimates' revolution in the past.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Issue #2 plays around with the Ultimates' goal to "save America", which initially refers to taking back (what used to be) the United States of America from the Maker and his cabal, but it becomes literal when they have to rescue America Chavez from the White House.
• And I Must Scream: Many of the islanders affected by gamma radiation are left in utter agony but can't even speak.
  • Tara is a young girl who is essentially a walking nervous system, with the vague remnants of the top of a skull on her head. Literally everything causes her pain.
  • Sorry, one of the mutated islanders, is essentially trapped in his own mind as a result of his heavily mutated and oversized brain. She-Hulk explains he can't move or do anything for himself, and thus can't even tell anyone how much suffering he must be in.
  • Lejori (She-Hulk)'s mother had a body that grew "mouths with crooked yellow teeth," and her father "sprouted feathers" and tried to fly.
• And Show It to You:
  • Uranium Brother #235 tries ripping out She-Hulk's heart. It just makes her angrier.
  • Vision introduces themselves by yoinking out Nick Fury's L.M.D. brain.
• Apocalyptic Log: Issue #3 has one from the last of the team of American Union officers left behind on Monster Island, who now feels they really shouldn't have nuked the place after seeing what the wildlife's done to everyone else. The ending leaves it ambiguous whether he died or became a Gamma Mutate himself, but implies he was mutating in some way.
• Arc Number: Six, sixteen, sixty-one and their multiples recur several times.
• Arc Words:
  • Fix the world.
  • This is a rescue mission.
  • All Hope Lies in Doom.
  • Save Everything.
  • "They stole your future. Robbed you of your destiny. Do you want it back?" It's the message Tony Stark recorded in the Origin Machines that every hero hears when they're offered the chance to regain their roles as superheroes and join the fight against the Maker and his council.
  • "You're going to have to think in four dimensions."
• Ascended Fridge Horror: Given the start of the setting was the Maker interfering with time, trying to undo that would effectively erase the characters. While Doom wouldn't mind, Issue #8 points out some of the team very much do.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: During Issue #14, some of the richest people in North America meet up to deal with the Ultimates for one reason: Because the Ultimates are making them lose money, and are upset how the "stupid moronic people" are buying into the Ultimates publicity campaign against them.
• Asshole Victim: Many of the richest people who gather together to take out the Ultimates are killed by Emma Frost (except for Oubliette Midas) due to their desire to overthrow Da Costa. Said people were also those who were upset about losing money from the team's actions while having committed many crimes in the name of "needed sacrifice" with no care for the average folk.
• Badass Normal: As part of the Ultimates Network, many normal people who aren't given powers can still be trained and taught how to fight. While Luke makes clear many of them will die, their deaths won't be in vain. Issue #21 has many normal individuals use what they learn to help take out the Defenders and give Luke and his super-powered allies a chance to kill them.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The ultimate fate of Earth-6160. The Guardians of the Galaxy reveal that because of the Maker, or the Unmaker as he's called, the Ultimate's world will become a Bad Future where he rules, with Kang not making things any better.
• Bad Future: In Issue #8, the traveling Guardians of the Galaxy confirm to the Ultimates that their timeline's ultimate fate is their utter failure to defeat the Maker, and Kang the Conqueror's plotting makes things worse for the stability of time. The Maker's arrival resulted in the original 61st-century future of Earth-6160 becoming completely destroyed.
• Bait-and-Switch: Issue #12 opens with Nick Fury talking to an unnamed informant in the Ultimates network. Throughout the rest of the issue, there are several pointed moments where Hank Pym expresses doubt or dismay at the team's actions, suggesting he is Fury's traitor. The end of the issue reveals that is instead Hank's wife Janet, acting without his knowledge.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Maker's Council run the world in the Maker's stead after he's sealed away inside the City.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The enslaved elves of Elfheim are watched day-and-night by H.A.N.D. agents.
• Big Damn Heroes: In issue #6, Doom is able to save the Ultimates from being killed by the Hulk and his Immortal Weapons by teleporting them all at the very last second back to the Triskellion. He is unable to save Iron Lad, however, but he is eventually resurrected as a Cyborg. And issue #12 shows the whole truth behind the rescue: The team did die at the hands of the Immortal Weapons, but Doom managed to rewrite history and spare the Ultimates' lives, although he kept this fact hidden from his teammates until Iron Lad discovers the truth when the Immortus Engine he implanted into his chest shows him a vision of the original timeline.
• Bittersweet Ending: Issue #24, the final issue. The Ultimates finally defeat the Hulk, freeing K'un-Lun and Monster Isle, but they're badly battered and, unfortunately for them, the Maker has been freed from the City.
• Blatant Lies: The inhabitants of what would become "Monster Island" knew when the North American Union came claiming they'd fix everything after they were done with their bomb tests and their wars (which notably never end and are kept going by the world leaders on purpose) that it was a giant crock, and told them to go away. They dropped bombs on them anyway.
• Bling of War: Midas managed to acquire the original Iron Man armor after Howard's death, and has taken to wearing it twenty-four seven. The fact it is apparently made of actual gold backfires on him, what with gold being pretty malleable.
• Blank White Void: An ominous one as Issue #12 has Tony admit that after trying to see the future, to confirm The Guardians of the Galaxy's words, all he sees is white after the City opens up. Considering the Bad Future the Guardians told them about, this isn't good.
• Body Horror: What happened to the islanders struck with gamma bombs. The nice looking ones merely had bodies mutating out of control. One poor unfortunate girl is nothing more than a walking, skinless nervous system, described as feeling agony from even a gentle breeze. Even Lejori, who seems to have gotten off comparatively lucky, mentions her first transformation was nothing less than nightmarish.
• Bothering by the Book:
  • Attuma's coup d'état on Atlantis was done all according to Atlantean tradition and law.
  • Loki's conquest of Asgard and murder of Odin apparently also fall under Asgardian law, which lead to factions like the Vanir not wanting to rebel against him—he never went against them after all.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: This version of Bucky Barnes is not the Winter Soldier, but the Grand Skull (the leader of the Red Skulls).
• Breaking the Bonds: Luke is chained up in front of a firing squad in Issue #9 for attempting a prison breakout. Unfortunately for the guards, by this point he's been empowered, and after surviving their gunfire, breaks out of the chains by flexing his muscles, which gets lampshaded.
• Breather Episode: Played straight with Issue #7 where the Ultimates lick their wounds after a devastating defeat. And subverted in Issue #10 where what looks to be a relatively easy mission to save Namor from a bunch of gun-toting but otherwise normal paramilitary thugs goes awry when Steve realizes who the current leader of the Red Skulls is.
• Broken Pedestal: Tony's opinion of Howard Stark already took a hit at age five, when he realized Howard was a lousy, absentee and hands-off dad who preferred to get drunk. It's gotten worse now that Tony's realized what Earth-6160 has become and how Howard was apparently okay with it.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After leaving in Issue #7, Thor and Sif return and are the main characters of the eleventh issue.
  • After leaving in Issue #13, Jim Hammond returns as the focal character in the twentieth issue as the Vision.
• Butter Face: Inverted with Lori. Contrasting Jenny Walters being a Ms. Fanservice, this version of her has an almost grotesque hyper-muscular body, but her face is still that of an attractive woman.
• Bystander Syndrome:
  • In Issue #7, Hawkeye goes after an Oscorp facility which is smuggling weapons for the Moon Knight over in Africa. A security guard tries to talk them out of it on the grounds of it not being their problem. Charli disagrees.
  • The Vanir refuse to do anything about Loki's reign because he's largely left them alone, so they don't see it as their fight. By the time they wise up, it's too late.
  • Defied by the start of World War 3 where countless normal people decide they had enough of being on the sidewalks and just join the Ultimates to make the world a better place.
• The Cameo: In The Ultimates #1, images of Earth-616's heroes, including the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Falcon and the Avengers, are seen when Tony and Reed discuss the plans for "Ultimates 1.0". Later in the issue, glimpses of Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, and Hawkeye are shown as people who have received Tony's box.
• Canon Foreigner: Henri Dugarry, Lejori Joena Zakaria and Charli Ramsey don't have counterparts in the 616 continuity.
• Capital Letters Are Magic: Any time the Immortal Weapons refer to the Hulk, any use of "him" or "his" is capitalized, to indicate what they think of him.
• Captain Geographic: Played with. Earth-6160 has a Captain Britain, a French man named Henri Dugarry, who operates through the whole of Europe. And of course Captain America exists, although as stated by Tony, the United States don't really exist anymore, having broken up in 1969.
• Captured on Purpose: At the start of Issue #9, readers see Luke Cage being thrown in prison. Later on, it's revealed that he let himself be put behind bars, having gained his unbreakable skin and strength thanks to Tony a year ago in his first prison... which he had long since overthrown. Having committed himself in the goal of revolution as he brings both freedom and power to the locked inmates held by an unjust system that needs breaking.
• Catching Up on History: Issue #2 shows Cap following up on Earth-6160's history after he got frozen, with a holographic reenactment Iron Lad makes for him. It takes nine days, and leaves Cap utterly shaken by the end of it.
• Charm Person: The Grand Skull's skull helmet gives off a frequency that allows him to control minds.
• Chekhov's Gun: As Tony and Doom look over their failed first attempt with the "Origin Boxes", Tony notes some were intercepted. The One Year In one-shot shows one of those was the one intended for Falcon, which wound up in H.A.N.D.'s study. What became of its intended recipient goes unmentioned.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In Issue #1, Iron Lad laments that their first attempt at making new heroes has had one, "maybe two" successes. The second finally shows up in Issue #9.
• Children Are Innocent:
  • One of the mutates on Gamma Island is a baby, who killed his mother just in the process of being born. Lejori is terrified about what exactly might happen once he's older and learns this fact.
  • When The Team goes to confront the "Grand Skull", they make it a stealth mission in order to avoid putting the compound on high alert and risking putting the Red Skulls' children in harm's way.
• Classified Information: The Castle Gamma logs blank out the names of anyone mentioned, along with the original name of "Monster Island".
• Closest Thing We Got: As they outline their plan, Doom points out that the Maker will in all likelihood have killed most of those who would've been heroes, or at least left them in no condition to be any use. Tony says if that's the case, they'll just make the best possible replacements.
• Continuity Nod: Issue #1 expands upon Ultimate Spider-Man #5's reveal that Tony had sent other people the means to become superheroes and how some of them ended up dying before they even had a chance to act on the offer.
• Comic-Book Time: Averted. The comic explicitly starts in 2024 and every issue since then takes place one month later.
• Composite Character:
  • The Ultimates combine traits of the the 1610-Ultimates and the 616-Ultimates. Their initial line-up is very similar to the former and their goal of fighting against the Maker's regime reads like an explicit inversion of their origin as government agents, but their sci-fi/fantastical scope, task of "fixing the world", and the presence of America Chavez is taken from the latter.
  • Reed Richards is the one who became Doom in this universe, not Victor von Doom.
  • The Hulk is the leader of the Immortal Weapons, a Supernatural Martial Artist and a Warrior Poet, making him a composite character with Iron Fist. It's later revealed that the true Ultimate Iron Fist is Shang-Chi, with Hulk being The Usurper.
  • While Johann Schmidt was still the Red Skull of World War Two, the current man who holds the role of Grand Skull, leader of the Red Skulls, is really Bucky.
  • In Issue #20, The Vision is revealed to be Jim Hammond, who Tricked Out Time and upgraded himself along The Slow Path.
• Cool Airship: H.A.N.D.'s base of operation is the Beast, a massive mobile aircarrier that disguises itself as a storm.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much:
  • Ben Grimm was found face-down at the bottom of a quarry, and it was claimed as suicide.
  • Shortly after Wren's best friend Mia developed her Mutant powers, she apparently died in her sleep of "disease".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: During Issue #8, had the Guardians of the Galaxy just been less violent, then the two groups could have talked it out more peacefully. Even Doom lampshades it.
  Doom: Another pointless fight. Who could have predicted?
• The Coup: Attuma lead one against Namor years ago. It ended with Attuma becoming the new king of Atlantis and having Namor and everyone who stood with him executed, with the Sub-Mariner's corpse currently adorning the Red Skulls' lair.
• Crapsack World: The series goes into some of the details of just what it took to turn Earth-6160 from what it should've been to the world the Maker has made it into. And they are not pretty. It's so bad that Issue #8 reveals that the future was utterly beautiful and full of hope. Then the Maker came and ruined everything out of his own selfish whims.
• Create Your Own Villain: One of the people Tony sent a package to was John Walker, who's the Anti-Hero Substitute U.S. Agent in mainstream continuity. Here, since he was a member of the Red Skulls since he was sixteen, he took the dose of super soldier serum and went directly to the Grand Skull for advice, giving them a free super soldier.
• Critical Staffing Shortage: The space shuttle Reed and his friends stole was supposed to be fully manned by a crew of nine. Sue Storm figured four people could fly it no problem... and she would have been right, had it not been for the Maker and some careful alterations to Reed's math.
• Cryptic Background Reference: Star-Lord spooks Doom in Issue #8 by confirming he's not the Doom the Guardians are familiar with, the one who existed before the Maker began interfering with everything.
• Cultural Posturing: Frenchman Henri Duggary takes glee in listing all the ways he's defiled all the symbolic items of Arthurian lore as Captain Britain.
  "Arthur's roundtable I broke into firewood to burn dissidents. The Lady of the Lake I took as a concubine. The Holy Grail I made my chamber pot."
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Thor and Sif versus giant lizard monsters. It lasts less than a minute, much to Thor's irritation.
  • The battle between all members (sans Doom) of the Ultimates against Hulk and his group. Hulk crushes them with horrific ease.
  • Happens again with the Ultimates meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy, the greatest heroes of the 61st century. They lose to the future heroes without even being able to get one good blow in until America freaked out and sent a blast that distorted them a bit. And even then they weren't even trying hard from the start.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion:
  • The battle between the Ultimates (sans Doom) versus the Hulk and his Immortal Weapons ends in this. The Ultimates have the field disadvantage, are taken by surprise and lack the Immortal Weapons' raw power and martial arts training. While the Wasp is able to (supposedly) kill Fat Cobra, the team is nevertheless slowly pushed back and very much would have killed the team had it not been for Doom saving everyone.
  • Hawkeye and Cap's fight against Wanda and Pietro has the two heroes slowly being beaten down - more so for Cap - and nearly losing. However, they still manage to regain the upper-hand due to the two playing with them with Steve making a quick plan to deal with Pietro while easily knocking out Wanda in one blow.
  • She-Hulk's battle against Hulk with some of her allies. Despite Hulk having lost the Iron Fist mantle to Shen Qi, he kills all the creatures She-Hulk sends at him easily, handles the ultra-ants Hank sends at him, and can tussle with She-Hulk easily. This doesn't protect him from ultimately being overcome and killed brutally at her own hands.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: After the tremendous mess they make in Issue #1, Tony declares the Immortus Engine off limits until they figure out a safer way to use it. Doom has less compunctions, and in Issue #6 uses it to save the team from a messy death at the hands of the Hulk.
• A Day in the Limelight: Certain issues may feature a single character with only small appearances from other characters.
  • Issue #4 is entirely dedicated to Doom, how his life was ruined by the Maker, and his desperate attempts to recreate the Fantastic Four in hopes of saving his friends. The only other character to appear in the present is Tony.
  • Issue #9 is all about Luke, one of the few successors of Tony's first Ultimates program, featuring his past and his present day goals of overthrowing the corrupt system within the prisons from the inside.
  • Issue #11 stars Thor and Sif as they gather their army to resist and overthrow Loki for his oppressive rule upon Asgard and the Nine Realms.
• Dead All Along: Namor was killed by Attuma in a coup d'état years ago. The Ultimates only discover this when they find his corpse in the Red Skull's base.
• Dead Guy on Display:
  • Loki keeps Odin's decapitated and not entirely dead head on a spear next to his throne.
  • Red Skull has Namor's unspoiled corpse, which he notes simply doesn't seem to decay at all as a trophy on the wall in his fortress.
• Death by Cameo: Most of the classic line-up of the Guardians of the Galaxy appear in flashback in Issue #8 (Starhawk, Charlie-27, Yondu, Martinex and Nikki). Then it turns out they all died, with only Marty surviving long enough to get a message back to the others.
• Death by Despair: One of the events of the destruction of the 61st century was Xandar the Brightmind, a living star the Guardians knew, becoming so overcome with grief it immediately went supernova and then just as swiftly became a black hole.
• Death of the Old Gods: By Issue #23's ending, Loki proclaims how the old Gods are now dead, with Thor stating that only by modernizing themselves into something anew can things be right again as it should have been. Thus Asgard finally falls so something new can take their place.
• Description Cut: Issue #9 begins with Carl "Luke Cage" Lucas being told he's been tried and sentenced to one year in prison for something, but the man telling him this assures him it's just one year. Time'll fly by and he'll be out before he knows it. Next page, Luke Cage still in prison... twenty years later.
• Didn't Think This Through: Tony and Doom's plan for reintroducing heroes to their universe amounts to just giving out superpowers to people recorded by the Maker to have had them, with a short video summary of the situation and who they would have been without his tampering. As the story progresses it's shown multiple times that this was poorly thought out, with Captain America outright admonishing them for treating it like a simple experiment where you just introduce a catalyst when they need to be thinking like they're organizing a revolution.
  • Ultimate Spider-Man #5 already made clear Tony's attempt to re-empower heroes to fight the Maker had already hit a snag, accidentally killing one intended recipient via shock-induced heart attack. Issue #1 of this series shows just how badly it went, with only two successful results, Spider-Man and Luke Cage; all others had failed the expectations of Tony's plan.
  • Ultimates #1 focuses on how Hank Pym has been traumatized ever since he received Tony's recording, and at one point begs Janet to understand he would never hurt her; the obvious conclusion to showing someone a future where they, among other things, built a genocidal robot by accident and hurt their spouse in the middle of a mental breakdown.
  • Issue #10 adds another wrinkle; apparently before Tony sent the boxes out, he didn't bother to do a check to make sure the intended recipients had the same background as their Earth-616 counterparts, even after the alterations the Maker had made to history. In the case of John Walker, he really should have.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: Whatever the Maker did to prevent Hank Pym from becoming a superhero left him with "irreversible" brain damage.
• Divine Conflict: Since Issue #11, Thor and Sif have moved on to changing the Nine Realms and defeating Loki. As such, as Thor makes it clear to Iron Lad in Issue #13, he will not help them in Midgard, stating he and the others must answer their prayers for themselves. By Issue #23, the battle grows and grows, with entire star-systems falling from their war with Loki, with horrible weapons and dreadful figures making things worse until the climax, where Asgard and the gods finally perish so it may be renewed for the next cycle.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Under Loki's rule, Elfheim has become a massive sweatshop dedicated to producing content (or as H.A.N.D. would prefer to call it, "art")
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: Tony's embarrassed by his automated recordings, because of how cold and robotic his supposedly inspiring speech sounds, and bitterly laments this probably didn't help.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: Issue #18 has Iron Lad make an address to every form of communication across the planet — phones, TV, computers, scrying pools, magic mirrors, Mysterio's helmet — to tell people about the Maker's system and implore them to rise up before it's too late.
• Do Not Go Gentle: When the 61st century went down, the entire Hulk race tried to fight the annihilation of reality by... well, fighting it. It didn't work, but that didn't stop them.
• Dog-Kicking Excuse: After Thor and Sif's rebellion gains traction, Loki decides to revoke what little rights he'd allowed anyone in the Nine Realms to retain, saying it was now totally justified.
• Don't Create a Martyr: After Attuma killed Namor, he initially left his corpse in full view of the rest of Atlantis as a sign of his power. When this had the unforseen consequence of turning the Sub-Mariner's body into a site of pilgrimage and worship, Attuma handed it over to the Red Skulls in the surface world.
• Do with Him as You Will: How Da Costa perishes. After his team fails to defeat the Avengers, Emma reveals that the Council wanted him dead, but instead decides to immobilize him, leave him powerless, and allows Roberto to do what he feels is right. By the time she leaves, Da Costa is burned alive.
• Do Wrong, Right: After Emma Frost kills the various corporate suits who hired her for treachery, Emmanuel DaCosta says if they hadn't been plotting against him he'd have fired them for that alone. Oubliette Midas gets spared because she was "creative" enough that Emma thought better to allow this to grow than nip it in the bud.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: The biggest issue with the origin boxes is that Tony is essentially doing this despite never having met the originals. Not everyone who would have been a superhero without the Maker's influence is still in that place.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Thor is easily the Ultimates' most powerful member but he has been grievously wounded with a magical sword so he's not in top condition during Issue #1.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • In issue #12, Doom explains that he figures successfully restoring the original timeline, or as close as they can manage, is fine even if it means a world without Doom. Issue #8 already showed Earth-6160 had its version of the original Doctor Doom, and restoring that would restore him.
  • Up until issue #17, Doom has no idea the Maker is an alternate version of himself.
  • The team have no knowledge of Kang, or that he is sealed inside the City along with the Maker, as Doom managed to avoid seeing him during Ultimate Invasion.
• Driven to Suicide: How Fury, all of them, die in Issue #20. When meeting the Vision, the former causes all the Fury LMDs to activate and regain the memories the Maker's Council normally removes from them. Seeing all the horrors they've done, every LMD of Fury kill themselves from the sheer guilt they feel for their crimes.
• Eagleland: As always, Captain America tries to represent a solidly idealistic type 1, but Midas viciously deconstructs it as being more like a type 2, even before the Maker showed up, having been founded and run by slavers and exploiters. Notably, Steve never says Midas is wrong, but rather ignores him.
• Effective Knock Off: Issue #17 focuses on Doom creating the Fantastic Force, a small army of people given cosmic radiation treatments to make them into a version of the Fantastic Four. By and large, they seem to be pretty good at what they do.
• Elite Army: The Immortal Weapons, the Hulk's loyal followers, are pacifists to a fault. Once they inject themselves with a serum and become gamma-enhanced, they're so powerful that all of the Ultimates find themselves being brought down to their knees. Even Sif and Thor, the most experiences fighters who last the longest, are slowly overwhelmed. Only Fat Cobra is killed, but through sheer luck than anything else on Jan's part when she burst from his body after being eaten.
• Enemy Mine: By issue #14, the Ultimates' activities have damaged the various evil corporations so much that they decide to gang up and split the bill for someone to fight back.
• Evil Gloating: After capturing Wasp and Giant-Man, Nick Fury wastes time taunting Jan about what he's going to do to them, allowing Vision to show up and remove his brain.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Emmanuel da Costa isn't exactly broken up about the Ultimates beating up Midas or breaking his neck. In fact, he actually thought it was pretty funny.
• Evil Old Folks: When Steve cracks the Grand Skull's helmet, he's clearly not a young man under there.
• Exploitative Big Oil: Roxxon Energy Partners, Hawkeye's Arch-Enemy, is a company that ravaged their homeland and killed or imprisoned its inhabitants to build oil refineries and pipes.
• Eye Awaken: The Stinger for Issue #9 has She-Hulk conversing with Tony in the healing tube, not certain whether he can even hear her. Once she walks off, Tony's eyes shoot open.
• Eye Motifs: Quite a few of Doom's panels focus on his striking brown eyes, seemingly as a means to help him emote since his face is covered up by an iron mask, but interestingly, there's a few notable panels of Doom's face that show him with strikingly blue eyes. As said by Word of God in an interview released around the same time as The Ultimates Issue #1, this seems to be intentional.
• Failed a Spot Check: On touchdown on Monster Island, Iron Lad remarks there shouldn't be any animals larger than a salamander there. Sif points out the angry mini-kaiju bearing down on them he failed to notice.
  Sif: Scientists. Masters of observation, all of you.
• Fallen States of America: America as we (or Cap) would know it is long gone, and in the intervening time stuff went really, really wrong. By 2024, the remains have been broken up and sold off by corporations.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Moloids are a severe problem in America, but despite being intelligent have no actual rights, and it's perfectly legal to just kill them.
  • Issue #2 confirms Mutants have the usual problems they always had, with Cap seeing a pro-Mutants right march in Tony's historical retrospective. Sometimes, if they're not dragged off for nightmarish experimentation or to be used as a living drug, they're just murdered in their homes.
  • After the Maker had H.A.N.D. kill Black Bolt, the remaining Inhumans scattered across the world, and issue #10 suggests they also have little to no protection, as the Red Skulls attack them with impunity.
• Fate Worse than Death: Invoked by the Maker in flashbacks in issue #17, who kills Reed Richards, then rewinds time. He then tells Reed he will kill him over and over again until he gets bored. Then he'll do something worse.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Captain Britain presents himself as an educated, friendly gentleman. However, when he is confronted, he quickly shows his true colours as an arrogant, choleric classist.
  • The Hulk is a peaceful, sophisticated Warrior Poet. But when the Ultimates face him, he is shown to still revel violence and brutish power.
  • For a counterpart of the Red Skull, the Grand Skull is a lot chattier and snarkier, even greeting Captain America with a rather casual "How's tricks, Cap?". Of course, he is still the sociopathic leader of an armed neo-Nazi hate group.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: Subverted. By the end of Issue #12, the Ultimates have disbanded after discovering the truth of Issue #6 and Doom's lies. Then they immediately get back together and ensure that everyone has a pitch to see how they can truly work together as a team, rather than just Tony, Doom, and Steve and start Ultimates 3.0.
• Fictional Earth: The Maker's actions mean that Earth-6160 is a very different Earth from ours, with completely different nations and cultures that have drifted far from what we'd recognize since 1963. For one thing, The United States were broken up in 1969.
• Fingore: In Issue #6, the Hulk manages to crush She-Hulk's fist so badly some of her fingers fly off.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Roxxon's CEO talks about the party he's invited to assist with their Ultimates problem, who's "as good as diamond". It turns out he's called in Emma Frost.
  • In Vol. 3 No. 22, the Great Skull orders his men in a manner more befitting of a Golden Age kid sidekick like Bucky than a hardened neo-Nazi commander. Turns out he is'' Bucky. Ironically, he was coerced into the role by exploiting his fear of aging.
• Five Stages of Grief: In Issue #17, Doom starts out at Denial at the death of his found family, trying desperately bring them back with his experiments on the mice. He sometimes slips into Anger as can be seen with his outbursts. Bargaining isn't shown as strongly but he is seen talking to the "ghosts" of his former family about how he hasn't given up on them and is trying to be with them again. Though it all, he is also deeply in Depression as he keeps to himself to the detriment of his own safety and has fits of despair. Finally, with some encouragement from Henry Pymn and the new founding of the Fantastic Force pulling him out of his shell somewhat, he reachs Acceptance and stops experimenting on the mice, letting free his need to bring his old family back and accepting both their loss and his broken state.
• Fling a Light into the Future: After recovering Namor's body from the Red Skulls, the Ultimates hold a funeral, then set it adrift in the ocean, partly for respect but also in the possibility it might inspire whoever might find it.
• Forbidden Zone: "Monster Island" was surrounded by sunken radioactive barges to stop anyone getting close to it. Assuming anyone gets past that, the island itself will get rid of them in short order.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Issue #9, as Luke Cage is being led into Gordium, some of the jailers mention another prison was overrun by the inmates. The end of the issue confirms that was Luke's doing.
  • The Grand Skull's outfit, his first line to the Ultimates, seeming familiarity with Cap, Jim, and respect for Namor, as well as one of his oddly old-fashioned sarcastic parting lines to the Ultimates, all hint at his identity as Bucky.
  • The "upcoming" glimpse in the 2024 Free Comic Book Day shows the Black Panther among the Ultimates, but his outfit looks different from the one he wears in his own series. While this could easily be brushed off as just an art error, it matches his change of outfit in his own title, nearly an entire year ahead.
  • The Hellfire Club is namedropped in issue #2 by Midas before it becomes a bigger plot point in issue #14, as both Emanuel Da Costa and Emma Frost are high-ranking members of it.
  • Jan's flashbacks in issue #19 have her talking to someone who uses some very distinctive speech bubbles, quite different from the rounded ones everyone else uses, but which most Marvel readers will pick up on: They're the kind the Vision tends to use. And sure enough, at the end of the issue...
    • This same someone seems to not only anticipate the Ultimates coming into existence where the Council and H.A.N.D. seemingly didn't, but warns Jan that she can't risk having a criminal record, something that the Maker's forces could effortlessly expunge if she was set to work with them. This points to her benefactor not being Fury after all, but a third-party who'd set her up as a triple-agent.
  • At the beginning of issue #21, Emmanuel fails to notice Emma's distinct lack of enthusiasm for his plan, which he really should have.
• Forced Overwork: Asgard's Valkyries, especially since the war against Loki began. But a job is a job, which they keep doing without slowing down.
• For Your Own Good: After the 1960s, the Maker's influence meant all democracy on Earth was done away with, replaced by a system supposedly so labyrinthine only the super-geniuses could possibly understand it, which they onerously took on for everyone else's benefit. Anyone who complained got killed.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Doom's rant in issue #12 is addressed to the team, but from his positioning also makes it look like he's talking to the audience as well.
  Doom: You all talk of revolution, but when the moment comes...? Even knowing we will fail — knowing for an absolute certainty — you refuse to take the necessary steps! What are you waiting for? This world is a prison. What do you have to lose but your chains?
• Freak Out: Vision's final strike against Nick Fury is restoring all the memories of his predecessors, and then activating every other Nick L.M.D. at once. The guilt and horror drives them utterly insane, and they go on a rampage, taking down The Beast.
• Freudian Trio
  • Superego: Doom.
  • Ego: Iron Lad.
  • Id: Captain America.
• Futureshadowing: Given Ultimate Invasion implied Tony will eventually become Kang, there's plenty of signs signifying his eventual transformation. For what it's worth, Star-Lord claims that Doom is another candidate for the identity of the conqueror, with Kang seen in the same issue alongside the Maker.
  • For starters, there's the fact that Tony Stark becomes Iron Lad instead of Iron Man, who in 616 continuity was the identity a young Nathaniel Richards took prior to becoming Kang. It also harkens back to "Teen Tony", from The Crossing, a younger Tony Stark who replaced the older Iron Man when the latter was revealed to have been a brainwashed agent of Kang the Conqueror for years (although Avengers Forever would reveal that Stark was brainwashed by Immortus for a few months rather than by Kang for years).
  • In Ultimate Invasion, upon unmasking Kang, Howard Stark is visibly taken aback.
  • It's a worrying sign that his lament after the failed attempt at using time travel is that he hasn't "conquered" the idea yet...
  • It also might be telling that Iron Lad's first idea is build an army of superheroes like the clone army Kang controls, rather than start small.
  • Kang claimed to have lived two lives prior to his battle with the Maker in Ultimate Invasion #3. Iron Lad was left nearly dead at the hands of Bruce Banner, and needed to be resurrected with the aid of cyborg implants and the Immortus Engine.
  • The same issue also has Kang call himself "ageless and immortal". Thanks to the Immortus Engine fused to him, Iron Lad now is perpetually frozen one decisecond prior to his death, making him The Ageless too.
  • By issue #13, Tony has really taken to using the power of the Immortus Engine, including creating a dome similar to the City in Latveria or duplicating himself with the aid of chronokinesis.
  • Meanwhile, the Ultimates have started making the "Ultimate Avengers", comprised of ordinary people with a grudge against the Maker's systems. Invasion had Kang's clone army be descended from random civilians.
• The Future Will Be Better: As Issue #8 reveals, the future of Earth-6160 was better; a post-scarcity, post-imperialist paradise-in-progress with 250,000 heroes protecting the universe for millennium on a daily basis with confidence. Then the Maker decided to play God and pretty much wipe the entire future away, replacing it with his idea of a perfect world.
• Gaia's Lament:
  • Thanks to the Maker, corporations like Roxxon have had free reign to go to town on the Savage Land, which is now hideously polluted and littered with the corpses of dinosaurs (and given Ka-Zar and Zabu's stuffed corpses are in a H.A.N.D. facility, things aren't looking good for the locals).
  • Monster Island, thanks to decades of being used as a test site for experiments in Gamma radiation. Everything is super-saturated with radiation, making the food nigh-inedible even without aftereffects like radiation poisoning.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: Moments after talking about how he's metaphorically crushed the spirit of Britain (and most of Europe) under his boot, Captain Britain is literally crushed under Giant-Man's. Tony notes it didn't kill Britain, but it still makes for a good image.
• Good Is Not Soft:
  • Like their original Ultimate counterparts, the superheroes of this world find themselves having to resort to lethal force against some admittedly wicked opposition.
  • Luke teaches his students, the Avengers, to never lose their humanity and do more than just fighting, but help others while treating even prisoners fairly. However, he also ensures they know how to fight against oppressors and has no qualms if they kill those who dare harm normal people and support the Maker's rule. The Defenders learn this the hard way when they murder civilians and prisoners until they're killed.
• Graceful Loser: The Grand Skull doesn't seem to really mind having his bank accounts drained and his digital presence erased by Iron Lad and his mask broken by Captain America, cheekily proclaiming "Good gravy, looks like you've got me!"
• Great Offscreen War:
  • Issue #4 establishes that between World War 2 and the 2020s, there was a war across Eurasia, which America partook in.
  • Issue #8 reveals that the Maker interfering with this universe caused time disruptions through the timeline. The Guardians of the Galaxy fought the Maker (whom they call "the Unmaker"), but Reed was able to defeat them. The remainder were either killed trying to escape the destruction of their reality, Kang attacking them, or were scattered across space and time.
  • Issue #10 shows that, at some point in the past, Attuma lead a coup d'état against King Namor and won, becoming the new ruler of Atlantis and purging it of those who were loyal to the Sub-Mariner.
  • Issue #20 revealed that the Vision (previously Jim Hammond) has been engaged in one against Nick Fury for years, not always managing to stop Fury's efforts on behalf of the Maker but managing to eliminate Fury before he could report the Vision's existence to the Maker. This culminates in the Vision restoring all of Fury's memories of the atrocities he's committed on behalf of the Maker's forces and how they have killed him for past betrayals, culminating in Fury's multiple LM Ds destroying themselves and shattering the resources of H.A.N.D. as the Ultimates strike back.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: One of H.A.N.D.'s laser guns blasts Wren's mother in half.
• Hellhole Prison: As Issue #9 shows us, while Seagate Prison at first glance seems fair and gives prisoners a chance to contribute to society, in reality they have no rights and can be beaten regularly by the guards for the smallest of excuses, or no excuse at all. Worse, prisoners can be killed like so if the guards are given the perfect reason to do so. Luke himself has suffered numerous bleedings and broken bones for years under them.
• Hero Academy: Tony's "Ultimates 3.0" initiative involves this. After recruiting the people destined to be heroes failed, they decide to use Tony's Super-Empowering tech to create new ones after training Luke Cage's reformed criminals & political prisoners in combat, strategy, science, and civics.
• Hero Killer: At the end of his coup, Attuma killed Namor, and later exiled his corpse to the surface world.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to the Maker's Council framing them for a terrorist attack on New York, and much of their subsequent activities, not to mention the Council also backing the Daily Bugle and making it run attack pieces, the team are not terribly popular with the average citizen of the North American Union. However, America saving a bunch of protestors in South America shows it's not universal.
• Heroes Unlimited: What Tony and Reed's initial plan for the Ultimates was. When that doesn't work, he's forced to go to a smaller scale. However, issue #13 sees them revisit the idea through rehabilitating the prisoners rescued by Luke Cage and training them to be superheroes.
• Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: The Hulk, who is revealed to be the Iron Fist, and his gamma enhanced Immortal Weapons have the force of their strikes measured in Hiroshimas. One chi-enhanced uppercut from the Hulk is equivalent to fifteen Hiroshimas.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Midas' armor, which resembles the golden Iron Man armor, is actually made of gold, which is a soft metal. Cap breaks Midas' neck by slamming his shield against it.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Tony indicates that, for some of those who received the box, they ended up accidentally killing themselves trying to use their powers. One of those fatalities may have been Carol Danvers, who is shown to have received her powers, but also showing her vaporizing her surroundings.
• Human Popsicle: Like always, Captain America was found frozen in ice, having been preserved from the 1940s.
• Humongous Mecha: Thanks to Jim Hammond, the Vision, Detroit manages to secretly build a massive mecha known as the Anti-War Machine to wipe out numerous Helicarriers around it during the final battle against the Maker's forces and drives the remaining number away in retreat after Fury kills himself.
• Hypocrite: The Hulk is incensed that the Ultimates set foot on Monster Island, calling it desecration of sacred land, even when he did far worse to it for decades.
• I Choose to Stay: The inhabitants of "Monster Island" won't leave because even though the island is highly toxic, it is their home. Also, the Hulk won't let his lab rats leave anyway.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: The first sign the Guardians of the Galaxy got that something was hideously wrong was their Captain Universe feeling the effect of the Maker's actions, which then proceeded into actual physical pain.
• Immediate Sequel:
  • The series picks up from the ending of the Ultimate Universe one-shot.
  • Issue #17 follows on from the final issue of Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion, released the same week, from Doom's P.O.V.
  • Issue #19 follows on from the events of Ultimate Endgame issue #1.
• Impact Silhouette: Not played for laughs in issue #12, where one of the glimpses of the Ultimates before Doom saved them with the Immortus Engine is Giant-Man with a Hulk-sized hole in his torso.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: The C.E.O. of Roxxon has traumatic memories of the Savage Land rebellion of the 70s, and just thinking about it makes him reach for a bottle of whisky.
• Insistent Terminology: Cap and Iron Lad have a minor quibble about the weapons Tony designed for Hawkeye, which Cap points out quite rightly are arrows; nanotech self-assembling arrows capable of making anyone using them a One-Man Army but arrows nonetheless.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite (or perhaps even because of) the Maker's interference, JFK was around in the 1960s, and still assassinated in Dallas.
  • Despite the Maker's planning, and subsequent different circumstances, Luke Cage and Danny Rand still meet, become close, and ultimately fight together.
  • Though Wolverine has his moniker in this universe, Bucky still put on a mask and spent decades working for America’s enemies, eventually coming into conflict with Steve in a violent reunion.
• Invisibility Cloak: The dwarves Brokk and Eitri craft Thor and Sif a pair of these so they can move undetected through Asgard.
• Ironic Echo Cut: Issue #4 has a lot of these, such as Ben Grimm sincerely thanking Reed for giving him the chance to fly, to the report of Ben's death from suicide by jumping.
• Irony: After the Maker sabotaged the Marvel-1 launch, Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben met darkly ironic fates. Johnny died in a fiery explosion when a console exploded in his face. Ben was found dead in an abandoned quarry after reportedly committing suicide with his body surrounded by rocks eerily mimicking the stony skin he would've gotten as the Thing. Sue succumbed to cancer, "fading away" from residual radiation exposure. Reed endured the worst fate: mentally and physically tortured by his wicked 1610 counterpart into embracing the Doom mantle, forced to accept that he had "doomed" and shattered the lives of those closest to him.
• Jerkass Gods: The gods really didn't like Shen Qi's followers treating him like a god, and so they hunted him down and killed him.
• Jumped at the Call:
  • While Hank Pym is totally terrified of becoming a hero, Janet Van Dyne is absolutely overjoyed at the prospect of becoming one. Issue #19 takes this further, with Vision apparently having to repeatedly tell Jan to keep on the down-low before the Ultimates show up, lest she draw too much attention to herself.
  • Charli also counts, taking up the catalyst box of Hawkeye and making it their own.
• Just a Kid: Captain America is horrified in issue #14 when he realizes the twins attacking him and Hawkeye are teenagers.
• Kick the Dog: Vernon van Dyne dismissing Hank as useless after his horrific "accident" would be callous enough as it is, but he does it while standing over the man's hospital bed.
• Lack of Empathy: However long he spent as the Maker's prisoner has left Earth-6160's Reed a little detached. After the disastrous first attempt at empowering heroes, he just shrugs it off and says they should try "the experiment" again.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Iron Lad is surprised by the giant gamma lizards on "Monster Island", pointing out that by the laws of physics, they shouldn't even exist.
  • In issue #17, Doom brings up the alias of "Mr. Fantastic". Iron Lad remarks that a name like that says a lot about Reed Richards.
• Laughably Evil: The Grand Skull talks like a G.I. Joe villain, and seems almost personable compared to Luke’s jailers and the members of the Maker’s Council. He’s also rather cavalier about Namor’s fate, and cheekily thumbing his nose as he makes a classic antagonistic exit lies in stark contrast to the horrific violence the Ultimates inflicted on his garrison and Steve’s ensuing nightmarish realization of who he really is.
• Leeroy Jenkins: At the beginning of issue #14, Cap and Hawkeye are scouting out a Roxxon site. Seeing it brimming with goons, Steve thinks it might be a trap and that they should hang back. Charli decides to go in shooting, betting they can clear out the area in twenty minutes.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Captain Marvel's comments on the Ultimates in Issue #8 pretty much punch through the wall, asking America why she's interested in people who are hollow mockeries of what they should be.
  • Jim Hammond muses at the end of Issue #10 that the events of the issue have just raised more questions for him, a sentiment the readers will likely be sharing, given the Wham Line.
  • At the end of Issue #23, during their climatic final battle, Thor tells Loki that without an ending and renewal, their stories are empty and the mortal world moves on. This is him explaining why he’s letting Ragnarok happen, but it applies to the series, as well the wider Ultimate Universe line, reaching its conclusion shortly as well.
• Legacy Character:
  • Inverted in the case of the Human Torch. After Johnny Storm dies as a result of the Butterfly of Doom, the team resorts to digging up the original, Golden Age Human Torch, Jim Hammond. In Issue #17, Doom's efforts to recreate the Fantastic Four finally bear fruit, with him producing a squad of Ultimate Avengers called the "Fantastic Force".
  • After Clint Barton's Refusal of the Call, his gear is salvaged by the new Ultimate Hawkeye while Clint himself underwent Adaptational Villainy and still became Ronin In Spite of a Nail.
  • The 61st century has a Captain Marvel of its own, who was displaced from her proper time alongside the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy after the present-day Captain Marvel was implied to be one of those who didn't survive Tony's Super-Empowering.
  • There's been at least five different bearers of the identity of the Grand Skull. The first one seems to still have been Johann Schmidt, while the current one is Bucky Barnes.
  • After Danny Rand was prevented from becoming Iron Fist and the Hulk seemingly steals his identity, the real Ultimate Iron Fist is revealed to be ten-year-old Shang-Chi who's the reincarnation of a legendary warrior from K'un-Lun's ancient history. The Enlightened Hulk tries to have Shen Qi killed to secure his own reign, but he's saved by Danny and The Ultimates.
  • Sam Wilson lost his chance to become The Falcon twice, as H.A.N.D. intercepted the Origin Box that Tony sent him. Tony instead tries again through the Ultimate Avengers, turning a woman into a Half-Human Hybrid that would become the new Ultimate Falcon with the codename "Wingspan".
    • The same went for Cloak, as his Origin Box was stolen by The Spot in Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion. Taking his place is the Ultimate Avenger "Singularity".
• Let's You and Him Fight: In Issue #5, Iron Lad asks Captain America to recover the equipment meant for Hawkeye from the person who's gone and done a runner with it. Turns out they'd rather keep it. After a few minutes brawling, Cap admits he never had any intention of taking the stuff from this new Hawkeye, he just wanted to see what they were like.
• Liar Revealed: Issue #12 deals almost entirely with this. Tony reveals to the Ultimates that Doom had been using the Immortus Engine to manipulate time and save them from what should have been their total destruction to the Hulk in issue #6. However, once Doom fully admits and owes up to his actions, the Ultimates don't get angry at him or demand him to leave, but instead agree with him, seeing the real fault in having everything handled by only Tony, Doom, or Steve. Starting the "Ultimates 3.0" initiative, they aim to make sure that everyone's viewpoints are considered and start up a more personal movement.
• Living a Double Life: After being cut from her parents support, at some point Janet met Vision and worked under him due to feeling a sense of purpose and underwent specialized training, to prepare her for when the Ultimates showed up.
• Losing Your Head: After he took over Asgard, Loki had Odin decapitated and staked next to his throne, but kept his head semi-alive thanks to a mix of herbs and spells.
• Loving a Shadow: Midas insists he loves the captive America, but Cap points out he's never even learned her name. Also, he's an insane, narcissistic billionaire who's been using her as a living battery.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Issue #16 focuses on Wren, one of the Ultimates' supporters. The Ultimates themselves do not appear outside of flashbacks; the focus of the issue is instead their effect on regular people.
• Lured into a Trap: In Issue #6, the entire team gathers because Iron Lad learns a H.A.N.D. facility housing a number of super-human captives plans to kill them, to stop the Ultimates freeing them. It's actually the Hulk's trap to kill them all at once.
• Magical Security Camera: In their base, the Ultimates have the ability to see the news and other individuals across the world. Issue #10 has Tony watching recordings of the other heroes from separate titles which includes:
  • Peter and Harry in Ultimate Spider-Man.
  • T'Challa facing Moon Knight's forces in Ultimate Black Panther.
  • Hisako being corrupted by Shinobu in Ultimate X-Men.
• Magitek: The Immortal Weapons use gamma ray serums to make their Supernatural Martial Arts even deadlier.
• Make an Example of Them: Midas company policy for any attempted rioters or jailbreakers is executions. It discourages recidivism. Shame for them, Luke Cage is Immune to Bullets.
• Meaningful Echo: "Failure is what comes before success." Tony quotes it from his father at the end of issue #1, having always thought it was meaningless guff Howard made up to sound cool at board meetings, undermined by his being stinking drunk when he said it. He repeats it in issue #13, in another letter to Howard about the team's new mission statement.
• MegaCorp:
  • The Midas Corporation. Not only is its owner so rich that he bought the White House, but they have a monopoly in a lot of industries, developing extremely expensive cancer treatment, building space shuttles, singlehandedly powering half of Maryland and Virginia and owning various airports, hospitals and private prisons.
  • A.I.M. publicly advertise themselves as "the everything company".
• The Men in Black: H.A.N.D. is the Secret Police of Earth-6160, terminating or incarcerating anyone who could pose a threat to the Maker or his regime.
• Mercy Kill: Ultimately the elderly Bucky who has served as the Grand Skull is killed by Steve, who sees it as a way to end Bucky's suffering while also ensuring his friend can no longer hurt others.
• Missed Him by That Much: Issue #20 shows a Nick Fury didn't spot the Vision while he was executing the Whizzer, even though he was barely a few feet away, hiding behind a mailbox.
• The Mole: During One Year In, Nick Fury reveals that one of the Ultimates is working for him. Issue #12 reveals it to be Wasp, who became an informant in exchange for clemency for herself and Hank. However, things get even more complicated in Issue #19 as it's revealed she's a Double Agent and her true allegiance was to The Vision.
• My God, What Have I Done?: One of the Ultimate Avengers is a version of Ghost Rider, who uses the Penance Stare on people to make them feel the weight of all they've done. According to Jan's narration, this results in a lot of defections.
• Narnia Time: Time in the Nine Realms is a bit more fluid than on Earth. Thor and Sif spend days, months, years or possibly much longer touring the realms and staging insurrection against Loki, while only four months pass for the other Ultimates.
• Nazi Hunter: Jim Hammond's a bit bloodthirstier than in the Prime Timeline, reveling in the memory of killing Hitler whereas the 616 Human Torch at least tried to bring him in peacefully. Cap's less enthusiastic about reliving the glory days but nonetheless goes out of his way to hunt down the Skulls, asserting to Tony that "Nazis are always a priority." When the team finally neutralizes the Skulls' HQ in issue #13, Cap makes it clear to the survivors that he won't rest until he's killed or converted all of them.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
  • As Hulk explains in his Breaking Lecture to Iron Lad, the team's efforts have backfired. Far from undermining the Maker's system, their actions have scared the average person so much it's actually strengthened it, so much so Hulk muses the Council could easily kill them and claim afterward it was their plan all along.
  Hulk: You've only driven them deeper into our arms. Nothing makes one crave the status quo quite like a violent threat to it. Of course, a few will be inspired. A few always are. But most will be afraid. Afraid of chaos. Afraid of change. Afraid of losing what little they have. In time, they'll come wonder if the Ultimates ever truly existed. If the whole thing wasn't an elaborate conspiracy. If you didn't work for us all along. In a way, I suppose you did.
  • Another occurs when Hawkeye, after being told by Cap they should wait due to numerous forces waiting for them at a Roxxon facility, attacks. They fall into an ambush from Wanda and Pietro, who were waiting for them and struck when they least expected it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While Issue #7 shows the team demoralized after their defeat in Issue #6, the Ultimate Universe: One Year In one-shot explains that they've taken to operating as smaller units in the incident's wake, meaning Hulk's actions made it even harder to get them again.
• Nightmare Fetishist: As monstrous as the radiation has been to the wildlife on "Monster Island", Tony's still impressed, even trying to show off a giant crab to Thor and Sif. Sif cuts it in half for no reason.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Immortal Weapons are a team of Gamma mutated super-natural martial artists. Hank has a little difficulty dealing with that, even without the fact they're trying to kill him.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Exactly how Captain America wound up frozen, since he doesn't talk about it, and no-one's asked. The events of Issue #10 at least make clear that whatever happened didn't involve Bucky being caught on an exploding plane.
  • One of the glimpses of Earth-6160's history in issue #2 is the Maker facing off against Galactus. Context on that hasn't been given, but the fact that issue #8 shows the 61st century Galactus spontaneously turning into a giant corpse thanks to Reed's actions raises horrifying possibilities.
  • In Issue #4, Tony returns from a mission Doom wasn't present for which went so badly Giant Man nearly died, if not for America saving him.
  • In Issue #5, among the reasons Cap's the only one to go after the new Hawkeye is Giant Man and Wasp are off on their own mission, and America's scouting a potential superhuman in Eurasia (since the team in the next issue remains the same, evidently not something she had any luck in).
  • Issue #2 showed the Punisher shooting up New York somewhen in the 1970s. Issue #10 expands a little, saying the event was later known as "the Summer of Frank", but what provoked Frank Castle's murderous rampage and how it ended goes unsaid.
  • Two during issue #14; the Roxxon CEO mentions an unspecified incident they were involved in at Broxton, Oklahoma, and something at Fort McMurray which the Hellfire Club dealt with in an incredibly violent fashion.
  • During issue #17, Iron Lad is dealing with a band of Mutant assassins in South America, one of whom can apparently spit acid. It ends with him dying, which he's nonchalant about, as apparently this has happened a lot.
  • During issue #19, it's mentioned that between issue #18 and then Captain America fought and killed a brainwashed King Arthur (though fortunately Arthur has a resurrection lined up).
• No Ending: The final issue ends with She-Hulk at last killing Hulk, yet the comic as a whole has no conclusive ending as it all cultivates in Ultimate Endgame and Ultimate Finale instead.
• No One Could Survive That!: A pair of H.A.N.D. agents surveying the wreckage of the Triskelion say as much. They're wrong, as Lejori has survived, and is quite, quite angry.
• Not His Sled: In the original Ultimate Marvel continuity, the Hulk served as the Starter Villain of the Ultimates, and they're ultimately able to defeat him (although Banner leaves behind a 9/11-like trail of death and destruction). In the first arc, Bruce Banner is hyped up as the Ultimates' Starter Villain too... Until he suddenly ambushes them in K'un-Lun with his cronies in issue #6 and proceeds to dominate them in the following Curb-Stomp Battle, even managing to seemingly kill Iron Lad. Yes, this version of the Hulk is a lot stronger than his previous Ultimate counterpart. And issue #12 shows he originally did kill the Ultimates, but Doom used their time machine to change history and rescue them at the last second.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The Grand Skull tries throwing one of these at Captain America in Issue #10, but he shoots it down immediately.
• Now What?: After both Pietro and Wanda are beaten up, Hawkeye asks what they should do with the twins, questioning if the Ultimates even take prisoners. Cap, beaten up, just stares at the end of the issue with no clue either.
• Numerological Motif: Issue #4 focuses on Doom and the backstory of what could have been Earth-6160's Fantastic Four; there are four different stories being told in four panels each, one of them showing the deaths of Johnny, Ben, and Sue, and the end of issue states that there is fourteen months left before The City reopens.
• Oh, Crap!: When the Triskellion is brought down by H.A.N.D., Steve, Hank, and Charli look in shock as it falls from the sky and the Ultimate Network goes down.
• Only in It for the Money: Midas admits that, as an "ultraprepreneur" head of a giant company like the Midas Corporation, he doesn't care about morals or ideologies, only about making a profit.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Captain America and Hawkeye versus an extremely large Roxxon kill crew. We get one panel of the two fighting them, but the two win hands down.
  • Thor's storming Jotunheim, and Sif's subsequent rescue of Idunn from Loki, in issue #11.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Hank Pym is extremely reluctant to become a hero because, aside from some severe injuries, Tony also gave him a glimpse of all of Earth-616's Hank's many, many, many mistakes, and he's afraid of being like that. Captain America is able to assure Hank that he's not responsible or guilty for his counterpart's deeds.
  Hank: Even in that reality, I'm a mess. A failure. Hero, villain... good, bad or mad... I can't seem to make my mind up. I'm a loser at best. A menace at worst. I'm dangerous.
• The Paragon: Issue #12 has the Ultimates, Cap in particular, admit that if they truly wish to save the world, they need to be more than just "terrorists". They need to act as Luke and America have done, be inspirational icons and become a symbol that will make people join them instead of being just on their own.
• Parody Sue: Played for Drama with the Guardians of the Galaxy, here a team of heroes from the far-future with an obscenely large number of members at 250,000, many of whom won the Superpower Lottery, and are said to have performed truly absurd feats (Ultimate Nullifier for example is said to have removed the concept of eternal suffering from the world through rendering Mephisto Deader than Dead). That they stand out so starkly against the far more grounded present-day heroes underlines just how horribly the Maker's tampering has changed the universe to a Crapsack World.
• Party Scattering: During the events of Endgame, the team starts off split up, with Cap, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Wasp fighting in Europe, with She-Hulk staying on the Triskelion to coordinate things, while Iron Lad, Doom and America go to the City. Then the later get stuck inside the City and the Triskelion is shot down. Things get worse, as while She-Hulk survives she bails on the team. Cap sends Ant-Man and Wasp to search for survivors, but they're attacked by H.A.N.D., and Ant-Man disappears after learning Jan supposedly had sold out the team to Fury.
• Past Experience Nightmare: After the disastrous attack on Heaven, most of the Ultimates are left with traumatic nightmares of their battle with the Immortal Weapons, including dreaming that they were outright slaughtered by them. Issue #12 reveals that those are not just nightmares; they are dreaming of the original timeline before Doom intervened, where they really were killed by the Hulk.
• Point of Divergence: Issue #2 expands upon the changes the Maker made to Earth 6160. Cap watches an extensive holographic recap of American history, showing that things were fairly normal up until the moon landing, where it's revealed to be when the Maker began interfering when he is the one who took command of mission.
• Police Brutality: In Issue #7, America intervenes when some police in Guatamala go to break up a student protest. There's barely a handful of students against police equipped with gear more suited for a total riot.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: As Issue #2 reveals, most of America's power supply, and that of Midas' stolen Iron Man armor, are provided by a captive America Chavez, who's been trussed up in the White House basement for years. This also leaves a nasty wrinkle in freeing them, as this would leave millions without power.
• Praetorian Guard: Henri Dugarry has his own private guard, the Black Crusade. It's formed by soldiers wielding advanced weaponry and a couple giants.
• Private Military Contractor: The Roxxon Cleanup Crew are mercenaries Roxxon Energy Partners employs to crush uprisings and protests. They're sent against Hawkeye when they try to sabotage one of their plants.
• Private Profit Prison: Many prisons in the North American Union, Seagate among them, are under the ownership of Midas. Fresh inmates are cheerfully assured that Midas does everything they can to cut costs, and that prisoners have absolutely no rights whatsoever.
• Propaganda Machine: After frying Keith Kincaid to death and seizing his loved ones, a H.A.N.D. agent mentions having "the boys in Narrative" whip up an explanation for these events to feed to the public. It's implied that this is the enslaved Light Elves of Alfheim, who are made to provide "content" in sweatshop conditions by H.A.N.D. agents under Loki's reign.
• Punch Catch:
  • Despite Giant-Man reaching his biggest size, it's still not enough to wobble Fat Cobra.
  • Hulk manages to catch She-Hulk's wrist... and then utterly mangles it.
• Puppet King: Loki is outright called out as this by the narrative of Thor and Sif's focus issue. All he does is sit on his throne to gorge on food (getting a notable pot belly), hoarding Idunn's apples, while his forces across the realms work to support the Maker's ends, not his. When he's finally forced to get off his duff he's much less charismatic than Lokis usually are when rallying his forces.
• The Purge: At some point between World War 2 and 2024, Namor was overthrown by Attuma, and everyone in Atlantis loyal to him was executed.
• Race Against the Clock: The Ultimates have 18 months at the start of the series before The City opens up to fix the world before the Maker's return, or at the very least weaken his control over it so he can't get right back to work. Deconstructed in Issue #12, as Doom makes a vocal point that despite all their efforts, the race they're in is a losing one, as they haven't made a dent in the Maker, and his Council's control over the world after over a year, and now have only six months left before the City opens again, with the same issue being to resolve how to change their methods to truly be effective in the race against time before the Maker finally escapes.
• Rage Against the Legal System: The system that runs prisons is equally corrupt thanks to the Maker's influence. Luke Cage, one of the prisoners, has suffered greatly because of this since he was fifteen after being convicted for a crime he doesn't even know about. Needless to say, after getting his powers from Tony, Luke decides that the unjust system can't be reformed. Thus, revolution must come to break it down, something he plans on doing repeatedly across different prisons one by one.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Downplayed. The Ultimates are each highly competent and courageous heroes. However, they don't function very cohesively as a team at the start. For example, Iron Lad mentions Thor and Lady Sif not responding to summons very often and even his closest ally, Doom, doesn't seem to always listen to him.
• Reading Your Rights: A H.A.N.D. agent does this in issue 16. Since he's a H.A.N.D. agent, they're considerably warped; perps have the right to be tortured, and anything they say or think will be used to kill anyone similar.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: On arrival at Monster Island, Iron Lad's armor registers gamma radiation as being off the scales, and tells Thor and Sif they'll probably be lucky if they ever have kids afterward (per usual Marvel rules, Asgardians are immune to gamma radiation).
• Reformed, but Rejected: Played With. Issue #21 has Luke make clear that they will accept any defectors, but only if they are genuine in their motives. For obvious reasons, they investigate and have a telepath confirm if those wishing to switch sides are truthful or trying to fool them.
• Reformed Criminal: Due to Luke's actions, he's begun rehabilitating and teaching the criminals he's freed with the Ultimates supporting them fully. Helps that not all of them were murderers, racists, or thieves, but also those who questioned or threatened the status quo. They also reach out to those in the Red Skulls who only joined because they had nowhere else to go, offering them a new symbol to work under.
• Refusal of the Call:
  • One of the many results of Tony's "Ultimates 1.0" plan is that some of the targets, such as Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye), outright rejected Tony's offer to reclaim their lives.
  • Hank Pym hid the message and box from Tony from Jan for six months, but as Captain America points out, he also kept it rather than getting rid of it.
• Ret-Gone: As discovered in Issue #12, Doom has actually been trying to get through the Maker's barrier to fix and save his family, the Fantastic Four, uncaring even if he and the current timeline are erased, claiming he'd make a better world seeing as the current world sucks and little progress has been made. Thankfully, Tony, and even Steve, don't even blame him for it and while they don't like what he tried to do, agree that they need further possibility to truly fix the world, with Doom taking in Star Lord's words and finally putting aside his obsession to help them out.
• La Résistance:
  • The Ultimates are freedom fighters trying to end the Maker's absolute dictatorship of the world.
  • The entity of Issue #11 is Thor and Sif slowly finding others and making a resistance to overthrow Loki. While it starts out small, simple, over time until around the end it grows to the point where they now have an army and are ready for war. With Thor’s deal with Surtr in the background.
• The Reveal:
  • Issue #8 is a massive info-dump on just how far the Maker's damage has spread, with the Guardians of the Galaxy revealing that because of his actions to make his own world, the Maker wiped the original future from existence, with only a set amount of survivors remaining while causing untold damage and genocide. The same issue also has Star-Lord reveal that either Doom or Tony will be responsible for untold suffering and deaths of trillions... and the other could save everything. And just to hold the suspense, Star-Lord doesn't remember who is which, keeping who's role in the dark for now.
  • Issue #10 ends with the Human Torch realizing that Bucky Barnes is the new Grand Skull.
  • Near the end of Issue #11, it’s discovered that in secret, before Sif and Thor gathered their army, Thor had travelled down to Muspell and met with Surtr himself and made a deal.
  Thor: Burn it all down.
  • The same issue above also reveals that, yes, the Ultimates were supposed to die against the Hulk in Issue #6, with Tony demanding answers from Doom.
  • Issue #12 reveals that at some point, Janet becomes The Mole and has been spying on the Ultimates for Fury to ensure she and Hank are safe.
• Revenge Is Sweet: During the later stages of Asgard's war, the Light Elves at long last get their revenge, making the agents of H.A.N.D. pay with very brutal deaths with their former prisoners grinning as they make their captors suffer while at long last writing their own ending.
• Revisiting the Roots: Since the early 2010s, Loki has been progressively portrayed as less of an outright villain and more of an Anti-Villain/Anti-Hero. The depiction of him in issue #11 eschews this new characterization in favour of returning him to the unambiguous supervillain he was during the Silver Age, down to keeping his old goal of ruling Asgard and having him wear his first costume.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • Thanks to the Maker, Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne start off as pest exterminators, but with a nagging sense they were meant to be something more.
  • Rather than a highly successful attorney at law, Jen Walters is (or was) a school teacher with a passion for civil rights.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: Similar to the original Ultimate Universe, Earth-6160's HYDRA is the Red Skulls, a gang of militant right-wing Americans who idolize the Punisher and nominally oppose The Maker, but in practice are just neo-Nazis that terrorize minorities (superpowered or otherwise, as they killed a caravan of Inhuman refugees). John Walker, the man who would've become Captain America's conservative Anti-Hero Substitute U.S. Agent, is instead taken in by them as a teenager.
• Rotating Protagonist: Each issue focuses on one specific member of the team. Issue #1 is Iron Lad, 2 Captain America, 3 Thor and Sif, Issue #4 (naturally) is Doom. Issue #7 rotates between everyone (except Iron Lad, who's indisposed). Issue #8 focuses mainly on America Chavez. Issue #9 switches over to Luke Cage. 10 is the Human Torch. 11 is Sif and Thor. #13 goes back to Iron Lad. Issue #2 of the Bat Family Crossover Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion is devoted to Giant-Man, while Wasp gets Issue #19.
• Rubber-Band History: Despite the Maker altering history, having Danny Rand imprisoned and the Hulk taking over K'un-Lun, Danny feels an inexplicable compulsion to join in the quest to find Sheng Qi anyway. But then, magic is involved.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Issue #2 is not subtle about the ambiguity of what America is, either the United States (which no longer exists), the various regions of the continents, or America Chavez and what that means for Captain America questing to save it.
  • Issue #9 has a nine panel grid to signify Luke's confinement in the corrupt prison system. This is emphasized by the cover, which shows Luke and Iron Lad behind white lines resembling prison bars, and the first page with the bottom row of panels having extra white lines to more obviously mirror the cell bars in the background. This continues throughout the issue until Luke is empowered by Iron Lad, allowing him to metaphorically break out of imprisonment and literally tear down the system, one facility at a time.
• Run or Die: Trapped in K'un-Lun with the Hulk and the Immortal Weapons, the team realize this is their only option. Unfortunately, the door they just stepped through has vanished, leaving fighting as their only way out.
• Screening the Call: Inbetween the candidates who did accept the call but then killed themselves, or just flat-out refused the offer, some of them were also intercepted by the Maker's forces. The box intended for the Falcon was one, resulting in the gear inside getting a little damaged.
• Secret Police: H.A.N.D., who serve as this for the Maker when he doesn't feel like killing potential threats, arresting any potential dangerous superhumans who slip the net, and imprisoning them indefinitely (rights to be determined if and when they say so).
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
  • Suggested early on by Tony, since they have a time machine and all, only to be promptly shot down by Reed. The Maker had temporal shields around the time he was interfering preventing anyone from doing just that, which only came down when Howard turned on him. They can only go back six months. Tony then suggests just undoing the attack on Stark Tower. Reed shoots that one down too, on the logic of 'if we couldn't stop it the first time, what makes you think we could stop it a second time?'.
  • Doom's goal is to try and alter time so he can bring Sue, Ben and Johnny back, prevent what the Maker did to him, and become the Fantastic Four as they were supposed to be. This is somewhat deconstructed as Issue #4 reveals that after Doom discovers the destiny he should have had, he has become obsessed with bringing back his friends and family, ignoring missions and disagreeing with Tony's methods, admitting that he's only working with the Ultimates because they're his closest chance at bringing back the others.
  • Further discussed in Issue #8 where the Ultimates meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, who seek to do the same and bring back the proper timeline. Then Hank pipes up and asks the obvious question if doing this will erase them, the current timeline. Thankfully, the Guardians of the Galaxy claim they have special technology and methods that will ensure those born from the Maker's interference can still exist while bringing those who were erased back, ensuring everyone is saved.
  • Issue #12 reveals that Doom rewrote the past to save the Ultimates from the Immortal Weapons, as their encounter originally ended with the entire team being massacred. Doom's goal with the Fantastic Four is deconstructed some more, as it's pointed out he has no apparent plan for how he's going to set things right, or even any guarantee that it won't somehow make things worse.
• Setting Update: The future Guardians of the Galaxy come from the 61st century, rather than the usual 30th or 31st.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Gamma Bomb tests that create "Monster Island" are dubbed "Castle Gamma", similar to the real life nuclear bomb test "Castle Bravo", which, among other things, helped inspire the creation of Godzilla. Accordingly, some of the mutated lizards even look like him.
  • Part of the destruction of the 61st century shown in Issue #8 is an advancing wall of white annihilating everything in its path, much like the anti-matter wave from Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • The Midas company logo seen throughout Issue #9 resembles that of Weyland-Yutani from the Alien franchise, another Evil, Inc..
• Significant Reference Date: The Maker began making changes to the world starting from 1963, which in Real Life history is the year where many Marvel characters like Iron Man, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Nick Fury, and Doctor Strange first debuted. A bit more importantly, it's the year The Avengers first assembled.
• Skilled And Strong: Hulk proves himself to be a step above his counterparts in other universes with the reveal that he's also the ruler of K'un-Lun, with all the martial skill that implies. He also has the Immortal Weapons under his command, who have all also been enhanced with gamma mutations.
• Small Steps Hero: While the ultimate goal is to free the world from the Maker's influence alongside his council, members of the Ultimates at times deal with other problems that aren't outright connected to the Council and help regular people out. Issue #12 has Steve actually believe that America and Luke's actions should be some of their focus as they are the only Ultimates to have groups of people change their perspective of the Ultimates than what the rest of the world thinks.
• Spanner in the Works: As it turns out, Doom being... Doom becomes very favorable for the Ultimates when everybody but him finds themselves falling into the Hulk's trap that has them nearly killed by him and his Immortal Weapons. It's only because Doom stayed behind that he manages to discover a way to locate and save his fellow Ultimates from certain death.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To the original Ultimates. The 1610 version of the team was a task force assembled by the US government composed by of amoral Anti Heroes, and thus were primarily lackeys who fought state-designated enemies. This new incarnation of the team is now ideologically the opposite: they're now a band of freedom fighters working to fight the systems that oppress and control their world, aiming to change the status quo set by authorities rather than enforce it.
• Status Quo Is God: Invoked and weaponized. The Hulk thanks the Ultimates for their terrorist attacks, since threats to the status quo often makes people crave it even more. He admits that even if a few are genuinely motivated by the Ultimates' rhetoric, too many are so afraid of change and chaos that they'll only embrace the Maker's council more.
• Slave Race: During the war with the Maker's forces, Captain America, Janet, Hank, and Hawkeye all face Captain Britain's enslaved army of of English cultural icons which consists of heroes, mythical creatures, and more known as the Army Neverending with some, like King Arthur, capable of being resurrected to ensure they can't die for good.
• Stable Time Loop: Issue #20 reveals what Jim Hammond had been doing since his disappearance. He went back in time through Iron Lad's aid and began setting up a network, gathering like-minded folks in an attempt to ensure that when the time came, he and those he gathered will help the Ultimates, while also making sure he did nothing to affect the Maker's rule to avoid either drawing attention or alter the timeline but also creating special bases, turning Detroit into a hidden base full of people working under him while transforming himself into the Vision.
• Storming the Castle: Issue #2 is the Ultimates taking back the White House from the current owner, Midas, even though political power in the North American Union no longer comes from there.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Simply sending a box with a message and superpowers back to the past is not effective enough a plan to rally heroes to his aid. Of all the boxes sent, only one of them was successfully given to its intended target, Peter Parker. Tony would have to later convince Hank and Janet upfront about his offer, who are more receptive as a result.
    Cap: You can't start a revolution from your living room. Revolutions start on the ground. And heroes don't come out of boxes. It won't work.
  • If Tony wants She-Hulk's help, she demands he fixes her home before the radiation made things worse. Needless to say, such a job isn't easy, as Tony lists a lot of things they would need to do just to even start, all while trying to do it under Banner's nose (which he already discovers). Unfortunately, he has little choice and agrees to try his best.
  • Since the voyage to space and the cosmic storm didn’t give the Fantastic Four their powers and killed the underage Johnny, the remaining members of the would-be Fantastic Four are sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing the spaceship and reckless endangerment.
    • Said voyage not only didn’t give any powers, but the cosmic radiation gave Sue inoperable cancer that ultimately killed her. As the whole thing was Reed's idea, Franklin loathes him for causing the deaths of both his son and daughter.
  • Issue #8 has America meeting her old friends from her forgotten past, where the Guardians of the Galaxy clearly expect her to come back with them. She refuses. And not just because they hurt her new friends and were rather rude towards them, but also because, as America put it, even if she "knows'" they're her friends, the lack of memories and her commitment to helping the current present disassociates herself towards them.
  • Issue #12 has Doom claim that for all the good the Ultimates have been trying to do, they've achieved nothing as their actions, while successful in some areas, still has the majority of people see them as terrorists and haven't hindered the Council's rule on the world. It's actually this that has even Steve agree that to truly change the world, people need to see the Ultimates as a symbol to fight for, not the narrative the Council has placed onto them.
  • Issue #21 makes clear that while the majority of enemies the Ultimates face are part of the Maker's systems, some of them are ordinary people who truly believe the world is alright and in a similar vein to the Ultimates Network, fight back against those they believe are terrorists. Luke has them arrested due to the danger they present to others, and had the Defenders not slaughtered the civilians, he would have given them a chance to rehabilitate through non-violent methods.
• Stealth Sequel: The last page of issue #23 implies that the pantheon that will replace the Norse Gods are none other than DC Comics’ New Gods.
• Take That!: Issue #21 introduces the Defenders team, a bunch of psychotic super"heroes" sent to wipe out the Ultimates and their prisoners of war, and Emmanuel da Costa's outlining of their market appeal makes it clear that it's a deep jab at the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  "We've developed a full slate of live-action TV, summer blockbuster movies, animated half-hours, action figure lines, and more, featuring these characters, ready to roll out immediately. A small group of extraordinary individuals, with heroic backstories and relatable flaws. People don't want to be lectured—they want to be invokedentertained. Scripted quips and one-liners. Catchphrases! They want clear, long-running storylines and interpersonal drama. Maybe a little light romance. People don't want change. They want the illusion of change."
• Take That, Audience!: Issue #21 makes fun of people complaining about the comic's political themes by having Emmanuel da Costa strive to make his Corporate-Sponsored Superhero team as bland and inoffensive as possible.
• Taking You with Me: In the later stages of Asgard's battle, many of the Gods realize the ending is coming and they will all soon die. They take as many of their foes with them as possible before their collective deaths approach.
• Taught by Experience:
  • While the team do make blunders through the first year, afterward they adjust their approach accordingly to avoid making those mistakes twice. Example; after the massive failure of the Origin Boxes, they decide to find people who want to be heroes and ease them into the process, rather than just dumping a box on their laps with no instructions and hoping that heroism will ensue.
  • Shown twice over in issue #17: When the team tried storming one of the Maker's facilities back in Ultimate Universe, it went disastrously and they were forced to run with what they could grab. Since then, they've been learning and improving their techniques. One scene shows Doom trying to raid a H.A.N.D. facility on his own, as Cap warns him over the radio not to, and the next scene down is Doom having taken Steve's advice, leaving a successfully raided facility with some of the Fantastic Force.
• Tele-Frag: Thor, Sif and Iron Lad using the Bifrost to get to Monster Island inadvertently kills two lizards in the process.
• Temporal Paradox:
  • While it's already been discussed before, Issue #8 further describes the true ramifications of the Maker interfering with Earth-6160's world. That being, the second he arrived and set up shop, the original future of the dimension ceased to exist. Only a few survivors now exist, the rest gone with the Guardians of the Galaxy going around to find who's left.
  • In the same issue, Hank discusses the paradox of the Guardians of the Galaxy arriving in their time due to sensing America's aura—the only reason America was there in that exact spot was because Doom detected the Guardians of the Galaxy arriving there. So which came first?
• Tempting Fate: In Issue #1 Tony takes stock of their situation, with eighteen months before the Maker gets out of the City and asks just how hard it can be to save the world in that time. Turns out the answer is "damn near impossible."
• There Is Another: The opening blurb for Issue #9 specifically notes that out of all the candidates that Tony tried to empower and recruit, Peter Parker was one of the only two that wholly accepted their destiny. The blurb ends with noting that this issue, however, isn't about Peter Parker before introducing us to the Luke Cage of Earth 6160, who turns out to be the other person.
• This Means War!: Issue #3 ends with Hulk observing Iron Lad, Thor and Sif on "Monster Island", and is incensed enough to gather his Immortal Weapons, now that the Ultimates have gone and made him angry.
• Time Skip: Tony and his team travel six months into the future, exactly the amount of time Ultimate Universe was released prior. Each issue takes place an additional month in the future in contrast with many of its other peers that can have more traditional serialized story arcs.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The fight Thor and Sif start in Asgard against Loki is noted to stretch on for millennia to perhaps mere seconds. Time isn't linear in Asgard, so there battle lasts longer (and shorter) at the same time in comparison to Earth's battle.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: Well, more like "Yesterday, Someone Died". The solicits for Issue #7 state someone won't make it through Issue #6.
• Toxic, Inc.: Roxxon Energy Partners is an oil company that set shop in the Savage Land. Naturally, after a couple years most of the dinosaurs and prehistoric flora are dead. Part of the reason Charli went after them is they've had free reign to do the same across North America.
• Tragic Mistake: If Reed Richards had just double checked his math one more time before that rocket flight...
• Trauma Conga Line: Issue #4 details the origins of Doom (Reed Richards). From the moment the would-be Fantastic Four miss the intended part of the cosmic storm, his life crumbles, from accidentally immolating Johnny, to life imprisonment for the launch, to the death of his best friend Ben, to the cancer death of his love Sue, to finally being horribly disfigured and given intense brain surgery (both by the Maker) until he stops referring to himself as Reed, and instead as "Doom". It comes across like a decades-long helping of Cold-Blooded Torture, especially since it all ultimately stems from one man.
• Tricked Out Time: #20 reveals that Jim Hammond essentially did this; while Tony was able to bypass the Maker's block on time travel by sending Hammond back to before 1963 (a point before the Maker established his barriers), he couldn't explicitly change history, but he was able to set up secret underground facilities to prepare resources to act against the Maker when the time came.
• Trophy Room: The Maker has a network of secret storage facilities, under the name "Damage Control", for all artifacts and/or corpses for many of the heroes he prevented from existing in this world. These include:
  • Arkus' amputated corpse.
  • The corpse of a young Black Bolt.
  • An adamantium skeleton.
  • Ka-Zar and Zabu as stuffed mannequins.
  • Sentry's costume.
  • Jim Hammond / The Human Torch.
  • The corpse of 3-D Man.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Issue 4 has four different storylines. The first is a young Reed Richards meeting Ben Grimm and Sue Storm. The second is how, thanks to the Maker's interference, it all goes to Hell. The third is then how it gets so much worse for Reed, resulting in him becoming Doom.
• 2 + Torture = 5: The Maker gave Reed Richards brain surgery while awake until he said his name was "Doom" instead of Reed Richards.
• Undisclosed Funds: Exactly how much it costs to hire the services of the Hellfire Club's direct intervention isn't stated, but it's enough that even the richest companies in North America, who routinely deal in billions, have to split the cost five ways.
• The Un-Reveal: Issue 11 covers eight of the Nine Realms and what they're like under Loki's rule. The only one left out is Svartalfheim, home of the Dark Elves.
• Unstoppable Rage: Cap's reaction to learning that, thanks to the Maker's actions, the United States of America haven't existed since 1969. He smashes up the surrounding lab.
  Tony: All things considered, he took it pretty well.
• The Unmasqued World: Downplayed. At present, it seems only the American Union is aware; even so, as part of their changes Issue #13 has the Ultimates reveal the Council's schemes and illegal actions across the world, causing countless to see the Maker's Council as criminals and the Ultimates as freedom fighters.
• Un-person:
  • After the gods killed Shen Qi, all knowledge of him was completely erased, and the march of ten thousand years took care of the rest. But Iron Lad finds out anyway, thanks to his time machine.
  • Anyone who pisses off the Maker or H.A.N.D. is grabbed, sometimes in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses, as happened to one Jen Walters. They're never seen or heard from again.
• Vigilante Man: Frank Castle led a war on crime in the seventies, which would be later known as the "Summer of Frank". This, alongside Johann Schmidt, would inspire the formation of the Red Skulls militia.
• Villainous Glutton: After usurping the throne of Asgard, Loki became indulgent and lazy. By the time Thor and Sif return to Asgard, he has grown a gut and began to drink poets-mead, which later comes back to bite him when he finds out his oratory skills are rusty thanks to his overreliance on the drink.
• Violence Is the Only Option: When the Guardians of the Galaxy meet the Ultimates, wanting America back, they seem to see no problem in deriding and harming them with little provocation. Thankfully, America using her powers to knock them down a bit makes them explain themselves further and what they're trying to do.
• Visual Pun: Three in a row occur during the 2024 Free Comic Book Day story, as Cap declares he can "feel it in his bones" as they walk past an adamntium skeleton on display, laments all the forgotten heroes as they walk past a version of the Sentry's outfit (Sentry having wiped all memory of himself from the world) and then talks about a "whole generation of heroes smothered in their cribs" as they find the infant corpse of Black Bolt.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Hulk, the strongest among the Maker's Council, proves to be this for the Ultimates, who would have all died as the Hulk proves to be far more formidable than anybody expected.
• Wardens Are Evil: The people in charge of the prisons are just as corrupt as the Maker's council. Guards can beat up prisoners and the wardens in charge don't seem to mind, let alone care about a bunch of people with no rights.
• Warrior Poet: While still originally a nuclear physicist, Bruce Banner is nowadays the wise, spiritual leader of the Children of Eternal Light. He is also still one of the world's most dangerous fighters thanks to his brute strength and martial arts knowledge.
• We Can Rule Together: The Grand Skull points out that the Skulls and the Ultimates could conceivably team up since they all hate the Maker, but what’s left of the Invaders aren’t having any of it.
• We Have Those, Too: Iron Lad is a little surprised the inhabitants of "Monster Island" A: speak English, and B: know who the Ultimates are. She-Hulk tells him they still have TV.
• Wham Episode:
  • Issue #6. The Ultimates infiltrate what they believe is a Damage Control facility to rescue who they believe to be a group of imprisoned superhumans, but it actually was an ambush set up by Bruce Banner. What follows is a brutal fight where the Hulk's forces beat the Ultimates in a brutal Curb Stomp Fight, where Iron Lad dies and the rest of the team only survives because Doom managed to teleport them back to their satellite.
  • Issue #12 recontextualized the events of issue #6 into an even bigger wham episode. The Ultimates actually died at the hands of the Hulk and his Immortal Weapons, but Doom rewrote history to allow them to escape Heaven. The Ultimates then decide that, barring America and Luke, none of them have managed to make significant progress in their war against the Maker because they haven't managed to become a symbol for people to fight for. This leads to Tony, Steve and Doom deciding to expand the Ultimates and focus more on inspiring others. Finally, Iron Lad tries looking into the future after the Maker emerges from the City and sees only a Blank White Void. Oh... and Janet is The Mole Fury mentioned having on the team.
• Wham Episode Fallout: After Issue #6 has The Ultimates caught in an ambush where they're only barely saved in the last possible second but Iron Lad is declared dead, Issue #7 shows the group processing the event in small groups or proceeding with the larger mission in their own ways.
• Wham Line:
  • Issue #8 throws a wrinkle into foretold future events, specifically that there's a chance that Kang might not be Tony, but rather Doom.
    Star Lord: One of you will be responsible for untold suffering and the deaths of trillions...and the other could save everything. Now which was which?
  • When the Human Torch searches for a voice match for the Grand Skull:
    "Searching... 90% Voice Match Found: James Buchanan Barnes."
  • In issue #21, Emmanuel takes the defeat of the Defenders in stride, planning to simply scrape up the remains. Then Emma chimes in.
    Emma: I think not.
• Wham Shot:
  • At the end of issue #11, Tony's been looking through the Immortus Engine, and apparently had a freak out. The issue ends with him showing Doom an image of Hulk having murdered the entire team, and asking him to explain that.
  • Upon being captured by Fury and H.A.N.D. in issue #19, Janet reveals she saw a vision. Vision appears and quickly helps Janet and Hank out.
• Who Shot JFK?: As part of the Maker's plan, Midas killed John Kennedy, the United States' last president, and bought the White House.
• Would Hurt a Child: Averted. Issue #10 reveals that one of the reasons the militia known as the Red Skulls are still around is because in their towns are innocent children that makes even the Council hesitate to touch them. So when the Ultimates attack, they make it a stealth mission and ensure they only kill the adults and never target the kids.
  Jim: The Ultimates are not baby killers, whatever they say about us on the news.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Thor may be a god, but in Issue #1 he's still having problems healing from the severe sword wound Captain Britain gave him. He still insists on fighting regardless and does eventually get better in due time.
• Written by the Winners: Kids in the North American Union are told democracy was a hideously failed concept, and the Maker's autocracy is much better. People who disapprove are disappeared.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Issue #13 changes how the world views the Ultimates. While not universal, the new changes implemented by the team has allowed them to ensure that various people now see them as more than just terrorists, but freedom fighters, heroes, badasses, and more, via creating a special app to let the people who sign up know their side of the story and more of who they fight, giving them a reputation boost.

"They stole your future. Robbed you of your destiny. Do you want it back?"