Ultimates

Gallery

Official Team Name

Ultimates

Team Aliases

Unknown

Status

Active

Identity

Public

Alignment

Good

Universe

Earth-1610

Base of Operations

Triskelion
formerly Stark Mansion

Affiliations

Team Leader(s)

Nick Fury, formerly Captain America, Wasp

Current Members

Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Thor, Black Widow, Falcon, Captain Britain

Former Members

Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, Wasp, Yellowjacket

Allies

S.H.I.E.L.D., Reserves, Ultimate X

Enemies

Hulk, The Chitauri, The Liberators, Ultron, Children of Tomorrow

Origin

Origin

The Ultimates were created by S.H.I.E.L.D. to combat the growing risk of the U.S. being attacked by supervillians.

Place of Formation

Triskelion

Creators

Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch

First appearance

Ultimates #2
(April, 2002)

History

The Ultimates were a group of superhumans created when the President of the United States approved a new defense budget to combat the growing risk of the U.S. being attacked by supervillians.

General Nicholas Fury was chosen as the liaison between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the new group. He often acted as the group's leader.

The first members were Hank Pym (Giant-Man), his wife Janet (Wasp), and Tony Stark, (Iron Man). Bruce Banner was made the new science director, attempting to duplicate the super soldier serum.

Finding the body of Captain America, they examined it hoping to at least gain a sample of the serum. Instead, Steve Rogers was revived.

They also found a strange man claiming to be the Norse thunder god. Thor agreed to join the team, but only if the President would triple the funds allocated to environmental issues in the budget.

The team later enter their first mission in battling an enraged Hulk in New York City, and successfully subdues him. Later the former members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joined in the ranks of the Ultimates along with Black Widow. The team found themselves in humanity's old war against the alien race, the Chitauri, in which they successfully save the Earth and the Solar System from a Chitauri super-bomb. After the defeat of the Chitauri, the Ultimates are immediately praised as heroes to the world.

Superhuman War

Despite being declared as national celebrities following a year after the defeat of the Chitauri, the Ultimates had been serving the United States government as part of its "police" force in the War on Terror, thus alienating the international community, particularly in teaming up with the European Super-Soldier Initiative to invade a Middle Eastern nation for possessing nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the super-soldier Reserves was created with the Ultimates causing a sharp criticism for possibly violating superhuman test ban treaties. The team also suffered internal conflicts and problems: the alienation of Hank Pym, Janet's dissatisfied marital relationship with a "old" minded Captain America, Bruce Banner's identity as the Hulk revealed to the public and was sentenced to be killed but only to escape, and Thor being labeled as a insane person and imprisoned by his own teammates.

It is then revealed that the cause of the ruination of Hulk and Thor was due to a traitor among the Ultimates, the Black Widow, who infiltrated and betrayed the group in order leave the American country open to attack from the Liberators. In doing so to further cripple the Ultimates from within, Hawkeye's family was murdered and Captain America was framed for the crime. Immediately afterword, the Liberators quickly damaged the Triskelion, killed the Reserves and captured all of America's heroes and the Ultimates, save for the Wasp. Thanks to her ability to move undetected, the Ultimates were able to escape and counterattack against the Liberators.

After their battle with The Liberators, the Ultimates, having experienced that working with the United States government and its resulted upbringing was not worth fighting for, decided to leave S.H.I.E.L.D., and continued to work as a independent superhero team instead.

Death of the Scarlet Witch

Later the now-independent superhero team later gained new members including a more successful Valkyrie of the Defenders and Black Panther (who was revealed to be Steve Rogers). The team was manipulated and almost replace by Hank Pym's Ultron robot which was obsessed with Scarlet Witch, who was killed by the machine out of jealousy. The Ultimates, with the help of Pym, Wolverine, and Kazar stopped and destroyed Ultron but at the apparent cost of Quicksilver's life which shocked and angered his father Magneto. Unbeknown to all participating parties, Doctor Doom orchestrated the entire events for his own ambitions.

Ultimatum

Main article: Ultimatum

Enraged by the death of his son, Magneto dedicated himself to the utter annihilation of the human race, whilst being unknowingly being manipulated by Doctor Doom. His genocidal quest resulted in the Ultimatum event, caused by Magneto's reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles. After New York City was engulfed by the Ultimatum Wave tsunami, many of the Ultimate members were separated from each other. Wasp was later discover dead, her body partially eaten by Blob. In retaliation, Hank Pym bit off the cannibal's head. Captain America was thrown into a coma by the destructive tsunami and was on the verge of death, but his soul along with Valkyrie's were saved by Thor in the spirit world of the afterlife. However, the thunder god perished in his efforts against Hela's undead army.

After Captain America awoke from his coma, the Ultimates then arrived at the Triskelion to stop a horde of Jamie Madrox's duplicates, acting as suicide bombers, from damaging the facility. Hank Pym gathered all the Madroxs in his giant form and brought them out to sea, where he allowed himself to be blown up with them. Captain America later ordered the remaining Ultimates to gather any remaining heroes to battle Magneto, who wielded Thor's hammer at his citadel. Together with members of the X-Men, the Ultimates fought against Magneto until he was killed by Cyclops. After this the Ultimates and the other heroes destroyed Magneto's citadel.

After the events of Ultimatum, the Ultimates recieved an influx of new members and were renamed the New Ultimates.

Reinstatement

The Ultimates were reinstated as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s primary task force with Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye and Spider-Woman as its primary roster and Nick Fury leading.^[1]

Reed Richards returned Earth and founded an organization called Children of Tomorrow, a group of envolved humans with the aim of domain the World, builing their base called the Dome. The Dome's interior ages at an accelerated rate compared to the outside world. Over 900 years have passed inside the Dome, so their inhabitants evolved to perfect super-humans.

The EUSS attacked the Dome with Captain Britain, Captain Spain and Captain France along with Thor. The heroes were subdued by the enemies and some of them killed, draining their powers. After examing Thor, Richards (now called the Maker) sent the Children for the source of power of Thor, leading them to Asgard. After killing every Asgardian God, the Children drained the power of Yggdrasil, leaving Thor powerless. After Iron Man rescued Thor, he provived Odinson with a upgraded version of his Super-Soldier armor, with which Thor teleported to the Dome in search of vengeance. There, he rescued Captain Britain, but was defeated by the Children, and the Maker showed himself as Reed Richards, with the condition of deliver that message.

Fury tried to take down the Children using his full armament, but failed to destroy Richards' Dome, days later they sent Falcon to do recon, were he was surprised by Richards, and explained Falcon his plans.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• The Ultimates are style after Wildstorm's The Authority, in which the series was created by Bryan Hitch with Warren Ellis, and Mark Millar wrote the later half of the series following after Ellis' run.
• The Ultimates will be returning in Ultimate Comics Ultimates, an ongoing monthly series from the creative team of Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic. The series begins in August, 2011.
  

Trivia

• No trivia.

See Also

• 17 Ultimates (Earth-1610) Members
  
• 84 Appearances of Ultimates (Earth-1610)
• 7 Images that include Ultimates (Earth-1610)
• Team Gallery: Ultimates (Earth-1610)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Ultimates (Earth-1610)

Links and References

• The Ultimates @ ULTIMATE X
• Ultimates/Covers
• Ultimate Power/Covers
• Ultimates Volume 1
• Ultimates Volume 2
• Ultimates Volume 3
  

Footnotes