The Maker (Reed Richards-1610): If you could do it all again - if you could truly change things - if you had the chance... Would you erase me from existence?
Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards-616): Yes.
The Maker (Reed Richards-1610): I'll keep that in mind.
Ultimate Invasion is a 2023 comic book limited series from Marvel Comics. It's written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Bryan Hitch and Andrew Currie, with color art by Alex Sinclair.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, with a focus on Marvel's Alternate Universes, it follows on from the events of the Ultimate Marvel titles, and Secret Wars (2015) —a Crisis Crossover that ended many of those alternate universes.
On Earth-616 - the world where most of Marvel's superhero stories are set - Reed Richards is a hero, a scientific genius, a superhero and one of the Fantastic Four. On Earth-1610, his counterpart became the Maker, a Fallen Hero who turned his genius to monstrous things.
After Earth-1610 was seemingly destroyed, the Maker plagued other realities. He was eventually captured on Earth-616 and imprisoned, held in a special prison with the highest security level possible. It won't be enough to hold him. The Maker has a plan to leave the universe of Earth-616 behind, to do great things elsewhere... the Illuminati, the shadowy alliance of Earth's greatest heroes, will want to stop him, of course. But they're not going to find it easy.
And then there's Miles Morales, the hero who replaced Earth-1610's Peter Parker as Spider-Man after Peter died. Miles is part of Earth-616 now, but the Maker hasn't forgotten him...
The first issue was released on June 21, 2023. Following the series is the one-shot Ultimate Universe, showing the aftermath of the series and establishing a new line of Ultimate Comics.
Ultimate Invasion contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: Venom (Donny Cates) set up an event where the Maker would try to overwrite Earth-616 with Earth-1610, returning to the latter to find its New York City in ruins. This event instead opens with the Maker back on Earth-616 and imprisoned by Damage Control (presumably this is the Maker-body from New Avengers (2015)), and introduces Earth-6160, the new Ultimate Universe.
- Adaptational Heroism: Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane are heroes in this universe rather than an abusive father and a supervillain respectively. They still manufacture weapons and have their flaws, but they're the Iron Man and War Machine of Earth-6160 and are both good men who really try to do what's right.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Maker's cabal is made up largely of people who are heroes in most universes, like Colossus, Magik, Sunfire, Captain Britain, and the Hulk. Maker's toxic influence has resulted them all being a ruthless conspiracy manipulating the world and willing to do anything for "the greater good".
- Advertised Extra: Miles Morales and the Illuminati are both heavily promoted for the first issue, but once the Maker bounces to Earth-6160 at the end of Issue #1, none of them play any other role as the Maker sets about creating his own universe.
- Alternate History: Thanks to Maker's manipulation, the 6160 universe is radically different from both our own and the 616 reality. Most of the nations in our world don't exist properly, being replaced by large power blocs that control huge swaths of the world, such as the North American Union or Eurasian Republic, and the superhumans of the world play extremely different roles. Things diverged at 1963 and have only drifted further and further away from our Earth as they went.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Before absconding to make with his plans, the Maker asks his 616 counterpart if, given he could "truly change things", Reed would erase him from existence. Reed replies that he would. The Maker says he'll "keep that in mind." It's implied that Reed's response is what pushed the Maker into shaping Earth-6160 by erasing its heroes.
- Beyond the Impossible: The Maker manages to abscond with a Krakoan gate, despite the fact they're supposed to be impossible for any non-Mutant to use, much less move.
- Black Dude Dies First: The one and only named casualty of the time travel attack in issue 2 is Obadiah Stane.
- Body Horror: The four mercenaries who attempt to free the Maker are messily reshaped and fused together, then reassembled as an indistinguishable copy of the Maker, correct down to the genetic level. Or at least that's the Maker's plan - one of them isn't the person he was expecting, so there's a margin of error. The copy later collapses into gore when T'Challa and Reed Richards visit him. Both scenes are pretty unsettling - the initial merger shows horrified expressions on the betrayed mercenaries faces, as well as details such as distorted hands stretching through other people's skulls.
- Captain Geographic: Played with. Earth-6160 has a Captain Britain, a French man named Henri Dugarry, who operates through the whole of Europe.
- Clone by Conversion: The mercenaries who break in to free the Maker are melted down and forcibly merged into a duplicate, who takes his place when he escapes. His captors are fooled for a couple of weeks, until Reed Richards and T'Challa visit the cell.
- Continuity Nod:
- In his grand plan of "remove potential threats", the Maker goes after Spider-Man first. Seems Reed still recognizes that Peter is a dangerous threat, just as he did way back when he first turned evil.
- The Maker's name for his reality-altering time machine is "the Immortus Engine", after the actual time traveler from the regular Marvel Universe.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover art for each issue of the series deliberately invoke the original Ultimate Universe, be it with characters from that setting, or even the logo - which directly calls back to the logo used for the Ultimate Marvel: Destruction of the Ultimate Universe
preview and Ultimate Galactus Trilogy - to mislead the reader into thinking the series involves that setting, but in reality, the series sets up a whole new and drastically different Ultimate Universe. - Create Your Own Hero: The Maker letting Howard Stark in on the secrets of the world he's made disgusts Howard enough to turn on him, and leaving him with Reed Richards gives him an ally.
- Create Your Own Villain: Villain-on-villain version. The Maker's actions cause the creation of a Kang who, rather than being focused on conquering for conquest's sake, is instead laser-focused on killing him specifically.
- Downer Beginning: By the beginning of issue 2, the Maker has succeeded in his goals. He's rewritten the history of Earth-6160 so that most of its heroes never existed or are out of the picture, and he's adored by the world as the man who helped fix everything. Except some people are still trying to kill him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. The Maker may be rewriting reality, but he claims to find murdering people distasteful when he can use subtler methods and only kills to further his goals when has to... but it soon becomes apparent that he "has to" kill people an awful lot, and he wouldn't have to do it all if he weren't engaging in something massively unethical anyways.
- Everyone Has Standards: Howard Stark of Earth-6160 is a boozy show-off (albeit an incredibly brilliant one), but he's disgusted and horrified by the violence he witnesses.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Maker never really totally comprehends that Howard finds him and his actions utterly disgusting and isn't swayed by any amount of "for the greater good" platitudes like Maker's followers are. This proves to be his undoing by allowing Howard to outsmart and undermine him directly beneath his nose by feigning submission while secretly sabotaging his defenses against Kang.
- Evil Knockoff: Well, morally ambiguous knockoff, at least. Issue 2 sees the Maker attacked by a massive army of cloned Captain Americas, Thors, Giant Men, Wasps and Visions from the future.
- Evil vs. Evil: Lampshaded by Howard. The Maker and Kang are both monsters playing with people's lives like it's a game and are both just different stripes of Well-Intentioned Extremist. Which is why he thinks they deserve one another, which is why he's going to just trap them both in the City to die fighting each other.
- Face-Revealing Turn: At the end of issue 3, the Maker shows Howard Stark to the Reed Richards of Earth-6160, who then turns around to reveal he's wearing Doctor Doom's mask.
- Fatal Reward: The mercenaries who break into the Maker's cell were promised a billion dollars. They're actually melted down, then fused into a single being, a copy of the Maker, and left to take his place when he escapes. They collapse into a puddle of gore a couple of weeks later, during Reed Richards and T'Challa's visit.
- Fictional Earth: 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.
- A God Am I: The Maker thinks of himself and other superhumans as "children of the gods".
- Great Offscreen War: Howard Stark mentions current and previous conflicts in Earth-6160, the "Eastern conflict", the "event in the Pacific", and the "winter Apocalypse." He then learns that all these conflicts are staged by the world leaders to keep the public distracted.
- Have We Met?: The Maker legitimately can't recall who Miles is specifically, what with all the universe-hopping and so many heroes being pretty alike that they all blur together after a while. Plus, he's a narcissistic sociopath, so remembering fiddly details like who other people are is not his strong suit.
- Heel Realization: In his letter to Tony, Howard admits that Maker's revelations to him have made Howard realize that he and Obadiah's war profiteering and reckless inventions aided and abetted the Maker's corrupt system that denied Earth-6160 of it's freedom, turning its people from humans into "consumers" caged by propaganda from governments that serve only themselves and not their citizens. He declares that the one truly good thing he ever made was Tony and begs his son to fix Howard's mistakes and heal the wounded planet by being what Howard should have been; a superhero.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Howard and Obadiah are inseparable and for all they bicker and squabble, it's clear the two men love one another as brothers. Obadiah's death utterly shatters Howard and nearly pushes him past the Despair Event Horizon. Then things get worse.
- I'm Melting!: The Maker's duplicate collapses into a heap of gore as soon as Reed Richards questions it. It's left ambiguous as to whether this would have happened if all four of the four mercenaries fused to create it were the ones selected by the Maker, or whether the unexpected genetic composition made it unstable.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Despite the Maker's efforts to prevent most of the usual heroes coming into play, some things just still happen. Bruce Banner still becomes the Hulk, Mutants still exist, a Stark becomes an Iron Man... more suspiciously, despite there being no Captain America ever, the army of time travellers has Captains in their ranks. It turns out there is a Captain America in this universe, and he's even still frozen in the Arctic... but nobody in the modern world knows who he is. Why this is so continues to be a mystery.
- Despite the world being under the control of the Maker and his various unions, Wakanda is still hidden and independent.
- Kick the Dog: The Maker prevented the Fantastic Four of Earth-6160 coming into existence, and then killed Sue, Johnny and Ben. His keeping Reed alive might look like an act of benevolence... until it turns out he's kept Reed a prisoner and spent his time psychologically screwing with him to turn him into 6160's Doctor Doom, either as some kind of cruel game or, more horrifyingly, to "help" him in Maker's own twisted way.
- Leaking Can of Evil: The Maker, imprisoned in a hi-tech, maximum security prison on the edge of the other-dimensional Negative Zone, was supposed to be sealed away forever. He was visited by a rotating team of therapists, for fear that he'd find a way to reprogram them. That didn't stop him - it just took a little longer, 37 sessions, to corrupt the full team and send them back into the world as his minions. In turn, they recruited a team of mercenaries to help him escape when his grand plan was ready.
- Legion of Doom: The Maker's assembly of underlings on Earth-6160 consists largely of characters who are villains on Earth-616, and are in on his plan to control the world. The Hulk stands as the seeming Token Good Teammate, horrified by what they do but feeling there's no alternative. Howard Stark disagrees.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Defied and deconstructed by Howard, who bluntly spells out that Maker and Kang are both evil and whether one is more or less so is irrelevant. Evil is evil and so he's going to stop them both, because anyone who claims there's a reason to pick and choose between two different kinds of poison is full of shit.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: Defied. Maker's manipulation of Earth-6160's society destroys any notion of it being "the world outside your window" as the mainstream Marvel Universe and even original Ultimate Universe were often described, pushing it into a full-blown Alternate History and Fictional Earth that embraces all the implications of superheroes existing with no regard for resembling our world.
- Magitek: After escaping, the Maker steals Reed's Bridge and mixes it with a Krakoan portal, Inhuman terrigenesis, a magic spear from the Sanctum Sanctorum and a set of Atlantean shields. The result is a Bridge which is nigh-impossible for Reed or Iron Man to hack, at least before the Maker can get away.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: In the first issue's epilogue, "Great Artists Steal", the Maker is in Earth-6160, at an earlier point in time than either Earth-616 or Earth-1610. He makes a point of catching and containing the irradiated spider that's about to bite Peter Parker, preventing the possible creation of Spider-Man.
- Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: It goes uncommented upon in the story, but it probably isn't a coincidence that the Maker sets up the City in Earth-6160's Latveria, in such a way that it looms over the capitol city that would be Doomstadt in most universes.
- Mythology Gag:
- Issue 2 has Iron Man's first appearance be a near-recreation of Ultimate Tony's demonstration of the armor way back in the original The Ultimates, only with a few changes here and there...
- The Hulk's introduction has him called "immortal" by the newsreader.
- Issue 4 reveals that Ultimate Tony is taking up the name "Iron Lad", which is what young Nathanial Richards called himself in Young Avengers.
- Tony being a teenager here itself hearkens back to Iron Man: Armored Adventures, which had a similar Age Lift for Tony. The 6160 Tony even looks a lot like his counterpart in that show!
- Never Recycle Your Schemes: In issue 2, an enemy of the Maker's creates an army and throws it at him, which fails. Issue 3 reveals they then spent several thousand years just making another, bigger army to throw at him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- In issue 1, the Maker breaks into the Baxter Building and takes something. The opening of issue 2 reveals it was a database Reed had of the origins of many, if not every superhero out there, giving his counterpart everything he needs to find and meddle with their history.
- Howard's actions and rearing might have caused Tony to become the Kang who wages war against the Maker. It's currently unclear, however, if Kang and Howard's actions in subsequent issues have altered this possible Bad Future at all.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: It becomes apparent later on that Obadiah probably wouldn't have died in issue 2 if he hadn't tried to intervene and stop the attack by the time traveling assassins. They were only after Maker and his goons, and they were sent by a version of Tony and thus wouldn't attack Obadiah unless forced to.
- No-Sell: When the assembled Illuminati catch up with the Maker in the first issue, they unleash a range of attacks - with absolutely no effect. The building around him is devastated, but the Maker's force field blocks everything, and he simply asks "Finished?", with a smile, before leaving for another reality.
- Old Shame: In-universe. Thanks to some Character Development, the Maker is now ashamed of what he did with the Children of Tomorrow and the City. Just not because of the mass murder, but because he now feels he was thinking too small.
- Organ Dodge: Mostly. Thanks to his altered biology, the Maker long ago moved many of his vital organs throughout his body, so the previous attack on him didn't kill him. However, it did do some damage to his mind.
- Permafusion: The four mercenaries who free the Maker were carefully selected due to their genetic profiles. They're forcibly restructured and merged to create a plausible imposter, who then takes his place in the cell. One of them wasn't the man the Maker had specifically requested, so the impersonation isn't perfect on a genetic level, but it's still enough to fool his captors for weeks.
- Pet the Dog: The Maker delays his plan just to visit Miles and offer him a chance to go back to their home reality, saying it would've felt wrong not to offer. When Miles turns him down, Reed leaves without a fuss, even leaving Miles a (blank) card as an apparent way of contact if he changes his mind. Admittedly, it's the Maker, so it may not be quite as legitimately benevolent as it seems...
- Point of Divergence: Thanks to the Maker's interference, the history of Earth-6160 has radically shifted from 1963 onwards, changing from a Close-Enough Timeline to a place where the Maker can play God as he sees fit without worrying about superheroes being a potential Spanner in the Works. Resultantly, it's an Alternate History that bears little resemblance to the mainstream Marvel Universe:
- The Maker prevents Peter Parker from being bitten by the spider, thus preventing the creation of Spider-Man and by extension any of the heroes who followed on from or were inspired by him.
- Loki pulled off a successful coup with the Maker's help and is now the King of Asgard with Thor kneeling before him. The Bifrost Bridge is also destroyed, preventing Asgard from ever interfering with human affairs.
- The Fantastic Four never get empowered by cosmic rays thanks to the Maker delaying their rocket launch. He also decides to murder Johnny, Sue, and Ben out of pure spite.
- Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane essentially become the Iron Man and War Machine of this world but are still primarily industrialists and war profiteers rather than genuine crimefighters.
- Bruce Banner still becomes the Hulk but is nudged into seeking spiritual enlightenment to deal with his rage, resulting in Bruce making a name for himself as a world-renowned Warrior Monk with a flock of loyal followers instead of living in infamy as a Psychopathic Man Child of mass destruction.
- The Harada (Silver Samurai) and Yoshida (Sunfire) families have united to form a powerful alliance that possesses great influence over the entire Asia-Pacific region. Illyana and Piotr Rasputin also seem to have become equally powerful oligarchs with their family boasting a reputation of being The Dreaded.
- Both Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are listed as inactive in the Maker's records, with Reed now in possession of their "Pym Generator".
- Dr. Strange is listed as a captive in the Maker's records, with Reed in possession of the Eye of Agamotto.
- Much to the Maker's own confusion, Earth-6160 never had a Super Soldier program, and therefore never had a Captain America at all. Even he can't figure out what became of that world's Steve Rogers. Tony and Doom manage to find him frozen in the Arctic, but nobody knows who he is, raising even further questions. However, Reed was able to confirm (or cause) the death of Earth-6160's Bucky Barnes and destroyed Jim Hammond (the original Human Torch).
- Race Lift: The Obadiah Stane of Earth-6160 is a black man, while Jarvis has become Indian (and also a woman, but still British).
- Retgone:
- After being attacked by time travellers, the Maker has them examined, finds who their ancestors in the modern day are, and has them killed. This causes the time travellers to suddenly (and messily) die.
- Defied by the Maker himself. When Howard suggests that Kang could pull the same stunt on him, Reed counters that as a 1610 native, he came into existence fully formed from the temporal perspective of Earth 6160. Therefore Kang has to kill the Maker at the very height of his power and intellect.
- The Reveal: The Stinger at the end of issue #4 shows just why the Maker could never find any sign of Captain America's existence on Earth-6160; Reed and Iron Lad found Steve in the ice before he could get there.
- Running Both Sides: Issue #3 reveals that the leaders of the Earth-6160 power blocs aren't actually enemies. They're all in league with the Maker, and take turns to play the villain as a Genghis Gambit to keep the world's population distracted.
- Sequel Series: A very loose one to Hickman's previous runs on Avengers and Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates (as well as Secret Wars).
- Shout-Out: The first issue is titled "Good Artists Copy" and the issue's epilogue is "Great Artists Steal" - two halves of a quote attributed to artist Pablo Picasso, which is rather appropriate to both the Maker's treatment of Earth-6160 and the general nature of the new Ultimate Universe as a new setting that takes the core concepts of Marvel but uses them in very different ways.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Howard's final revelation and lesson to Tony; that no matter what people like Maker say, cynicism and nihilism is just a self-perpetuating excuse used by bad people to justify their evil actions, lust for power, and enforcement of a corrupt system that benefits them, and while the world can can be truly be difficult, it's only the good and idealistic that can see the truth that things don't "have to be" bad.
- Smug Snake: The Maker, as is standard. Iron Man figures the reason he commits the thefts he does, some of which are redundant, is solely to taunt the Illuminati that there's nothing they can do to stop what he's doing.
- Speech Bubbles: The Maker has his speech bubbles written in sentence case (as do the inhabitants of Earth-6160). The residents of Earth-616 (including Miles Morales) have speech bubble dialogue written entirely in capital letters, the style that the Marvel Universe comics originally used.
- Stable Time Loop: Suggested in issue #4: Howard discovered the Immortus Engine and built his own for the Maker. However, that drew out the new Ultimate Kang, who battles The Maker and damages the Immortus Engine. The damaged Engine makes its way to Tony, who vows to rebuild it and make it better, suggesting that not only is his the one who made the Immortus Engine, but he’s destined to become the Ultimate Kang… or maybe the future has been altered. It remains to be seen.
- Take Up My Sword: With Howard Stark missing, and presumed dead, the teenaged Tony Stark inherits the Iron Man armor, but feeling he doesn't deserve the name yet dubs himself Iron Lad.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: In issue 3, the Hulk says that if it turns out the disaster in issue 2 was deliberate on someone's part, that would make him... angry.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The solicits for issue #3 reveal the presence of two characters who don't show up until the very end, one of who doesn't put in a full-bodied appearance until the very last page, and that the time traveling soldiers from issue #2 had a specific backer (and just who that backer is) when nothing in issue #2 suggested anything of the sort.
- Understatement: Howard Stark's reactions to the conflicts being staged by the Maker and leaders of the Earth-6160 power blocs: "I said I found all this insidious before you (Maker) got here. That might have been too kind a word."
- The Unreveal: Issue 4 heavily implies Kang is a future version of Earth-6160's Howard or Tony Stark, with Howard getting a look at his face underneath his armor and being clearly haunted by it, but never says anything for certain on which Stark he is and whether or not either of them is still on the path to becoming Kang or the future has been altered.
- The Voiceless: Supposedly, Ra only speaks when the sun is out, and Khonsu when the moon's out. The end of issue 4 reveals this isn't actually true - both can speak whenever they feel like it.
- Wham Shot:
- Toward the end of issue 2, the Maker removes his helmet to reveal a huge chunk of his head missing, the cost of the previous attempt to kill him.
- The epilogue of issue 3 reveals the ringleader behind the time-travelling assassins: Kang the Conqueror.
- Issue four ends with two back to back; Tony clad in his Iron Lad armor, which looks exactly like Kang's armor, followed by Tony and Doom discovering a frozen Captain America, who had previously been believed to not exist in this reality.
- "What Now?" Ending: For the Maker's cabal, the series ends with the Maker missing, stuck inside the City with Kang and an army of super-soldiers out for his blood. They're uncertain when or if he might come back, and what he'll bring with him, and aren't entirely certain how they're going to keep things running in the mean time.
