Kickin' ass even in novels.
"The Ultimates: Tomorrow Men" is a novel by Michael Jan Friedman, starring the comic book characters The Ultimates. It was written as a sequel to the first miniseries, The Ultimates (2002).The Ultimates are called when a group of powerful intruders suddenly show up at the Triskelion, and say that they come from the future. They have deep knowledge of several things about them, but the Ultimates doubt them, pointing that all such information could have been found elsewhere. Eventually, they make a leap of faith and accept them on their word. They explain that in the future the world lives under a tyranny, and that they need to take down the bases of the shadow organization called Tiber. Iron Man is later displaced to the future, and the Ultimates realize that there is something fishy about the Tomorrow Men.
Tropes
- Arbitrary Skepticism: They may have super powers, but the Ultimates do not take the Tomorrow Men's claim of coming from the future as legit. Not until they gave many proofs of it.
- Butterfly of Doom: The Tomorrow Men intended to escape from their Bad Future into the past, and after getting rid of the Ultimates their advanced technology would allow them to take over. Alas, their plan was ruined by them.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Rather than ask about the future, Hogan asked about the present. Is Thor really a God, or just a nutcase? But no, the Tomorrow Men won't answer that either. If the question changes the way Hogan would react to Thor, then it would change the timeline.
- Crazy-Prepared: One of the details the Tomorrow Men use to prove themselves is the reveal that there is a small explosive device planted in Steve Rogers' skull as part of the super-soldier program, as certain parties were concerned that the procedure might have had a negative effect on his brain chemistry and turned him against America.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: A mutual case for Tony Stark and Black Widow. Tony is The Casanova, used to seduce women for the heck of it and then move to the next one. Black Widow is an Emotionless Girl focused on her job. They had a brief "the end of the world is coming" sex at the men's bathroom before the Chitauri attack, but it was just that. Wasn't it? Neither of them really expected to actually fall in love.
- Double-Edged Answer: The Wasp asks about the mutants in the future, and the corrected herself: she can't ask questions about the future, they have said that many time. But the man simply said "I'm sorry". Meaning "I'm sorry but I can't tell you", or "I'm sorry, the fate of mutants is tragic"? This is, of course, never clarified.
- Metaphorically True: The Tomorrow Men said that, in the future, the world lives under a tyranny. And that is true. They forgot to clarify that they are the tyrants in it.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Iron Man has his power almost drained in the Bad Future, as he has no way to recharge it. The bad guys want him to leave the armor but not kill him, so they use their weapons to increase its heat, to a point where he would leave it. But Iron Man turned on the energy absorption, so he recharged his batteries with the heat.
- Robinsonade: Iron Man is trapped in the future, where civilization collapsed. He has to be make a very selective use of his armor, because once the batteries are exhausted, there will be no recharging them.
- Time Travel Escape: The Tomorrow Men's plan is to evacuate their whole society from their bad future into the present.
- Underestimating Badassery: Ties into the Nice Job Fixing It, Villain moment above; while Iron Man was held captive in the Bad Future, he determined that since he was in an alternate future to his own, he was able to bank on the assumption that he had developed a few tricks his "local" counterpart hadn't, such as his armor being able to absorb the heat that was being used against it and use it to recharge his batteries.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Ultimates help with an evacuation during a hurricane, and the Tomorrow Men teleport themselves there to help, revealing their existence to the world. Nick Fury is not happy about it. At all.
