This week Luke and Devin get closer to the next Ultimate phase as Captain America is the villain, The Ultimates face off against the villains from The Ultimates 2, and Thor also coincidentally goes back to events related to Ultimates 2!
Comics Covered
- Ultimate Comics: Captain America #1-4
- Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates #1-5
- Ultimate Comics: Thor #1-4
Check out the image gallery and show notes after the jump.
Ultimate Comics: Captain America #1-4
Writer – Jason Aaron, Art – Ron Garney, Color – Jason Keith, Jim Charalampidis, Matt Milla, Letters – VC’s Clayton Cowles
We start off with Captain America in a prison cell with a gun pointed at his head. He begins to pray and the man with the gun gives him some time alone as he reflects how he got here.
6 months back in North Korea, with assistance from a masked man, heads of the North Korean military are testing their own super soldier when British SAS and Captain America come in. The masked man kills the test subject and Captain America tries to follow after while SAS gets a blood sample because making super soldiers is illegal.
The masked figure beats the shit out of Captain America and goes to get in his helicopter when Captain America throws his shield, sending it crashing. SHIELD looks up the sample to find it belongs to Frank Simpson, the Captain America from the Vietnam War who has a flag tattooed on his face. He beats on Captain America and tells him to track him down and find out what America really stands for before he leaves.
Captain America wakes up at a hospital in France with Carol Danvers waiting for him to wake. She explains Frank Simpson was the Vietnam War’s Captain America who defected and vanished without warning and can potentially make anyone a super soldier. Carol tells him to stay and not follow, which Captain America understands as her asking him to illegally track him down, he punches her out and escapes.
He arrives in Cambodia where he is an asshole and makes his way to a village called Saloth where Frank Simpson has set up his base and has fed everyone who followed him to a pig. The man he talks to wants revenge for what happened and reveals that he and everyone else in the village is a super soldier and is overpowered.
Frank explains that he saw all of the horrible things that America was doing and realized he was wrong.
Over the next several weeks he puts Captain America in solitary confinement when he isn’t talking about evil shit the United State did and torturing Captain America. Eventually Frank captures some SHIELD agents who came after him and kills one and makes the other admit that he was also sent to kill everyone and Frank kills him. He leaves Captain America next to the big after they drained blood from him and Frank wants Captain America to surrender his beliefs while Frank struggles with his own.
We finally get back to the starting scene where Captain America prays to God for a miracle, hears nothing and almost gives up. Captain America found a cobra, bit out the venom sack and spits it in Frank’s face and is able to escape the chains and the two brutally fight.
Captain America gets angry that Frank wanted him to think that the evils that America made were not worth it and punches him out and then threatens everyone to let him escape. When SHIELD arrives, Frank refuses to give up and Captain America kills the pig and returns to New York City. He believes that God sent the snake and Hawkeye asks if it might have been Satan because they are doing a lot of questionable things.
And then Captain America decides to read the Bible to Frank who is in SHIELD captivity.
Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates #1-5
Writer – Jeph Loeb, Art – Frank Cho, Color – Jason Keith, Brand Anderson, Matt Milla, Letters – Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne
Eight months after Ultimatum, Tony Stark has a brain tumor from cancer and he’s hanging out with Hawkeye who is sad about his son who was killed and they are both shitty about things being shitty. That’s when the Defenders – the C-list team Hank Pym was with when he was fired from the Ultimates show up with actual powers – Black Knight, Hellcat, Nighthawk, Son of Satan and Power Man and attack. Luckily Captain America, Zarda, and Valkyrie show up. Son of Satan steals Mjolnir from Valkyrie and they all vanish.
Meanwhile Thor is in Valhalla (and not Hel) and wants to be free so Thor asks to be freed and Hela asks for him to put a baby up in her.
Tony talks to Carol about the situation and she explains Son of Satan is an agent of SHIELD but he vanished and turned back up with powers and Tony is angry that she kept the information from him since SHIELD and the Ultimates are supposed to be separate. Zarda sees and is pretty sure they want to fuck, she hits on Captain America and he pushes her away.
Meanwhile, Black Panther, Ka-Zaar, and Shanna are in Central Park with their sabretooth tigers when Loki and Amora release an army of Asgardian monsters, and Carol and Tony are hooking up back at home.
Captain America accuses Valkyrie of being a plant and tells her to leave since he thinks her also having powers is suspicious and so she leaves.
Amora shows up and hypnotizes Zarda into wanting to be treated like a god, Hawkeye sees Carol and Tony post coitus, Amora then hypnotizes the angry Carol and then she shows Valkyrie fucking Hela and hypnotizes her giving her a sword.
The Ultimates join the fight in Central Park where Zarda, Valkyrie and Carol turn on the dudes, and Valkyrie breaks the shield and they capture Hawkeye, Captain America and Iron Man.
We find out that Valkyrie was offered powers by Loki in the past.
In the present the other Ultimates free the captured trio with help from Carol Danvers.
Meanwhile in Valhalla, Hela is already pregnant and tells Thor time has no meaning there.
Carol reveals she had anti hypnosis contacts in but Hawkeye still doesn’t trust her and the Ultimates assemble and attack the army of Loki. Hawkeye shoots Amora in the chest, Loki kills Valkyrie with her sword, and her death releases Thor.
Thor is angry and starts heading after Loki who hides with the still living Amora and Amora is angry that Loki went too far as Thor goes on a rampage. Loki makes Thor see illusions so he fights and this is all because Loki is extra pissy since Odin was actually his father and his mother was a frost giant.
Meanwhile in Valhalla, Valkyrie is made into a real Valkyrie by Hela who is angry that Loki played her.
Loki surrenders to the other Ultimates claiming that Thor is no longer a god of peace but is a warrior now and he has been broken by centuries in Valhalla and will destroy the world.
Tony goes inside for a suit while the other Ultimates try unsuccessfully to fight him until Zarda goes which is when Tony appears with a Hulkbuster. Thor rips through the suit and Tony tries to be his conscience but Loki uses the opportunity to steal Mjolnir to try and kill Thor before Loki is killed by the returned Valkyrie. Thor and Valkyrie embrace before she says she has to go and he has to love mankind again.
In the resolution Ka-Zar and Shanna head to Hollywood with Black Panther, Zarda returns to her home dimension, Thor gives Captain America a new dwarf made shield, and Loki starts to train his nephew in Valhalla.
Iron Man and Hawkeye meet up again and decide to go after the Defenders with Cap and Thor.
Ultimate Comics: Thor #1-4
Writer – Jonathan Hickman, Pencils – Carlos Pacheco, Inks – Dexter Vines, Jeff Huet, Jason Paz, Colors – Edgar Delgado, J. Aburtov, Jorge Gonzalez, Letters – VC’s Clayton Cowles
Three time phases
Eons ago, Thor, Loki and Balder fought together against Frost Giants for Asgard as the Warriors 3. Thor trusts Loki to have his back but Loki believes it will all end, as Ragnarok will come someday.
Meanwhile Odin uses Ulik to forge Mjolnir.
Later the Warriors Three fought in a tournament celebrating the end of the war with Jotunheim along with Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun with Karnilla’s hand as the prize. Loki turns on Thor in the battle because the war is over because they are no longer allies in a fight and can become new things but Thor defeats Loki only for Balder to knock him out, winning the competition.
Thor feels strange that he received Mjolnir, which is connected to Asgard, as the rune stones are. Odin knows that Asgard will end but wants pieces out there and Odin insists that Thor wield it.
Meanwhile, Loki’s mother asks him to get the Norn stones to cause chaos. Loki was caught stealing them by Balder who he accidentally shot. Balder who sees the future tells Loki he sees Asgard in ruin, Loki’s mother dead, and Loki being lost and then Loki kills him.
In 1939, Baron Zemo presented the runestones he had to Himmler and he was able to get an army. Zemo and his assistant Helmut are able to use the runestones to open a portal to Jotunheim and align the Frost Giants with the Nazis. Zemo presents Mammoth, leader of the Frost Giants with the Runestones. Zemo gives Helmutt a package to keep as the army travels to Asgard where they face Heimdall and Zemo kills him with an arrow and reveals that he is Loki. He feeds his army blood of the gods and they attack, breaching the walls. The other warriors made a stand.
Loki shoots Thor, and then attacks his father Odin who traps Loki in The Room with No Doors before he is killed by an Ice Wolf. Yggdrasil the World Tree catches on fire and Odin tells Thor they will all live on in him as the Jotuns and Nazis attack and Thor releases the thunder of Mjolnir, destroying Asgard.
In the past before the Ultimates were formed, James Braddock was trying to figure out what was wrong with Thor while getting help from his son Brian Braddock. They brought in Dr. Donald Blake, a linguist. Thor at the time was working on writing an edda that Blake could understand.
Blake has the Braddocks give Thor an MRI scan and it reveals that he is not making up things, but he is remembering them.
With proof to his claims, they start working for ways to restore Thor’s powers because they’ve spent so much money on Thor already.
Braddock talks to Thor about how nothing is permanent except ideals and that is what he wants to protect.
Dr. Blake asks Thor what his real name is and Thor recognizes him as Balder and he is reborn. Thor writing out the Edda helped to bring them back and now wants Thor to help mold Midgard into a better world and Balder will lead it as his eye and Thor as his heart.
They head to the lab where they’ve made his armor and are working on a portable power unit and Thor sees it as destiny that it can be made into a hammer. Eight months later he starts to appear as a force to help in the world, pushing against Fury trying to militarize him.
And elsewhere, Helmutt wakes up and frees Loki from the Room with No Doors using the Runestones. He winds up killing Helmutt as Hulk goes on his rampage and Balder sends him in to help.
Ultimate Comics: Captain America #1-4
Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates #1-5: Thor Reborn
Ultimate Comics: Thor #1-4