This week the Ultimate Galactus, GAH LAK TUS, has arrived and the heroes of the universe, except for Spider-Man must stand strong against the foe. And then after GAH LAK TUS destroys the world, Vision is an android making her own way in the world.
Issues Covered:
- Ultimate Vision #0-5
- Ultimate Extinction #1-5
Ultimate Vision #0
Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – John Romita Jr, Inks – Jimmy Palmiotti, Colors – June Chung, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos
Reed Richards and Sam Wilson have been working to help examine the Vision, the android that was recovered in Russia, and end up reactivating it. It quickly uses nearby machine parts to reassemble itself as a gynoid. She then begins showing how she was sent from world to world to warn of Gah Lak Tus and work with the locals to stand against it. When the first world was doomed despite the local species’ best efforts, they worked to give the next group a better start and rebuilt Vision so that she would be able to adapt to match the locals, and sent her off after she had recorded them dying.
The next several worlds tried to prepare for Gah Lak Tus by building armor, a weaponized virus, and actual weapons but they have all failed and now Earth is the next target. Vision then takes a second to absorb all digital information on Earth and believes the world that might be lost because she was unable to warn them in time. Vision then begins rebuilding her ship to leave since there are only days left before Gah Lak Tus destroys the planet.
Ultimate Extinction #1-5
Writer – Warren Ellis, Art – Brandon Peterson, Colors – Justin Ponsor, Paul Mounts, Jason Keith, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos
At the Triskelion, Carol Danvers introduces Sam Wilson to Mahr Vel along with Reed Richards and Susan Storm. They’re all there to meet with Nick Fury about what to expect when Gah Lak Tus arrives based on Vision’s notes. These include a gravitational pull destroying things just by Gah Lak Tus arriving, broadcasting a signal to drive the population into madness, and then finally a ship landing and releasing a virus that kills the remaining population. After that it will absorb the energy of the thermal core of the Earth and leave for the next meal.
Meanwhile Misty Knight, private investigator, meets with her client Edward Schaffer whose wife left him. Edward believes that she might have been abducted by Paul Maitreya, who is believed to be a cult leader. Misty starts to track Paul down finding other people went missing with similar stories and as she stakes out where he lives, she sees a cult and their leader arrives, a man made of silver with massive wings. Fun fact: Maitreya is the term for the future Buddha.
A bald woman in the room next to Misty opens fire attacking Maitreya and the cultists and Misty gives chase after her. The two women get into a fight, during which Misty notes that along with her bald head, she also has a dragon tattoo. In the end, Misty is almost killed but protects herself with her metal arm, a gift from Tony Stark, and the mysterious woman escapes.
Back at the Triskelion, tempers are running high between Fury and Reed with Reed being asked to move his work on Gah Lak Tus to the Triskelion which Reed doesn’t want to do. They get interrupted when footage of Gah Lak Tus approaching comes in through the satellite network and they see that Gah Lak Tus is a swarm intelligence with a hive mind that is over a 100,000 miles long and is only 7 days away from Earth. The truth hits everyone hard, including Captain America who questions if there is a god.
Meanwhile Misty Knight has turned to Jeanne DeWolfe to help and ID her assailant. The information from her tattoo and description finds that she is Heather Douglas aka Heather Moon, a hired gun who has been dead for 22 years.
In the meantime, Nick Fury turns to Charles Xavier to connect with the hive mind of Gah Lak Tus. Charles notes that Cerebro would require amplification and Fury gives him a blank check.
Misty returns to her office to find the silver man waiting for her. When she moves to shoot, he fires an electronic blast, exploding part of the building. The report of the explosion reaches Fury who has Captain America and Sam Wilson go out to investigate. Misty holds her own, eventually knocking the silver man out of the window and shooting a fire extinguisher she drops on him, but when he rises, unscathed, she realizes she is in trouble. Luckily that is when Cap and Sam approach and get the jump to knock out the silver man, killing it, before Captain America demands Misty step down and she tells him to call Tony Stark.
Back at the Baxter Building, Reed has developed his plan to potentially stop Gah Lak Tus but at a massive cost that he won’t share.
While Fury is unveiling the new Cerebro in progress while Tony Stark comes in to help Misty. He explains that she lost her arm in the Middle East, and he made her a prosthetic which was so advanced that it required SHIELD approval. The conversation is stopped though when Charles reaches out with the enhanced Cerebro. After it is contacted psychically, Gah Lak Tus reacts violently, seeing the contact as contamination. The team on Earth is forced to shut down the machine when energy starts surging and the swarm fires a missile. Mahr-Vel and Iron Man go out to intercept it, finding a silver pod that forms into another silver man on a board, that attacks, taking Mahr-Vel by surprise. Tony rips off the silver man’s head and in doing so causes a blast that knocks his suit’s electrical systems out and the three fall into the ocean and in response, Fury sends a retrieval team.
Meanwhile Heather Moon reappears, bombing the Cerebro dish that was used to reach out to Gah Lak Tus in front of Sam and Misty, who quickly capture her. At the same time, Reed calls, activating the emergency line, requesting as much adamantium he can get that would let him kill Gah Lak Tus, and Sue is horrified by what Reed is planning to do.
The next day, Jean Grey still thinks psychically attacking Gah Lak Tus might be a viable strategy. Heather meanwhile has ended up in SHIELD custody where she’d been found to be a clone raised by a group called the Enclave who are here to meet Gah Lak Tus and who have been working for the past 20 years for a cult that has been following the silver men. This in turn ties to the global Silver Wings conspiracy that seeks to pre-subjugate the world. The Enclave wants to stop the Silver Wings so that they, as the worthy, will meet Gah Lak Tus.
Captain America leads an assault team to a Silver Wings hideout and finds another silver man, and they fight with Cap electrocuting the silver man before diving out with the silver man under his shield, and with some additional help from Mahr Vel they capture him alive.
Meanwhile, Vision is preparing her mission to record the destruction of the world but she has been asked to talk to Gah Lak Tus using Cerebro, and in Nevada, Reed is working on his weapon.
As the final day begins a swarm of male and female Heather clones starts to attack the Triskelion. Xavier senses they are trying to stop him from reaching out to Gah Lak Tus as the Gah Lak Tus becomes visible to Earth. Xavier sends the X-men in to help fight the clones along with the Ultimates. Meanwhile in Nevada, Reed has his weapon ready. Xavier and Jean, working together gathers up the dreams of everyone on Earth and release it, disrupting the swarm. Reed then activates his weapon and opens a portal to a universe where the Big Bang is happening and the massive beam of released energy destroys twenty percent of the swarm. And suddenly, across the Earth, they pause as Gah Lak Tus and the silver men leave.
In the aftermath, Fury’s team figures that Gah Lak Tus didn’t wish to expend more energy fighting and left. After the fallout, Jean and Xavier are hospitalized due to the strain, Mahr Vel is in a wheelchair, Sam feeds the instructions to Vision to share in space with the next targets, and Fury celebrates them saving the Earth.
Ultimate Vision #1-5
Writer – Mike Carey, Art – Brandon Peterson, Colors – Justin Ponsor, Letters – VC’s Cory Petit
Vision ends up downloading everything from Earth after the defeat of Gah Lak Tus, and plans to leave when Sam Wilson stops her to say goodbye. As Vision flies into space though, a satellite controlled by Doctor Tarleton ends up sending out a signal that distracts her – the signal of Gah Lak Tus. She flies into the Kailasa Station and Tarleton introduces himself explaining that the base is all about pushing science further.
Vision takes a specific interest in Dima, a plastic based android who is stuck being tested intellectually but who has stopped improving and learning more because she is bored. Vision questions what they are doing and Tarleton reveals they have a captured Gah Lak Tus module that is dormant, and they sent a recorded signal of its communication to bring in Vision. Tarleton claims he wants to be able to communicate with them so that he can command them to self destruct but Vision doesn’t want to mess with Gah Lak Tus fearing the danger. Tarleton reveals that he is mostly a cyborg already because he fears nothing, so Vision agrees.
Tarleton introduces her to the communication module that he created using information smuggled from her time being captured in Russia and links her in. The Gah Lak Tus module awakens when it connects as Tarleton is also connected, but Vision disconnects when she sees Tarleton wanted to control the module as a weapon. He confesses he did and then blasts her with the module that is now under his control. He then proceeds to have the Gah Lak Tus tech modded onto his own body and prepares to ransom the entire Earth.
Tarleton announces via video that as part of Advanced Idea Mechanics he plans to use Gah Lak Tus tech to make himself the leader of the new world, to make the entire planet cyborgs, and to kill those who oppose him. His newest take is interrupted by reports of power fluctuations on the base, as he starts to become more erratic, desiring to merge more Gah Lak Tus tech onto his body.
Meanwhile AIM scientists find biostorage tanks in the Gah Lak Tus module that end up releasing a bio spray causing one of the nearby scientists to mutate into purple aliens that can also and spread the bio spray through it’s space suit.
Dima meanwhile is forced to keep solving puzzles when Vision reaches out to her for help telling her to play a new game to save her.
And when the AIM scientists reach out to Tarleton about the mutants, he refuses to pay attention so they launch containment protocols locking out 40 scientists with the mutants.
Dima sneaks through in the chaos to find Vision in the trash and swaps out her faulty battery, before being captured by scientists. Vision, now fixed, knocks them out, saving Dima.
Back in containment the scientists go to investigate the infected scientists only to find that the mutated scientists can survive in space without suits, and set theirs out as a trap, and then attack.
At the same time, the station starts moving closer to the Earth, dropping from orbit and we find out that Tarleton was the cause as he has stripped away most of the flesh because Gah Lak Tus has started controlling him. The scientists try attacking Tarleton so he kills them before they can warn anyone, as the mutants wipe out the other scientists.
Vision meanwhile took Dima and tries to figure out a plan when the mutants attack and Vision fights back against them until Tarleton appears, blasting her with fire.
As the satellite comes closer to the atmosphere, SHIELD picks up on it and catches a part of a warning message, and Fury prepares to nuke wherever it will touch down when he hears Gah Lak Tus is involved.
Tarleton using Gah Lak Tus is about to counter Vision’s powers but luckily Dima takes control of the system with Vision, so she has routes the ship to crash faster planning to take out the entire station in the atmosphere and in the impact. She escapes with Dima to the Earth as Fury’s bombers approach where the ship landed and Vision sees that the Gah Lak Tus module survived has and reformed itself into something new.
The module tries releasing the biospray but Vision blocks it and attacks the ship as the bombers open fire only to get destroyed instantly. As Vision struggles to land with Dima, Tarleton appears and attacks her and so Vision works to debug him, freeing him from the control of Gah Lak Tus. He regrets what he did so he and Vision plan to work together to stop the module which has ended up at Edwards Air Force Base.
Vision leaves Dima behind as she breaks in with Tarleton and the pair are attacked by the transformed military and the module cancels out Visions phasing powers so the pair are swarmed as the module begins drilling into the Earth.
Luckily that’s when Sam Wilson shows up who explains the Ultimates will be coming but he was the closest.
The drill starts emitting a plasma shield so they retreat and Vision explains that the module will try to destroy the entire planet so they may only have 45 minutes till that happens. They realize that Falcon’s wings will be able to deactivate the plasma shield with some mods. Vision also checks in with Dima who is having a rough time since she was made only to learn and not to express, and Dima wants to stay with Vision when this is all over, even though Vision still plans to leave the Earth.
They reiterate the plan which is Tarleton will fire a laser at Falcon’s wings which will be refracted and disrupt the plasma shield and then Vision will deactivate Gah Lak Tus. They knock out the shield but outside Tarleton activates a secret code in Dima and she runs in and explodes the module and Vision destroys the final portion with the opening Dima’s death presented.
Vision leaves and confronts Tarleton about killing Dima, and Vision being pissed, rips Tarleton’s body apart and then chucks his head off into the desert, calling him a monster.
SHIELD comes in and starts collecting the remains of the module against Sam’s wishes to have them destroyed. Sam then talks to Vision and finds she can’t leave for a month and so he offers to let her stay with him for the time being and meanwhile, Tarleton, now a head on legs, calls in AIM for retrieval.
Stories to Rank
Ultimate Vision #0
Ultimate Extinction #1-5
Ultimate Vision #1-5