Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch's Ultimate Invasion #4 reached its end today and, as you might expect from the former Fantastic Four and X-Men writer, it didn't exactly wrap up on an overly neat note.
It starts with The Maker tasking Howard Stark and a Reed Richards Variant - forced to wear Doctor Doom's mask - with building a time machine based on the one he previously built and that he'll later copy (it's a time-travel thing), creating a time loop, of sorts.
Howard betrays The Maker by unleashing the Ultimate Kang and his Variant army on the former Fantastic Four leader, and we learn it was the time-traveller who blew off half the villain's head and thereby put Earth-1610's Reed on the mission which would ultimately lead to his creation.
Again, it's a time-travel thing!
The Maker and Kang both die and Howard unmasks the latter, appearing horrified by what he sees. Doom, meanwhile, cuts Latveria off from the world and leaves the planet's "heroes" fretting about what will eventually emerge seeing as a month on the outside is equivalent to 1,000 years in there (and it won't reopen for at least 2 years).
Doom later meets with Tony who decides to pick up where his father left off by becoming Iron Lad in armour which looks an awful lot like Scarlet Centurion, two Kang Variants. With that, it's confirmed that he's destined to eventually become Kang and, in an effort to undo The Maker's damage to Earth-6160 - he previously travelled through time to stop Peter Parker from becoming Spider-Man, for example - Iron Lad and Doom set out to make things right.
They begin by finding Steve Rogers in the ice, giving this world a Captain America and likely reshaping the future. What this reality will look like remains to be seen, though we'll find out in the pages of Ultimate Universe #1 this November and then in Hickman's new Ultimate Spider-Man series.
So, the Ultimate Universe has been reborn, but not necessarily exactly as we remember. That's not a bad thing as it did eventually run out of steam. Now, all signs point to Hickman having ambitious plans for what should be a far-reaching story taking place over the next few years...
ULTIMATE INVASION #4
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art & Cover by Bryan Hitch
THE END...OR THE BEGINNING? War breaks out as timelines and universes collide! Iron Man must choose between the lesser of two evils - the Maker or Kang. But what secret does Iron Man know about the men behind the masks? And at the end of it all, the world outside your window will be forever changed! Don't miss this giant-sized, action-packed conclusion - or is it only the beginning...?