Ultimates 26, Ultimate Spider-Man 24

Ultimates 26
Fialkov (w) and Di Giandomenico and Ruggiero (a) and Charalampidis w/ Quintana (c)

Reed Richards, the Hulk, and Quicksilver have teamed up with Kang the Conqueror of this universe to create the New World Order, which is dedicated to bettering the world in ways the Ultimates never seemed able to do. This means world peace (negotiated between all nations with a helping push from Reed's Herbietron security bots and minimal loss of life), the destruction of copyrights and patents to free scientific discovery and creativity, the elimination of financial institutions, and mass-producing Stark's version of the sentient seed to end world hunger. He announces this to the world before jabbing at the Ultimates by saying that "this is how you save the world." The Ultimates themselves are in disarray. Thor is outraged that they're not fighting back more quickly, Tony is unable to use any of his suits (Reed has hacked his system and locked Tony and Anthony out), and Monica Chang has been locked out of SHIELD, which is more or less disbanded. They've sent Sue to talk to/distract Reed while Hawkeye tries to rescue Cap, which doesn't go particularly well. Sue and SHIELD agent Ben Grimm attack Reed, lasting pretty well against him, but Kang easily catches and tortures Hawkeye. Banner tracks Thor to a pub, where they get into a massive fight, and Quicksilver arrives at the Ultimates' hiding place and knocks out Monica before seemingly shutting down and/or destroying Anthony (Tony's sentient tumor, because comics are weird) and reporting to Reed that he's found the infinity gem. Is Anthony an infinity gem? Tune in next time to find out, I suppose.

There are some interesting parts to this story but it is moving a little strangely overall. It might be because I'm a little more disconnected from this universe so I'm having more trouble getting into the heads of the villains of this arc than I usually do in the 616, as I know less about their motivations here. Also, as with what happened in Avengers vs. X-Men last year, it's a little hard to know which side to be on here, which may be intentional. Like, these are all pretty hardcore crazy people in the Ultimate Universe so it's hard to be on their side and they're clearly in direct competition with the titular heroes of this series but they're doing things like creating world peace and ending world hunger, even if they're forcing that on the world. It's what the mutants did with their Phoenix powers in AvX so the fight that the Avengers brought to them was based more on "they're doing this without any sort of system to check them and there's a chance they go evil." I like ambiguous villains as much as the next guy (assuming that guy likes ambiguous villains) but sometimes they feel a little too extreme in either direction. Still, the big disassembled event is set up pretty nicely now so we're in line for some action and/or drama going forward and there's always the added risk in this universe that people can die and stay dead and that every single one of these characters is not currently leading their own book. Kind of a thrilling thing for a superhero comic reader in some regards.

Ultimate Spider-Man 24
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Ponsor (c)

Cloak and Dagger have appeared in the Ultimate Universe and they've almost immediately run afoul of Miles Morales, who was simply trying to have a nice dinner with his father at the Chinese restaurant where Gwen Stacy happens to work because every Spider-Man universe has to be almost absurdly interconnected. The duo are fighting Bombshell and no one seems to know what to expect out of anyone in the situation. We get the backstory for this Cloak and Dagger, which involves them both as class presidents at different high schools and falling in love then, on their prom night, getting into a major car accident. Both were in a coma and seemingly unlikely to awaken when a group of clearly evil doctors at a Roxxon think tank (including Ultimate Layla Miller, Nathaniel Essex, Samuel Sterns, and Arnim Zola III) secret them away by claiming that they did die and the hospital staff accidentally cremated them (is this a thing that happens?) so there are NO REMAINS. The pair are taken to a Roxxon testing facility and used in experiments that Sterns has come up with which involves injecting dark matter into them for soft sciencey reasons. Now they have these powers and apparently they broke out but we didn't get that part of the story just yet. Meanwhile, the fight with Bombshell continues as both sides try to feel each other out. Miles, his dad, Gwen, and the woman who owns the Chinese restaurant escape and Gwen demands Miles get back on the horse and become Spider-Man again, which he is contemplating by the end of the issue.

This issue was largely dedicated to exploring who Cloak and Dagger are. It's useful, particularly if they're planning to stick around, but it's also a little formulaic. Beyond just the star-crossed lovers bit, the two are only really defined by their positions in student government. We learn that they're both their class presidents and that they're smart and cute and concerned with the world, etc. It's a bit of a way to give us ideas about the characters and some key personality aspects without actually having to develop a personality for them. Maybe that will come later (and don't tell me it happened here because it didn't; they had back-and-forth dialogue several times but every single character in this book has that at some point or another so that is not a defined personality) but it's all we're getting for now, which is a little strange considering this issue was dedicated to introducing them. I'm sure we're not done with these guys and smart money says that Miles will start being Spider-Man again at some point in the near future.