Thunderbolts 18, A+X 14, Cataclysm: Ultimates 1

Thunderbolts 18
Soule (w) and Palo (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Punisher's quest to kill the Paguros continues as the Terrigen mists and Thanos' attack on Earth continues to rain down. Punisher, Elektra, and Venom are making quick work of all of the mobsters and get some unexpected help from the transformed Nobili after one of the Nobili children is shot through the head by a mobster. Flash tags the Paguros as they attempt to slink away and the three of them begin to make their way after the family. Things aren't going as well for the Nobili, though, as the other Nobili son, believing he'll never be able to re-enter society, kills himself. The elder Nobili is devastated but quickly realizes his power is borne from the strength of his family, meaning that he has all of his lineage in his new body with him, and they convince him to go after Punisher (another day, it seems, as that's the last we see of them this issue). Meanwhile, Red Hulk convinces Mercy that, if she helps him now by killing alien threats and leaving behind even the most desperately wishing-for-death humans, he can provide her with more death than she could ever need. She believes him and heads out, doing a number on the alien invasion by herself. Back on the streets, Deadpool has found his pizza and is ready to dig in. It's, sadly enough, not as good as he remembers it being, which causes him to wonder why he was so fixated on this particular pizza place. As he does, the Paguros walk in. Deadpool sees their pictures on the wall, proclaims "ohhhhhh, right," and shoots the three of them, confusing Punisher to no end when he and the others arrive. The team reunites and they set off for their new base, with the sub destroyed, via 16 hour road trip.

Another fantastic issue and a nice finish to the tie-in arc that I had worried was slowing. The remaining Nobili provides a threat for the coming issues while the threats here are resolved without too much stress but with a lot of interesting twists and turns. Mercy remains a concern and, by the end of the issue, Ross is forced to tell the rest of the team about her. Flash and Frank have some more tension as Flash continues to protest against Frank's "kill everyone, they're all guilty" mentality and Frank gets angry with Flash when he believes Flash watched the Paguros leave the safehouse without mentioning it to anyone. That puts at least two (probably three, if you count Leader, though he's likely not counted) of the Thunderbolts at odds with Castle and suddenly makes I'm the most reviled character on a team that also has a supervillain on it. The twist of Deadpool eating at a pizza place apparently owned by the Paguros is a great one; you knew all along that Deadpool was going to get back into the action at some point but it was hard to know exactly how. This was kind of the perfect way to do it and it resulted in an actual burst of laughter when Deadpool connects the pieces and abruptly shoots the Paguros, after all of Frank's hard work. There are some other fun moments in the relationship of the team and the book continues to be a solid one. I'm excited to see how Soule's first non-tie-in issues go.

A+X 14
Spider-Man and Magneto: Bemis (w) and Lafuente (a) and Delgado (c)
Captain America and Cyclops: Duggan (w) and Yardin (a) and Mossa (c)

The first team-up finds Spider-Man meeting Magneto, after what seemed to be a general summons from Magneto, underground at an AIM base. The two fight their way through a complex and trick-filled facility while discussing the shortcomings of supervillains, who Magneto particularly detests. Spider-Man clearly believes many of them to be inferior but has trouble wholly agreeing to Magneto's diatribe as it conflicts with his own memories as a supervillain. Eventually they face down MODOK and soundly defeat him before arriving at a young, kidnapped mutant, the true reason for the mission. The young mutant hates the idea of being a mutant and vows that he will grow up strong just to stop all mutants and leaves. Magneto basically just says that you win some, you lose some, and they part ways. Bit of an anti-climax, that, but it's most an acceptable ending. The story drags on a bit as Magneto does what basically amounts to a stand-up comedian's routine about supervillains but without any of the humor (for the record, that's not what he's going for so no humor is appropriate but the sentiment remains the same). Hard not to be a bit bored by that, particularly knowing that there's not going to be a huge pay-off because this is A+X, not a book with consequences or continuity. SPEAKING OF CONTINUITY...

Cap and Cyclops continue their quest to find the sleeper cell Skrulls. Cap tried to leave Cyclops behind in cuffs but Cyclops busted his way out of them and rejoins Cap, at least showing some amount of dedication to the mission. The two arrive at a SHIELD safehouse and Cap asks the LMD watching over it helps pull up records of where the Skrulls have been. They also learn that Latverian scientists might have a captured Skrull on site for study. The two set off with a new Skrull detector in hand for Latveria and things go pretty much how you'd expect, as the pair are discovered and they have to fight their way through a slew of Doombots (where Cap discovers Cyclops' powers aren't exactly up to snuff) before ending up on the radar of Doom himself. They convince Doom to release the Skrull to them as another Skrull war would hurt Latveria as well and Doom reluctantly agrees, claiming his scientists have studied him as much as they can but, of course, killing the Skrull just to be a jerk about it. It's not an awful story but, again, I think the nature of A+X kind of hurts just about any story. On top of that, I get Cap's righteous indignation about Cyclops here but it's getting a little old already, which makes it rather feel like more issues of this will wear pretty thin. Oh well, just...a million more A+X issues to go, right? Inexplicably?

Cataclysm: Ultimates 1
Fialkov (w) and Di Giandomenico and Ruggiero (a) and Quintana (c)

Galactus' approach and the arrival of the first of the Gah Lak Tus swarm has some unexpected consequences as the swarm seems to have infected humans, currently the ones in Belarus who are rising up and hailing Galactus and Gah Lak Tus in direct defiance of the onsite SHIELD team, which is comprised of Fury's new super-powered SHIELD team. They're not totally sure how the swarm spreads but they're hoping to contain this without any casualties, realizing that these people are being controlled by the swarm and possibly by AIM, who clearly has a hand in this as well. They get to the ground to try to restrain the people but they're quickly overrun and have to withdraw, but not before Abigail Brand is touched by a swarm member and transforms into one herself. Fury finally calls it and decides to drop their final weapon into play, a weapon AIM assumed they'd use: the Hulk. Hulk touches down and begins to get angry but is quickly overrun by the swarm and, like Brand, is transformed into another piece of Galactus' puzzle. This, of course, is all happening while Galactus himself towers over head and causes his own wave of destruction.

So, as yet, calling this series CATACLYSM: ULTIMATES is a bit of a misnomer because these guys aren't technically the Ultimates, though maybe they were dubbed the back-up Ultimates when the real Ultimates were captured by Reed Richards. Even still, this probably isn't the team you were expecting when you picked up this book. Regardless, it's an interesting enough story and certainly a threat that needs to be examined, given the sheer weight of the situation and the virus-like spreading of the swarm. It does feel a little like maybe Fury should have pieced some things together about these guys before dropping the Hulk in but, as AIM points out, if a problem gets too big for them, they always just throw a Hulk at it. This one got out of hand fast and apparently dropping a Hulk into the middle of situations doesn't always require knowing too much about that situation, letting Hulk kind of piece it together for himself. Fialkov and company are doing a good job to point out just how dangerous this swarm and Galactus himself could be, certainly something worth worrying about and something worthy of being deemed such a threat that it might END THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE.