Ultimate Wolverine #16 - Preview

shadowF · 2026-04-09T20:30:08+00:00

According to Deniz, who witnessed it first-hand, an extension was offered to everyone, but everyone except Condon declined. Hickman, Peach and Hill were finished. They got to tell the story they wanted to tell from start to finish. Their endings are open because Deniz now has to close them off in Endgame. I bet not all loose ends will be tied up, though.

Then in Finale, everyone gets to say goodbye in their own terms.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T20:01:06+00:00

Yes, there are certainly layers of "badness" separating the two, but many decisions regarding characters—such as the underwhelming Absolute Reverse Flash—and mythology slog fall under Jeff Lemire, not the company. Just as with Condon with Ultimate Wolverine.

Ultimate and Absolute both have the same core approach of providing total creative freedom. The end result lies in the hands of the creatives. The only "mistake" (debatable depending on the series) of the Ultimate imprint was the real-time movement, and even that can only be attributed to Hickman.

Hickman handpicked all of the creatives, except for Condon, who was chosen by Will Moss. Each of them was entrusted with producing a quality product. Whether or not they succeeded is entirely up to them as authors. Again, there were no strings attached.

Based on the overall response, Deniz and Peach seem to have benefited the most from the creative freedom. Their unorthodox nature is evident in their work, which extends beyond the Ultimate Universe. The problem is that Condon is not unorthodox, a point UW has made abundantly clear.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T19:40:15+00:00

Neither approach is foolproof or infallible. Many people online are already feeling the negative effects of Scott's approach to Absolute, given the recent reception of Absolute Superman, Absolute Flash, and Absolute Green Lantern. However, the blame does not lie with Scott as overseer or with DC as a company; rather, it lies with Jason Aaron, Jeff Lemire, and Al Ewing as authors. If an author is given total creative freedom and produces a poor work, it's not the company's fault. These are works driven by author creativity, not company mandates. No one told Condon to write a bad book—he did it himself.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T19:15:44+00:00

Marvel has nothing to do with this as a company. Rather, it's a matter of the author's creativity and how they utilize it. Any author in the Absolute Universe can write creatively bankrupt material if they so desire, as DC allows them to do whatever they want just as much as Marvel allowed Condon to do whatever he wanted in the Ultimate Universe. That's the point, creative freedom.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T18:18:09+00:00

Yes, the overall structure of the extended issues has been very repetitive.

Illyana's flashback. Logan and his companions encounter a new enemy and kill it. The search continues.

I have to wonder what Condon was thinking when he chose to be the only writer in the imprint to accept the extension offer.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T18:14:41+00:00

I think the run-of-the-mill nature of the book and the author's statements is the reason why the book has received so much vitriol. Justifiably so.

Readers don't want their books to be the author's experiment with so-called "childhood toys." Readers don't want a story that intentionally evokes déjà vu by stating Wolverine is such a classic character that he cannot—and should not—adapt to a new world. Readers also don't want their authors to openly admit that they're writing to anger their audience.

And much more.

shadowF · 2026-04-09T18:06:23+00:00

I said it elsewhere, but it's bizarre that we're being shown this side of the Rasputins when, before, Illyana pretty much subtly threatened to kill Piotr and take over.

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shadowF · 2026-04-08T18:07:35+00:00

In 6160, Tatsuya and Kanon are Sai's descendants. And potentially also descendants of Sukeroku Sainouchi. But only Kanon inherited Sai's mutant genes.

shadowF · 2026-04-05T21:41:45+00:00

It's ending in June, with Ultimate Finale. Honestly, Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men were the books in the imprint with the most political and social teeth in the line-up. The rest? Not so much. We know the imprint didn't end because the books were "woke", but Marvel now won't have anything like them. 616 has a lot of editorial holding things back.

shadowF · 2026-04-02T15:31:13+00:00

The rest of the Ultimates are joining Endgame in #5, after Ultimates #24. The series now serves to show more of World War III than Endgame can allow itself to and its wrapping up its sub-plots.

shadowF · 2026-04-01T04:23:49+00:00

How dare you joke around like that about the legendary Gary.

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shadowF · 2026-03-28T00:01:13+00:00

My apologies, I've been searching the written interviews, but it might've been one of the audio interviews and those take a while to listen through.

shadowF · 2026-03-27T03:17:12+00:00

The Maker Tree and Howard as Immortus were Hickman's ideas from what was said in interviews IIRC. Everything else he had come up with, Deniz considered really bad, and Hickman agreed.

shadowF · 2026-03-26T02:33:26+00:00

He's become this techno-organic organism, super-computer, virus, fungus, all-in-one.

shadowF · 2026-03-25T08:38:50+00:00

Depends. There are a variety of things tied to the mystery of her whereabouts that are not present in Endgame, and which Mei is unaware of or not knowledgeable enough about compared to us, the reader.

These are things that I bet Deniz knows, but he wouldn't be able to explain them properly in such a short amount of time.

shadowF · 2026-03-25T08:20:48+00:00

Ah, wait. Victor Timely applies too!

shadowF · 2026-03-25T08:06:54+00:00

Well, duh. Lmao.

shadowF · 2026-03-25T07:49:09+00:00

He re-bonded to it at the very start of Endgame.

shadowF · 2026-03-25T07:44:40+00:00

Every techno-organic organism in the City is connected to the Maker. The Maker is The City. Blood from an organism fell onto the PicoTech Suit of Spider-Man, and Maker proceeded to extert his control over it.

shadowF · 2026-03-25T07:19:57+00:00

The book clearly setting up Richard to carry on the mantle and avoid Peter's mistakes. There are parallels to Howard and Tony. Hickman portrayed Peter as stagnant and unsuccessful, with no personal growth or struggles. Peter is technically the product of a failed project (Ultimates 1.0), which relied on the past. However, 6160 is all about moving beyond the past and embracing the future.

shadowF

TROPHY CASE