Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand

Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand #1-5

by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Joshua Hale Fialkov (Writer), Mark Bagley (Artist)

The fallout from the Age of Ultron rips open a dangerous rift in spacetime, depositing Galactus in the Ultimate Universe! And he possesses a hunger so strong, no universe is safe. Creating new heralds, the unstoppable Galactus destroys the Chitauri, the Kree Empire and more...and Captain Marvel is seemingly lost in battle. Is this the beginning of the end? Has Rick Jones failed to stop Earth from destruction? And if so - what happens next? As the death throes of a universe begin, a hero is reborn...and a cataclysm is upon us all.

COLLECTING: Cataclysm: The Ulimates' Last Stand 1-5, Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man 1-3, Cataclysm: Ultimate X-Men 1-3, Cataclysm: Ultimates 1-3, Hunger 1-4, Cataclysm 0.1, Survive 1

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Spider Man

440 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2014

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the pages of the Age of Ultron: The Complete Event... Galactus enters the Ultimate universe.. damn!!! Cataclysm! Essentially anything written by Bendis was as good as ever; Fialkov's writing not so much so, and there's more awful Carmine Di Giandomenico artwork.

Joshua Hale Fialkov's Age of Ultron Aftermath Hunger - 2013 which tells Rick Jones' story and the coming of the purple one, a weak Three Star. The hallowed X-Men also get the Fialkov treatment in Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics X-Men #1-#3, and lo and behold Marvel never ask him to write an X-Men story again, is what need to know about this weak Three Star read. Lastly Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1-#3 is an OK look at Fury's Avengers/Ultimates battlefront with a delightful surprise ending - Three Stars.

I recommend you just read the Brian Michael Bendis volumes - Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand #1-#5 and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1-#3. These books both set in New York cover all of the main event. This very near ending of the Ultimate universe has some glorious highs, especially in the Miles' issues What really worked was the much more realistic carnage caused by a being of Galactus size, so Four Stars for Bendis' books, but a Three Star, 7.5 out of 12 overall.
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2022 read; 2017 read; 2014 read

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe if I ever paid attention to any part of the Ultimate universe aside from Spider-Man, I'd get more out of this major event with huge repercussions for the entire Ultimate line. I do give credit for not being afraid to do something that will make returning to the status quo impossible. But there might be a reason for that. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that Ultimate Spider-Man is, by far, the best that line has to offer.

So, let's summarize what happens here: Galactus comes and stuff blows up good. That's about it. Which is fine, in theory, but in a book this massive, it gets really repetitive. Maybe I'm missing stuff, because I haven't been following the Ultimates or Ultimate X-Men. Reed Richards did what? What's Tian? No idea, don't particularly care. Or maybe there really isn't much of substance here. And wow, is it ever long! There's simply way too much repetition. A word of advice: if you haven't been following the Ultimate versions of the X-Men or Ultimates or even Spider-Man, you probably won't find much of interest in their respective miniseries that are included here. And you'll probably be at least a little bit lost.

Now, I'm interested in the direction that this seems to be taking the Ultimate universe. The Ultimate line was invented as a "modern", more gritty take on Marvel's classic characters, but maybe editorial is getting sick of all the grit. The most telling moment, for me, was when Ultimate Vision compares her universe to 616, and finds it grim and lacking in comparison. And now it looks like the Ultimate universe will be leading with Miles Morales, a good kid who wants to do the right thing. And I couldn't be happier.

Re-read 9/22/16, just the X-Men section. I at least knew what was going on, but it didn't really make it much better.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Galactus has arrived from his universe and he hungers.

The Ultimates stand in his way...

but they aren't enough. Help arrives from a most surprising source.


Cataclysm is a pretty strong story. Galactus has arrived and the world's heroes are desperate to stop him. Everything in this event seemed to work together smoothly. It didn't rely on plans that shouldn't exist in their world. Like most events a ton of characters show up, but there isn't much character building because everyone is in survival mode.

This event was strong and it once again provided a solid tie in with the Marvel Universe.

3.5 out of 5 stars

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't follow the Ultimate Universe that closely anymore. I lost a lot of interest after Ultimatum and only bothered to read the Spider-man stuff. Event-relaunch-renumber-rinserepeat seems to be the main editorial plan of the Ultimate line since Ultimatum, as interest and readership seems to be slowly falling. Cataclysm is the latest attempt at this. The story is a sequel/follow-up of sorts to what happened in Age of Ultron. Time Travel has thinned the walls between different dimensions, so now travelling around the multiverse is not as hard as it once was. We've been seeing this touched on a lot post Age of Ultron in most of the Marvel Now titles, so it is only fitting that the Ultimate Universe addresses it as well.

Galactus, devour of worlds, has gone from the main 616 universe into the the Ultimate universe. The Ultimate version of Galactus was a swarm, not too dissimilar to that of the Annilihation wave. The mini series Hunger, which opens the book, sees the swarm combine with Galactus to make a big bad an even bigger bad. I quite enjoyed the Hunger storyline. It involved a lot of cosmic characters, and even though there wasn't really all that much to the story, the portrayal of Rick Jones made it an enjoyable read.

But Hunger is just the prologue to the main event. Eventually, *spoiler alert* Galactus does make it to earth and the heroes of the Ultimate Universe have to deal with him.

There's the main series and three tie ins. A tie-in for X-men, the Ultimates (Nick Furys 'new' version which includes Punisher and Hercules instead of Cap and Thor? Although Cap and Thor are pretty busy in the main book) and Spider-man. It probably won't come as a surprise that the Spider-man tie in by Bendis and Marquez is the best one. It's got Miles having to deal with a huge "OH SHIT!!" moment when it's still relatively early in his super hero career and Cloak & Dagger also feature a lot. I'm not really sure what the point of the X-men tie-in was? The only X-man that has anything to do in the overall story is Kitty Pryde, who isn't even in the X-men tie-in. The Ultimates one is okay. The Galactus swarm turns most of the team into techno zombies, including The Hulk, so no one is having a good day.

The main series is kind of what you'd expect from a Galactus devouring the world story - the heroes being unable to stop him while he builds his machine, so they have to figure out how to do it. I did like how Bendis nods to the Spider-men story he did. Bagley on art was a good idea but at times his stuff looks rushed, probably in trying to keep to deadlines.

Overall - it's alright. It's hard to approach it without the added cynicism since the main reason of the book is to relaunch the line again. But hey, Miles Morales is still pretty awesome!

[Nicolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand is going to be the last hurrah of the formerly relevant Ultimate Universe, at least main event writer Bendi brought a long a superbly appropriate guest star to the party; the world eater Galactus.

In this event, Galactus gets to be Galactus, large and in charge. To drive home the point, he gets to snack on Hala, the Kree homeworld. It seems lately that nobody is using Galactus properly. With the exception of Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run where he brought back the world eater to his planet-eating roots, the character is rather underused.

In the Ultimate Universe, Galactus attempts to snack on Earth and it's a doozy. A huge price was paid and nobody escaped unscathed.

This is pretty much the only event comic these days where one could enjoy Galactus the why Lee and Kirby intended.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is written by two writers, and you can TELL the difference.

The Ultimates and X-Men are not written by Bendis and they are...well to be frank, pretty fucking poor. They feel like side stories within their own book. I absoutely dreaded getting through the slog of the X-Men story with Rogue as the main focus point, she sucked here. And the Ultimates was messy with messy art.

Luckily the main event and Spider-Man are written by Bendis and are far far better. In fact you can read Ultimate Spider-Man stuff by itself and it makes sense and does a great job of helping Miles grow in new and exciting ways, a secret unleashed, and Bombshell even gets some great character development. Overall the Ultimate Spider-Man stuff is great.

The main event, the world and all it's heroes, and the dick Reed Richard, aka, The Maker, find a way to stop the big gigantic Galactus. It's fun, over the top, dumb at times, but still has some great moments for Spidy, Reed, and even Thor. Overall a okay event.

So X-men and Ultimates suck ass, but Spider-Man is great, and the main event is decent enough. A 2.5 out of 5.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy am I gonna skim through this, after seeing all the 2-star reviews from my Goodreads friends.

But the initial premise is actually surprising: all the "irresponsible time-travel" referenced in Age of Ultron leads directly here, to emergence of 616 Galactus and merging with Uktimate Ga Lak Tus.

Let's run down the notable things in this event:
1. Use of the Chitauri (MCU Avengers villains) instead of Skrulls. Blah.
2. Rick Jones. Who gives a shit about this third-stringer?
3. Origin of Ga Lak Tus (does anyone else think this is the name of some new foreign milk product?)
4. Redemption story in Hunger. Bleh. Boy do I hate predictable stories that only teeny-boppers would buy.
5. Vision is a chick? And is making out with a silver-skinned Falcon? I missed something in the Ultimates, but there's no way I'm going to put myself through those stories just to understand this little twist. (Oh never mind - it was just an android dream.)
6. Vision struggles to understand "love" - and in the space of ONE ISSUE, comes to realization that it took seven seasons or more for Data to figure it out in ST:NG. Completely pointless.
7. Bendis writes "Ultimates Last Stand". Thank god someone with a sense of humour and pathos finally tackles them.
8. Callback to the Spider-Men event! Cool - between this and Hickman's "universes bleeding and colliding" storyline, it's like these books actually have a memory and knowledge of bigger shit. Yay!
9. Why (other than dramatic license, which oughtta be revoked once in a while) would Galactus sometimes just eat a world in minutes, and this time (and plenty of others in the past) have to first do a bunch of prep-cook work before eating? I mean, wouldn't he get tired of "making everything just right" after all these Earth-meal cockteases and just get down to it? What's so special about this meal?
10. Some killer plot moments when the entire gang of heroes from across the Ultimate U cooperate and come up with world-saving plans. Stark + Kitty Pride = cool.
11. There's a lot of reflection across the Marvel Ultimate universe here, which has me wondering if Bendis & co knew that the Ultimate U was going to get wrapped up this quickly (like, two years hence) - or if this event was another Hail Mary play they thought might avert the death spiral?
12. The final sacrifice was...them? That's different.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real tale of two tales. This collection contains stories by Bendis which are good to great and stories by Fialkov which are sadly mediocre.

Hunger. An unfortunately poor start to this crossover. It was nice seeing the cosmic entities again, but the story itself is a bit dull, and it has an entirely anticlimatic ending [4/10]. Cataclysm 0.1 is a better prelude, but it's entirely a teaser [6/10].

Cataclysm. The main mini-series is quite good, which honestly surprised me. Bendis does a great job of offering up exciting action-adventure, helped by the fact that no one is safe in the Ultimate Universe. However, he also blends that with some great character moments for a few people. My only complaint is that at times the story is too compressed, with major beats scooting by in just a few panels. Overall, it was an adrenaline-pumped quick read [7+/10].

Spider-Man. The Spider-Man mini-series is quite good too. Mind you, it's not really about Spider-Man, but instead focuses on what will be the next generation of Ultimates, and we get more vignettes than a coherent story. Still, it's a good continuation of the plotlines from the end of the previous Ultimate Spider-Man series, and it's also full of great character moments, including in the small bits where we see Miles. I'm excited to see the repercussions of this in yet another new volume of USM [7+/10].

Ultimates. Similarly, the Ultimates mini-series isn't about the Ultimates at all. Instead it focuses on the Ultimate "Secret Warriors", dealing with a totally separate problem. The result is OK, but neither great nor required reading [5+/10].

X-Men. Unsurprisingly, the X-Men isn't about the main team spotlighted in Cataclysm ... except maybe it is surprising because they got almost no screen time in the main series. Here instead we get the B Team, which would fine except they go off to fight in some other dimension. There's great character, but not great plot [6/10].

In retrospect, I would have preferred to read just the Bendis issues, and would have gotten most of the story form that.

[Chantaal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: I only read the main story and the Ultimate Spider-Man tie-in.

The Ultimate universe's track record for huge events continues to suck.

A majority of the action that takes place in this book is simply explosion after explosion, with no emotional resonance at all. The action takes up so much page space that when the final battle does happen in the last issue, it moves too quickly, with no pauses to take in the enormity of what is happening. Unfortunately, that means the sacrifices made have no resonance whatsoever. Why should I care that Thor is stuck in the negative zone? Kitty Pryde got saved, woohoo? I completely missed Captain America's death in the messy art, and was confused as to why Storm was holding his shield at the end.

So, you know, it's Ultimatum all over again, but at least the Ultimate Spider-Man tie-in for this was much, much better.

Marvel needs to realize that Miles Morales and the Ultimate Teens are the only good thing going in this universe and drop everything else.

[Michael Cairns · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tough sell, this one. It's a story that's been told a million times already. Not only did Bendis have to make it interesting, he had to make it bigger and badder than what came before.

*Spoilers*


Good points: Some nice character moments between the new Spidey and Kitty.
Good humanity from Tony Stark.
Great action.

Not so good points:
Reed Richards massive turn around from complete psycho to world saver and apparent nice guy.
Characters dying when you know they haven't actually died.

It gets three stars because Bendis writes so well and I love Bagley because of Ultimate Spiderman.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhausting, but good. The issues that make up this omnibus should have occured in a different order, IMHO, but it was good nonetheless.

[Ethan Whitted · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This book is a compilation of seven interconnected miniseries that were all a part of a crossover "event" bringing the Ultimate Universe Marvel heroes together.

I am not a part of the large Brian Michael Bendis cult (he wrote just over two of the miniseries in this book), so I found his stuff mediocre in here. If it was just his content, I would have thought this was "passable" and given this 3 stars.

Joshua Hale Fialkov wrote the rest of the content in this book, and all of his content were particularly low points. There are a number of reasons for this.

In all of Fialkov's stories, power levels and everything that is happening in the story is maxed out to "11" all the time. The stories are like listening to a broken, repeating record in which some unimaginably powerful monster shows up, the heroes make some gritty, snarky comments, one hero ups their power level somehow to some crazy, over-the-top insane new level and starts beating up the supposedly unthinkably strong monster, and then the issue ends with a NEW, even MORE unimaginably powerful monster showing up. This entire cycle literally repeats across every issue in each miniseries. One of the major problems with this is that when everything is totally maxed out over-the-top all the time, suddenly the entire point of something feeling intense because of being huge and maxed-out loses all of its impact. Instead of the stakes being as high as they can be, there are are literally no stakes at all because there are no higher, more intense stakes you can go to. Fialkov is trying to leave everything at the maximally most intense point in the story for the whole time, and as soon as the reader (very quickly) picks up on this, all sense of investment or tension in the high stakes is lost. What is it that Syndrome says in the Incredibles? "When everybody is super, nobody is."

A side note about the cranking everything up to 11 and then leaving it there is that this feels very lazy from a writing perspective. It feels as if, instead of making a compelling or gripping story, Fialkov is just trying to grab the reader with a "wow" factor all the time and nothing else. It's as if he's saying in every issue "Woah!! Can you believe that we just took it *there*??? You've never seen anything as powerful as THIS before, isn't that epic?!"

Fialkov also writes all of his stories through the lens of one character that he selects to be a moody, third-person narrator. This is a personal preference on my part, but this repeated narrative framing got very rote very fast and I never liked it. It reads like an angsty teenager taking themselves way too seriously, talking about how #deep they are and how the world is such an awful place. I've seen this same narrative framing done well in other comics (Brubaker's Daredevil comes to mind), but Fialkov's attempt feels like just trying (unsuccessfully) to imitate the greats without capturing the magic of what made their narratives actually compelling.

I've got other, more specific thoughts about individual stories. (E.g. the Hunger miniseries' really lame and generic reduction of the "arc" of hero chosen > hero reject responsibility > hero go away > hero come back and save the day. It was executed horribly.) However, this review is already long enough so I will try to wrap this here.

Pass on this book for its writing. It's a shame, because this crossover event was so over-the-top that it had consequences that affected all of the other individual comic series going forward, so it *makes* itself important and tries to position itself as critical reading... but it's bad reading. In my opinion, for events that are going to have as far-reaching effects as this (and thus, ostensibly pull in more readers from across different series), special care should be taken to make sure that such a visible event is executed *well*, not just publish whatever muck comes out.

[Judah Radd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strong main event minis, mostly weak tie in issues.

This story is big. I highly recommend reading the Ultimate Gah Lak Tus trilogy first, for some context... but it’s not necessary.

Overall, Bendis and Fialkov handle this pretty well. Additionally, there’s some stellar art from Bagley, although Alvaro Martinez’s work leaves some to be desired. The other pencilers were neither great nor bad. They simply did their job.

I really liked the intensity, drama and action. Furthermore, there were some very moving deaths. I also found the parts involving Earth 616 to be rather exciting.

Unfortunately, I also wanted... more. There was something missing. An element of drama? Some plot depth? I’m not really sure. It was very good, but still could have been better.

[Diego Zamudio · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me ages to finish this book. It’s not bad, but it’s also not good. One thing I didn’t like is that is not ordered chronologically. So you will end the “main event series” before ultimates, Spider-Man and X-men tie ins.

[Soph · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know when there’s a big crossover event but you’re only reading it for one character and inevitably get bored when they aren’t the focus? Yeah, that.

Truly though, even though I only read ten issues of this rather than entire event, it was so slow to amount to anything and ultimately ended up being pretty anti-climatic? The Spider-Man issues were of course very solid but the event as a whole was unfortunately underwhelming and dull.

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

From www.welcometolevelseven.com

Preamble

The rumor was that Galactus might eat the Earth of Marvel’s Ultimate universe. Well, he did not. In Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand, Galactus does leave a deep scar on the Ultimate universe and plenty of unanswered questions. But as we see with continuing titles, Galactus failed to get a full meal!



Situation Report

The boundaries between the Marvel universes has weakened due to the numerous recent time and multi-dimensional events. The Marvel 616 Galactus finds a path into a new to him universe, the Ultimate universe, and hungers for energy. He bonds with his Ultimate doppelganger, the robotic Gah Lak Tus swarm, to form an even hungrier and deadlier version of himself and targets Earth to sate his appetite. His appearance leads the heroes and villains of the Ultimate universe to unite to fight an unbeatable foe. Heroes are made while others fall. In additional stories, a new version of the Ultimates, the Avenger doppelganger, is formed, Nick Fury battles a Gah Lak Tus cult lead by M.O.D.O.K., and the X-Men struggled with their role in a world that has hated them on the verge of extinction.



Level Seven Analysis

Somebody has to pay, and it could be S.H.I.E.L.D.. In the end, S.H.I.E.L.D. under Director Chang is charged with ensuring the safety of the Earth from all sorts of global-level threats. And S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Ulitmate Universe seems to go from crisis to crisis event, with them only getting bigger and bigger. So despite the fact that no one can really prepare for a Galactus event, especially since your Gah Lak Tus is a machine not a giant purple man. Yet the fact that the world has experienced massive casualties means there will be repercussions for S.H.I.E.L.D..

I have really liked the use of the Gah Lak Tus swarm in the Ultimate universe. And this story gives us more background on the swarm, including origin. It would be good MCUing of Galactus, though that’s not allowed thanks to contracts. I think Gah Lak Tus is scary as it is and we really do not need old big purple to make this a scary threat. In many ways seeing the 616 Galactus in the Ultimate Universe is a little strange since this is the universe of Gah Lak Tus. And you do get the sense that the combined version of Galactus are pretty dang scary!

Reed Richards, the villain, visits the 616 and learns what could have been! It is poignant and shows how easily a hero can become a villain.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Ultimates take some pretty big loses in this story. And as future titles show, Jessica Drew sets up the new younger and cooler version of this team. I think it is a good financial move for Marvel to add Miles Morales to the Ultimates. It will surely help sell books. And I like the idea of Drew as leader since this clone of the Ultimate Peter Parker is one of the most interesting Ultimate characters out there for my money. So as the Marvel 616 gets a new Cap and Thor, the Ultimate universe is experiencing a minor reset. And this reveal does see the addition of the Ultimate version of a Jack Kirby designed hero and a very important S.H.I.EL.D. agent.

This story collects all the Ultimate titles and the related mini-series. I really wish they had organized the book differently though. They present each title together. So we get Hunger, and Cataclysm, and then the Ultimates issues and etc. I really did like having all the pieces together but by the time I got to the X-Men issues I felt no tension since I already knew how the event would end. So I think there could have been a little different and better ordering between the covers. For example, make the end…the end.



Conclusion

Joshua Hale Fialkov and Brian Michael Bendis offer us Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand. Like other Ultimate events it is big, heroes are lost and the world is in the shambles. So it basically is another Ultimate event, not the end of a universe.

Maybe we will review some more Ultimates around here, because there really is a strong tie to the Marvel Cinematic Universe S.H.I.E.L.D..



S.H.I.E.L.D. Roster

Agent Fury, (Ultimate), Agent Chang/Black Widow (Ultimate), Sam Wilson/Falcon (Ultimate), Abigail Brand (Ultimate), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Ultimate), Hercules (Ultimate), Miles Morales/Spider-Man (Ultimate), Danny Ketch/CODE NAME RETRACTED (Ultimate), Frank Castle/Punisher (Ultimate), Agent Dugan (Ultimate), Ben Grimm/Thing (Ultimate), Sue Storm (Ultimate), Agent Barton/Hawkeye (Ultimate), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Ultimate), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Ultimate), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Ultimate), Thor Odinson/Thor (Ultimate), Agent RETRACTED (Ultimate), Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Ultimate), Emil Blonsky/Abomination (Ultimate), Cassandra Lang/Stature



S.H.I.E.L.D. Associates

Vision (Ultimate), Mahr-Vehl/Captain Marvel (Ultimate)

[Gerry Sacco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this a four, but this isn’t a complete collection, so it was nearly impossible to by the end of the trade. I liked the main story itself so much. Definitely worth the read, but needed a few more comics added to make it a bit more complete.

Art is great from everyone, really good stuff.

Galactus is a lot of fun to read. Moreso now than when I was a kid.

[Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biggest issue found within this event is that it is bogged down by the problems that all but insured the death of the Ultimate Universe. That being its general lack of fun and need to be just about as grim dark as could possibly be conceivable. Having read all of Miles Morales Spider-Man and having a few years ago found some kind of sick fascination with the Ultimate Universe and diving into the Ultimate X-Men, I can tell you that this event is mired in the original pitch of the Ultimate Universes' more gritty themes while showing the only thing that seemed to ever keep people around, Ultimate Spider-Man for being the exact opposite of the other Ultimate titles.

If you have never read any part of the Ultimates Universe, this comic is definitely not for you and if you have maybe just read the main event comics and the Ultimate Spider-Man issues and let the rest drift away into the ether. I promise you, you will be better off for it.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gigantic/mammoth read but I read it in one sitting omg and its quite interesting I will say!

The basic story is Galactus from main marvel universe invades the ultimate universe so the first part "Hunger" deals with Rick Jones now watcher, Silver surfer and Mar-vell trying to stop this mammoth being and we are introduced through their eyes what this purple monstrosity of destruction is and how Gah lak Tuss drones have merged with him and are his heralds and that whole story is so epic and just shows his true power. It established the threat right off the bat.

The second part "the ultimates last stand" sort of is the main event showing when Galactus reaches earth what threat he represents and like will the heroes be able to stop him, the sacrifices and deaths that happen and some are pure emotional and I like how Miles and the maker aka this version of Reed are the only ones who can save them and like how the heroes don't trust Reed after what he did, so that leads to an interesting dichotomy and I love that and in turn it leads to complex drama and how the X-Men are involved and ultimately the sacrifices that are at play here which makes this one of my favorite events!

The Ultimate Spider-man tie in shows Cloak and dagger and even Miles trying to solve this problem and save this people which was awesome and what that leads to, there is a big moment between his dad and him that I loved, then there is the Ultimates tie-in which shows Fury leading this ragtag team vs these religious cult led by Modok that has sprung up and how that ties in the Galactus story and I like it, it makes MODOK this crazy fundamentalist guy and there is a great emphasis on Danny ketch and I love it, this is one of those books that really explores what sacrifices mean and is filled with shock moments and some interesting new status quo.

The X-Men book tie-in is alright focusing on the remaining surviving mutants vs these drones and also brings in Rick Jones now Cap M which was fun and a focus on Rogue, it feels stretched out to 3 issues but then again does its job showing the mutant angle and how they perceive Galactus and it could have tied in more directly rather than acting as a prologue to the main event feels like.

SO overall the whole event was amazing, and less emphasis on destruction and more on characters which I like and showing how they view the threat and how the hero community come together to save the world but the deaths and all that happen and that new status quo is whats interesting, you can't do something like this in the main marvel universe and maybe this is why it works so well!

So yeah a good read and definite recommend from me!!

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really close to a perfect finale for Ultimate, with surprisingly great tie-ins, except that the Ultimates tie- in is terrible and pretty pointless to the story. Since the second main book is called "The Ultimate's Last Stand," I would say don't give the Ultimates a tie in or just give them one where they can say goodbye rather than whatever that was.

But the rest is really good. It's split into two main books with three tie-ins. The Spider- man tie-in is basically part of the main book but more focused on Miles. The X-Men tie-in involves them running into Galactus while evacuating Tian.

The first arc, "Hunger," is about the cosmic side of this whole thing. Rick Jones gets to complete his arc while fighting against and beside the Chitauri (Ultimate Skrulls), and Kree (ultimate... Kree). This is kind of just build up, but Jones does manage to strike a major blow against Galactus.

The second arc, "The Ultimates' Last Stand" is about the final fight but focuses mainly on Miles, Kitty, and Reed who have weirdly become the main characters of the Ultimate Universe in my mind. It offers a chance for Reed to have some much needed redemption and Kitty to show the world that she never needed redemption.

Ultimate doesn't end here, but I wonder if that was mostly because Hickman wasn't ready to blow up the multiverse yet, and Marvel thought they could squeeze a few more dollars out. Despite declaring that this is "NOT THE END," it reads as the finale for Ultimate. Luckily it's a pretty good one.

[C. Chambers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The marvel universe is starting to split, and from that crack Galactus emerges. In the Ultimate universe, the man who would normally save the world from such an encounter is imprisoned and insane. Chaos ensues.

This collection is broken up by the main event and the crossing titles that occur at the same time. They're all pretty solid, with the obvious winner being Spider-man. In fact the handling of The Maker ended up being a real stand out decision as well; touching and well paced.

But that Ultimates run is just... awful. It's so bad it brings down the overall rating on the book ten-fold. The timing and events doesn't make sense, the art is confusing and, unfortunately, it cant really be ignored due to the repercussions it holds on the story.

In seeing the overall rating of the following books and the way this one was so hap-hardly tied up at the end, I am encouraged to just treat this as the finale of the Ultimate Universe as I move into Hickman's Secret Wars.

2.5/5, rounded up for so much amazing Galactus art.

[Maurice Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galactus has crossed over from his universe to that of the Ultimates, and he is HUNGRY. As per his usual, he sets up his world eating machinery and prepares to satisfy his eternal hunger.

Captain America and the Ultimates charge into battle, but they are in over their heads. Miles Morales (the new Spiderman) and the X-Men pitch in to help, but they still need more. Reed Richards offers his services, but will he be on their side? And who won't be coming home from this battle?

This was awesome. I loved seeing the Ultimate heroes battle the "real" Galactus and not that swarm of nanobots Gal Ahk Tuss, and I love the creative solution they devised to try and end his threat.

[Joey Amorim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Counting just the main miniseries and the Miles Morales tie-ins, this book would be a pretty solid and fun 4 star book, but everything here that’s written by Joshua Hale Fialkov drags it down significantly. The Ultimate Universe being a lot more grounded relative to 616 really allows Galactus to come off as so much more of an intimidating threat. The fact that this story hearkens back to the Jack Kirby glory days of the character is easily the best thing about it. Seriously, the dude comes off like a Lovecraftian monster! I haven’t read of ton of stories where he’s a major villain, but this may be the scariest I’ve ever seen Galactus in a comic!

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a Spiderman reader not particularly an Ultimate line reader, but as Spiderman back catalogue is so vast and twisted (plus I like Miles) I decided to work through Ultimate Universe as a starting point before feeding into the main continuity of Spidey/Miles.

So this... Miles does very little, things blow up and generally meh. The Spiderman comics within this are good, the overall arc is just a bit "meh" and didn't really do much for me. Looking forward now to the Ultimate universe stuff finishing post Secret Wars and things pulling together.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the main story line, the Ultimate Comics Spider-Man side arc, and Survive. I think this event seemed rushed through the main arc and the side arc material didn't add to the depth of the story. Overall the art was great and I enjoyed the large scale two page spreads but the story seemed sudden. I enjoyed reading it but for a major even to cap of the ultimate universe I was a little underwhelmed.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this wasn't as bad as some reviewers are saying. It is bloated and the Ultimate X-Men are pointless here, as they have been most their Ultimate run. The book excelled when Miles and Reed were on panel. The Ultimates were secondary figures for most of this. The were a handful of artists but as usual, Mark Bagley was great and David Marquez is a star. Overall, a decent "end" to the Ultimate universe.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh how I wish I could have spoken to the editor before they assembled this book. The (comics) order make no sense! Marvel assembled this by title and not by story (chronologically), so you have the whole plot repeating itself (confusingly!) between Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand #1-5 & Cataclysm: Spider-Man #1-3. Horrible storytelling.

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand

This massive comic event was an INCREDIBLE one! I have always loved Galactus and being introduced to the Gah Lak Tus for the first time when reading this was interesting as well. This had a great story, great fights, and a great cast of characters! This was a fantastic read!

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have been 5-Stars if the Ultimates run of this wasn’t so stupid. Which is a bummer because I REALLY enjoyed this overall. Huge stakes. A bit of a convenient ending, but the lead up was well executed. I was so impressed with Hale Fialkov’s work. Excited to see where they go from here! (Can’t believe I’m this close to the end!)

[Deshawn Vasquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fault of this storyline lies not with Bendis but the damage Ultimatum had on the universe as a whole and how it still affects any potential event even now. He works with what he has, and for what it is, it does play.