Writer Michel Fiffe
Pencils Amilcar Pinna
Inks Amilcar Pinna, Terry Pallot, Lorenzo Ruggiero, Le Beau Underwood
Color Artist Nolan Woodard
Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles
No Gods, No Masters Part Two of Three
The penultimate issue!
Bombshell provides the opening narration.
Cloak and Dagger are revealed to be alive, which the Ultimate Universe : The End sort of spoiled already. I can see editorial wanting to take advantage of all of the teasers for Secret Wars, and releasing the promo art but by doing so, ruined the shock ending of issue nine of this series.
As everyone present in the above image, is alive at the moment. But it just goes and show how important this latest batch of Ultimate titles have been. Why they didn’t just end it with Galactus / Cataclysm, is still beyond me. Why have the one event, to not end the universe, just to end it with another one, two years later? Marketing, I suppose.
The character / powers are a tad funny, for two of them. Spider-Man, spider powers. Black Widow, spider powers. (oh really?) Kitty Pryde, phaser. Cloak and Dagger, dark matter and light energy. Diamondback, ruthless gang leader (Not an Ultimate).
Taskmaster is on top of the van, Bombshell is following close behind. Sidewinder is driving the van.
Sidewinder and Diamondback get into an argument.
Spider-Man still referencing the kiss with Diamondback, I suspect, he does want another round. She is a snake themed villain, so there may be some sort of toxin in play.
Diamondback cuts Spider-Man’s hands free, but he doesn’t return the favor. Could he not tear about rope? Maybe his was laced with something to make it tighter?
Spider-Man ends up freeing his teammates though, so his priorities are right.
Bombshell gets to the van, just as Spider-Man is making his way also to the top of it. Things are turning around!
That is until the van tips over and Cloak teleports everyone away.
East River. Taskmaster is first out but Spider-Man webs him to the sky and Cloak and Bombshell knock him out before he can use their powers. Bombshell turns her attention to Diamondback, who quickly tries to run away. Bombshell brings up that the toxin she was dosed with, made her perfectly aware of what was going on when her late boyfriend, Poey was killed. Right in front of her, so now she wants to kill Diamondback. She stops herself, as Diamondback isn’t worth killing.
Meanwhile. Crossbones, Brock Rumlow, ex-Serpent Skulls leader, injured and incommunicado.
Deladier Tower, Uptown. Crossbones enters the room that Jip and Ecstasy (who isn’t named in the issue, besides that her last name is, Deladier. Jip is annoyed at Crossbones’ attitude and one of the side effects of inhaling all of the drugs, is that he starts growing to Galactus size.
East River. Bombshell and Spider-Man are having a nice chat. Dagger takes out Sidewinder. Shadowcat wonders how they ended up at the river. Cloak is ready to be friends with Dagger.
Taskmaster reveals why he was hunting the Ultimates. Roxxon Oil created all but one member of the team. Black Widow is a clone of Spider-Man. Miles got bit by a spider owned by Roxxon. Roxxon provided Bombshell and her mother with some gear. Cloak and Dagger were killed and Roxxon brought them back from the dead and gave them powers.
He was hoping Roxxon would have paid him nicely for Shadowcat.
Giant Jip is tearing through the city.
Bombshell wonders if Shadowcat still has any giant pills – that she used to fight off and defeat Galactus. I wonder if my pal, a0040pc, takes this as confirmation that Shadowcat no longer has the ability to grow, or not.
The Ultimates head towards Jip to try to stop him.
Diamondback and Crossbones are about to escape when Dagger stands in front of him. He punches her in the gut and she passes out. He looks like he is going to kill Ecstasy.
Taskmaster is about to escape when a sniper blocks his path with a fired bullet. The fired cops are now calling themselves, Terror Inc., and they have massive guns.
Next issue concludes the story. Here is hoping it is a satisfying ending!
Shadow and Flame with Magik 