There are some spoilers ahead. Major things will be blacked out.
The Good
The Ultimates and the West Coast Ultimates battle it out! Who will come out on top? Find out in the finale of Reconstruction!
I liked seeing Nick Fury put together his team. I would have loved to have seen these expanded on as well. These little one page moments really humanize these characters a bit more. It makes them less of a "flavor of the month."
"I'm an American death machine!" I've never been more excited for Wonder Man in a comic book. I'm not kidding. I love his backstory here, and I'm really hoping he somehow pops back up in an Ultimates book. The redesign is similar to his 616 counterpart, but he's a bit more of a brute here. I really enjoyed the first glimpse of him, in this issue. Joe Bennett (pencils), Ruy Jose (inks), and Matt Milla (colors) provide a super-cool looking panel of Wonder Man, and the colors are fantastic.
In fact, all of Matt Milla's color work, throughout this issue, is top notch stuff. While Bennet and Jose do some stellar work, Milla is the real stand-out for me. I'm very impressed with his shading and matching the colors to light sources. Milla provides some awesome work.
The Bad
I feel a bit let down and disappointed with the end of this run. Writer Sam Humphries had a thrilling start coming off of Hickman's run, and most of his run on this book has been great, but this final issue didn't really thrill me. What I've loved about the ULTIMATES series is that it builds off of itself. It's always pushing forward and never looking back. Sure, things can get a bit messy, continuity-wise, but that was always the charm. I feel like Humphries took the final pages of this book and had ULTIMATES return to a state of "normalcy" by having Captain America step down as the President of the United States.
While I understand that this is Humphries last issue, I would have liked to have seen him leave a real mark on this book, like writers before him. It's probably too soon to say that, but with so many grand things happening in this book, it feels like everything just got wrapped up into a nice little box.
The book got a bit formulaic. We see a member of the West Coast Ultimates, in action. Then we get one page of Nick Fury approaching them and asking them to join the team. While I loved these pages, I could feel them coming, and this is something I would have rather seen explored in its own issue, rather than thrown into the finale of this storyline. Everything feels so rushed. The whole issue really feels like a race to the finish.
The Verdict
This issue was a bit of a bummer. I'm normally a fan of Sam Humphries work, but I felt this last issue was a bit rushed and not that exciting. On the awesome side of things, Matt Milla's color work is great, and I'm loving the Wonder Man design here. I really wish this team had a little bit more time to roll with this incredibly large and epic story.
Overall, I do not recommend this issue.
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