Review: The Ultimates #22
Source: Marvel Comics
Deniz Camp has been on an absolute roll with this series, and issue #22 reminds you why The Ultimates deserves to stay on your pull list leading up to the upcoming conclusion. This is a deliberate pause from the larger Endgame machinery featuring the Maker. It’s a standalone chapter that zooms in entirely on Steve Rogers and what it costs him to close a chapter from his past. It's one of the best single issues the series has produced.
Camp structures the issue around two timelines: a series of flashbacks tracing the shared history of Steve and Bucky starting with their mothers pregnant around the same time, growing up in the same building, fighting together in the war. These scenes run alongside the present-day confrontation with the Grand Skull. The contrast is the whole point. The flashbacks do exactly what they need to, building enough warmth and history between these two characters that what follows in the present hits with real force.
What's particularly interesting about this version of Bucky's story is how grounded and unglamorous his radicalization is. There's no Hydra brainwashing. He simply gets old, gets sick, and becomes increasingly bitter watching the Maker reshape a world around him while Steve remained frozen and untouched by time. It's a quieter kind of tragedy, and Camp handles it with real sincerity. The idea that heroism and villainy come down to the choices you make when no one is watching is a theme that runs through every page without ever feeling like it's being preached at you. The confrontation between Steve and Bucky is brilliantly built up over the course of the issue and includes a “twist” in how it resolves that was a punch in the gut.
Juan Frigeri and colorist Federico Blee are doing phenomenal work in this issue. Frigeri gives the action sequences a kinetic fluidity that keeps things moving without sacrificing clarity. Blee's color work on the flashback sequences is especially impressive, using warm, faded tones that feel rooted in memory before gradually shifting colder and harder as Bucky's trajectory moves further from who he once was. It's subtle, purposeful color storytelling that adds another layer to everything Camp has written. The issue’s third act is some of the most visually arresting work this creative team has delivered on this run. Stunning panels that linger with you.
As a piece of the larger Ultimates puzzle, this issue does something valuable in tying up one of the series' longer-running threads while simultaneously making you feel the human weight of everything the bigger story has been building toward. As a standalone, it works just as well. This is a genuinely evocative Captain America story that holds its own against the best the character has ever been given. Don't miss it.
Rating: 4.5/5
