The Ultimate Universe Finally has Its Own Fantastic Four – And There Are So Many of Them

The Ultimate Doom has finally recreated The Fantastic Four, over and over and over again for its Ultimate Universe.

In a preview of The Ultimates #17 (by Deniz Camp, Phil Noto, and VC's Travis Lanham) from Marvel Comics, the Ultimate Universe's Doom is seen watching footage from the life that should have been his before turning his attention to recreating those events as best he can. While the time has long since passed for this Reed Richards to become the man he was meant to be, that doesn't mean time has run out for a new Fantastic Four to emerge. In fact, Doom has more than made up for whatever time he lost now that he has nearly two dozen other heroes at his disposal, and each is just as fantastic as the rest.

The Ultimates #17

• Written by DENIZ CAMP
• Art by PHIL NOTO
• Letters by VC's TRAVIS LANHAM
• Design by JAY BOWEN
• Main cover art by DIKE RUAN & NEERAJ MENON
• Variant covers by BJÖRN BARENDS; INHYUK LEE; and RICKIE YAGAWA & NOLAN WOODARD

Introduced in the pages of 2023's Ultimate Invasion #2 by Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch, the Ultimate Doom was born the Reed Richards of Earth-6160. While Reed would have grown up to become the leader of The Fantastic Four, the villainous variant of himself known as the Maker ensured that, like most other heroes, The Fantastic Four would never rise up to threaten his control over their world. Rather than simply preventing the Reed of Earth-6160 from gaining any powers of his own, however, the Maker kidnapped and tortured him until all that was left was Doom.

In the years since then, the Ultimate Doom has worked tirelessly to defeat the Maker, working alongside the young Tony Stark to help form the Ultimates. On top of crafting the technology that has helped give rise to legions of new heroes across the world, Reed has charted much of the Ultimates' plan to prepare for the Maker's inevitable return. Of course, the Ultimates have faced plenty of setbacks in that time, leading Reed to toil away in the hopes of recreating the conditions that would have led to the creation of The Fantastic Four.

The Ultimate Universe Is Ending Soon

Unfortunately for fans of the latest iteration of the Ultimate Universe, there are only a few months left before the entire line reaches its literal Endgame. As revealed during New York Comic Con, the Ultimate Universe will be coming to a close over the next seven months, with Ultimate Spider-Man concluding in December before the rest of the titles in the line follow suit. The Ultimates writer and Ultimate Universe co-architect Deniz Camp said of the announcement at the time, "It's hard to talk about it without getting emotional. It really is the culmination of everything Jonathan began. Everything from my book and everyone else's book are all converging. It's gonna be definitive, it's going to be big. It's going to be emotional, there's going to be death... It's just wild."

The Ultimates #17 goes on sale October 22 from Marvel Comics.