The Ultimates/Characters

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Characters from The Ultimates include:

Nick Fury

The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tasked with forming the super soldier organization called the Ultimates. Tends to be paranoid and has lots of secrets. Notably, Bryan Hitch and Mark Millar asked Samuel Jackson for permission to use his likeness for this version of the character which has led to Jackson playing Fury in multiple recent Marvel movies (with more to come.)

Betty Ross

Daughter of General Ross and the on again off again love interest of Bruce Banner. Betty faces the grueling task of marketing the supersoldier project as a superhero team and it only gets harder when the threats they were formed to address fail to emerge right away. Seemingly cold and manipulative which is not a good match for Bruce.

The Ultimates

Steve Rogers / Captain America

Issue one of volume one opens with Steve Roger's final World War two mission. He is discovered in a glacier just in time to make him a part of the premier line up. Augmented by a unique supersoldier formula that has so far only worked on him, Captain America has peak human physical abilities and fighting skill. Being wrapped in the flag makes him a natural choice for leading the team even if he's 60 years behind the times. A lot of his personal arc in the first two volumes has to do with him adjusting to the realities of 60 years suddenly passing, from culture shock to finding his friends old or dead.

Bruce Banner/The Hulk

Bruce's life's work has been trying to replicate the success of Captain America, the first botched result of which, led to his transformation into the Hulk. In this universe, the Hulk is more of an unleashed id than the angry child of his classic counterpart, using his tremendous physical strength to address all of Banner's insecurities in the most direct ways possible. Having stabilized himself, he chooses to Hulk out in the first half of volume one giving the team something to fight. They choose to cover up connection between Banner and Hulk turning their biggest mistake into their biggest media success.

Janet Pym\The Wasp

A biologist and one of her husbands first successes in engineering superheroes. Or so it seems. In truth, this universe's Wasp actually gets her powers from being a mutant. Her husband Hank is able to reverse engineer what she does to create his own powers. The Wasp is able to self miniaturize, fly with gossamer wings, and fire bioelectric bolts from her hands. While not much of a heavy hitter, her stealth and precision allowed her to take down the Hulk (by flying in his ear and zapping his brain.)

Hank Pym/Giant Man

An extraordinary Jerkass and the head of R&D for supersoldier research, replacing the unstable Banner. Pym is able to reverse engineer his wife's shrinking powers to allow him to grow to nearly 60 feet tall. His Giant Man formula ends up being the most successfully replicated aspect of the project giving the Ultimates an entire platoon of Giant Men (and his ex wife in volume two). Too bad he can't control his temper leading him to abuse Janet and embarrass the team publicly before getting kicked out.

Thor

Not actually an official part of the team. Thor came to Earth in the modern era to warn the world about the conspiracies of the military industrial complex. That said, he is not so distrustful of the military that he would miss the noble qualities some of the Ultimates possess so he works with them when needed. One of the questions of the first two volumes is whether Thor is the actual Norse God of Thunder or a delusional super soldier. This gets resolved in the second volume.

Iron Man

Tony Stark is a brilliant and enormously wealthy weapons manufacturer who gets brain cancer and decides to spend whatever time he has left saving the world. He's known for being eccentric, a playboy and almost perpetually drunk. Like Giant Man, his "powers" are replicated eventually giving the team multiple armored soldiers.

Black Widow

Natasha Romanoff is a former KGB spy/supersoldier turned US Black Ops. Along with Hawkeye, she is brought onto the public team with a fake background. Eventually becomes engaged to Tony Stark. Eventually revealed to be a traitor in Volume 2 using Stark and her Ultimates membership to undermine the team and steal Tony's fortune, though this doesn't work.

Hawkeye

Black Ops soldier turned superhero. Deadly accurate with any ranged projectile. In Volumes One and Two, he mostly uses his bow and thrown weapons. In Volume Three after losing his family he switches to guns.

  • Badass
    • Badass Normal: Until Jeph Loeb's run, Hawkeye was a normal human who'd reached his ridiculous level of skill and accuracy through training, this is even lampshaded by Hawkeye himself in his first appearance in which he chastises Black Widow for chatting to him during combat because he doesn't have her cybernetic enhancements and so can't do both at once.
  • Blood Knight
  • Death Seeker: After his family was killed off.
  • Fingore: His infamous escape scene in the Grand Theft America arc, which involved ripping his fingernails out.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: To the point where he may as well just be called Bullseye, since he's at least as accurate as the 616 version.
  • Jerkass: As Millar described him "He's a Neo Con", and also a bloodthirsty mass-murderer who self-admittedly used to be much like The Punisher until he was recruited by black ops to kill for the government instead. However, he was also a devoted family man on the side, so there are different sides to him.
  • Psycho for Hire
  • Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes: Type V
  • Sociopathic Soldier
  • There Are No Therapists: It's very clear he's suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after his family's murder, and yet nothing's being done about it.

The Mutants

Following the events in Ultimate X-Men, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, the children of prominent mutant terrorist Magneto, agree to join the Ultimates acting as team members and informants. They tend to be aloof with marked aristocratic and European sensibilities. They also spent enough time together that it was obvious what was going on between them before it was stated explicitly in Volume Three.

Quicksilver

Scarlet Witch

Villains

Herr Kleiser

Loki

The Liberators (Colonel Abdul al-Rahman, The Abomination, the Crimson Dynamo, Perun, Hurricane, Swarm & the Schizoid Man)

A super soldier team put together by nations worried about the escalation of the American super-soldier initiative. They invade the United States in volume 2. The team is run by Loki.

  • Anti-Villain: most of them are utter bastards, but the Colonel, at least, seems to be a genuinely good guy who just happens to be fighting for the wrong side. Indeed, his death scene is probably the most respectful send-off anyone's ever gotten in the entire series.
  • Always Someone Better: Played with. They were certainly trying for this. The Abomination was the Hulk with brains. Swarm summons armies of wasps. Crimson Dynamo has a bigger suit no doubt intended to be higher powered. etc. But the Ultimates counter by revealing upgrades or levels taken in badass. And in the case of the Abomination, being an intellectual isn't very useful when your best assets are your rage and your fists.
  • Butt Monkey: the majority of them
  • Evil Counterpart: pretty much all of them have an opposite on The Ultimates
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad

Red Skull

Reed Richards

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