In this review of The Ultimates #16, we’re introduced to Wren Montgomery, who finds herself on the run from pursuit by the H.A.N.D.
THE ULTIMATES #16
Writer: DENIZ CAMP
Artist: JUAN FRIGERI
Main Cover: DIKE RUAN
Variant Covers: INHYUK LEE, STEPHEN SEGOVIA, LEE GARBETT
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: September 17, 2025
And now for something completely different…
The Ultimates #16 begins. with Wren, a young teen rebel from the suburbs who is chastised by her parents for not attending high school. It’s revealed in flashbacks that Wren became disillusioned with the education system after watching her civics/social studies teacher Ms. Walters (likely the Ultimate Jennifer Walters), was blackbagged by H.A.N.D. in the middle of class. Forced to keep quiet by her parents and the rest of the community, she was further radicalized after her childhood best friend, a young mutant who developed gills after puberty, also disappears.
After seeing the Ultimates’s first battle on TV, Wren began researching into the team and the secret history of the Ultimate universe. She began talking to as many people as she could, including her mail delivery person, neighbours and the unhoused of her community, trying to rationalize their actions and her own questions. Wren’s parents tell her to quit before she gets in trouble, so she goes underground, joining an Ultimates adjacent support group.
Wren’s group is one of the ones contacted by Ms. America for the Ultimates 3.0 initiative. They begin running interference campaigns, including tagging buildings, playing traditional American folk songs over loud speakers and even bombing an evacuated government building. She even hid someone whom she believed to be Captain America in her basement after being given UltNet access. Again, Wren’s parents demand she cease her activities for fear she is taken away.
In the present, H.A.N.D. agents burst through Wren’s front door, killing her parents. Wren flees, trying to contact the rest of the Ultimates network. She is intercepted by an agent, but he is killed by Wren’s neighbors, who as it turns out is part of the Ultimates network. They give her the gun and tell her to flee, giving her time by sending the other agents in the opposite direction.
Despite the delay, the agents catch up with Wren before she can get to the safe house, cutting off her hand. However, the unhoused community member Wren was talking with beforehand appears, killing the agents. Wren is then stowed in her delivery person’s van, also a part of the group. The delivery driver agrees to give her safe passage to the Ultimates, promising retribution as The Ultimates #16 comes to an end.
The Ultimates #16 provides an interesting break from the main Ultimates characters while simultaneously delivering on the promise of Ultimates 3.0: the regular joes are Ultimates too. Wren is as believable as a young, radicalized person can be in the context of this universe, and the frustration she feels after losing her favorite teacher and her best friend is legitimately gutwrenching. Frigeri does a good job of showing how scary and destructive H.A.N.D. is to an average citizen, setting up stakes for the inevitable clash between Ultimates and all of the Maker’s forces.
What’s frustrating is how this issue pretty much leaves the cliff hanger at the end of Ultimates #15 in the dust. With supposedly only two months left in the initiative, I fear that the Shang-chi/Iron Fist plot will either be forgotten or wrapped up too fast.
Since the series’s beginning, I’ve been an advocate and admirer of Camp and Frigeri taking this kind of prosocial approach to superhero storytelling. Not to date this review, but we live in strange and often concerning times. We’ve been seeing, time and time again, publishers trying to appeal to a middle-of-the-road, centrist ideologue, which really only benefits those in positions of power. Camp and Frigeri have been brave in their stance here, showing how direct action and organizing can lead to change, something I hope they will continue to be allowed to do while working in corporate comics.
The Ultimates #16 really grew on me the more I thought about it, a hard thing to do for a cape comic with little to no capes in it. Its place right now in the cultural moment should be championed, not ignored. I dread when this book will no longer be on the stands.
