In this review of The Ultimates #10, The Ultimates encounter a neo-Nazi group known as the Red Skulls. But who is their leader?
THE ULTIMATES #10
Writer: DENIZ CAMP
Artist: JUAN FRIGERI
Main Cover: DIKE RUAN
Variant Covers: INHYUK LEE, MATEUS MANHANINI, GREG LAND
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: March 5, 2025
This review contains spoilers
In only ten issues, Deniz Camp and Juan Fregeri’s The Ultimates run has accomplished what feels like years worth of high octane superhero storytelling. This issue continues to deliver on the promise Jonathan Hickman proposed way back in Ultimate Invasion as well as Camp’ and Gregeri’s Free Comic Book Day debut. Sophisticated, civic conscious narrative matched by amazing action are the goods that The Ultimates #10 delivers in droves.
The Ultimates #10 sees a small strike squad of Ultimates, lead by Captain America and Human Torch, as they storm Castletown. The Red Skull militia stronghold supposedly holds Namor, whom the pair hope to rescue and recruit. What was intended to be a quiet “snatch and grab” escalates into a full on battle with the fascists’ tyrannical leader: The Grand Skull. Skull reveals Namor was killed shortly after the Second World War during an Atlantean coup, but his body is being kept on the surface as a trophy.
As the fight comes to a head, the Ultimates gain the upper hand, defeating the Skull’s heavies and (thanks to a recovering Tony Stark) destroying their digital infrastructure. Before Cap can deal the final blows, Grand Skull teleports away, leaving an eerily familiar message in his wake. The team gives the Sub-Mariner a proper burial at sea, before some detective work from Cap and Torch reveal the identity of the Grand Skull.
Thus far, Camp has been leading this new iteration of The Ultimates through Timothy Snyder’s framework as presented in On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The Ultimates #10 continues the trend, as Camp explores what it means for an anti-authoritarian group to confront paramilitary threats. Camp makes a direct critique of Neo-Nazism as “anti-authoritarians” and has his characters eloquently define and defeat violent organizations which benefit from the systems of oppression. Camp uses the Red Skulls as a metaphor to defiant the dangers of people who use symbols of hate or radical figureheads as rallying cries for hate.
The Ultimates #10 concerns Jim Hammond as its primary focus. It’s been exciting seeing Marvel’s original superhero in an ongoing capacity. Camp and Frigeri do an amazing job re-legitimizing the character, depicting him as awesome (in the sublime, biblical sense) as originally conceived by Carl Burgos back in 1939. The first person POV sequence of the Torch’s killing Hitler followed up by the John Walker flambé will go down as the hardest action scenes in a mainstream superhero book this year. The reinvention of Walker as someone given an option by Tony Stark and the Ultimates to become a hero, only to delve further into hate is a compelling one.
Also, props to Frigeri for also depicting some brutal Ant-man/Wasp takedowns in their shrunken forms. Those two have had a real glow up compared to their original 616, 1610 or even movie counterparts.
One concern to be raised with The Ultimates #10 is the Grand Skull reveal. Camp and Frigeri heavily imply that the one behind the helmet is the one and only James “Bucky” Barnes. The reveal reads less subversive as it is derivative. Readers have experienced similar heel turns from a Captain America-adjacent character not just in Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier storyline, but also the original Ultimate universe where it was revealed the Earth-1610’s version of Red Skull was the son of that universe’s version of Steve Rogers.
To their credit however, Camp and Frigeri do leave a shadow of doubt (Torch is only 92% positive of the I.D. match), and thus far the plotting leaves little room for redemption. This arc could prove to be quite tragic, but time will have to tell.
The Ultimates continues to deliver nuanced politics and blockbuster action into the superheroic realm that is rarely seen in the current landscape. One-and-done capers like The Ultimates #10 are what this genre was built for. Hopefully the team can keep pace with this for another eight months.
