"How long can you watch the world burn without trying to save it?" Ultimates #20 answers that question with a massive, time-bending epic. This issue finally delivers the grand payoff for the mystery of the Ultimate Vision. It confirms the popular fan theory that Tony Stark tucked Jim Hammond away just outside the Maker’s reach to act as a dormant fail-safe. While the heavy hitters like Doom and Tony are busy elsewhere, this story focuses on the decades of silence Hammond had to endure to give the resistance a prayer. It is a masterful bit of writing that recontextualizes every major loss the team has taken as a necessary part of a much bigger, much scarier game.
The Secret War of Jim Hammond
The narrative follows Jim Hammond as he exists on the fringes of history for years. He is basically a ghost in the machine, forced to sit back and watch the Maker dismantle his reality while staying just under the radar. The issue portrays this mission as a form of psychological torture. Any move he makes could wreck the timeline, so Hammond spends those decades gardening the past, making sure only the right outcomes survive. He is a silent witness to the world’s corruption, standing in the shadows of the Maker’s rise and forced to maintain a paralyzing level of restraint. It is a lonely, brutal job that makes his eventual "activation" feel like a massive release of pressure.
We finally learn that it was Hammond, acting as Vision, who brought Janet van Dyne into the fold. He did not just ask her to be a hero. He asked her to be a pariah. She had to spend years pretending to work for The Hand while secretly fueling the Ultimates from the inside. This reveal adds so much weight to their partnership. It transforms Janet from a desperate survivor into the most trusted ally of the original Ultimate. Their bond is the real spine of the resistance, built on a foundation of shared lies and mutual isolation that no one else on the team could understand.
Section 2: The Ghost in the Hand
The Hand does not take the betrayal lying down, but their retaliation feels desperate this time. With the Ultimates Network back online, the resistance can finally talk to each other across the globe, and that technical shift has the Hulk absolutely livid. He demands that the latest Nick Fury LMD fix the problem immediately, but the issue reveals that Fury has been outmatched for a long time. There is a fascinating "secret war" happening here between Fury and Hammond that has spanned generations. Hammond has been a thorn in the side of the administration for years, taking out various Fury iterations in ways that look like accidental system failures.
This psychological warfare comes to a head when the current Fury tries to taunt Vision through the Network. He threatens to level the resistance with a fleet of Helicarriers, but he is fundamentally fighting a guy who has had decades to prep for this exact conversation. The dialogue is razor-sharp here. It highlights the gap between the Hand’s brute force and Hammond’s clinical patience. Vision treats Fury like a predictable line of code rather than a real threat, which makes the upcoming fight feel inevitable.
The Ultimate Rhodes to Victory
The biggest moment of the issue is the introduction of James Rhodes as the Anti-War Machine. In this universe, Rhodes is not just a pilot in a suit. He is the operator of a Kaiju-sized mech that Hammond spent decades building in secret specifically to swat the Hand's air superiority out of the sky. Seeing Rhodes dismantle a legion of Helicarriers like they are made of cardboard is the exact kind of high-octane payoff the fans have been begging for. It shifts the scale of the book from a street-level brawl to a full-blown war of titans. The sound of metal screeching against metal is almost audible through the panels.
But the most brutal victory is not the physical one. Vision manages to hack Fury’s mind and dump every single wiped memory back into his brain at once. Being forced to face decades of his own atrocities and the realization that he is just a disposable tool causes the Fury LMD to completely snap. The image of Fury ending his own existence, haunted by the death he caused, is a cold reminder of the stakes. It is a clinical, calculated win that leaves the Hand without their lead enforcer and their pride in tatters.
Section 4: Artwork: Temporal Weight and Scale
The art team kills it when it comes to showing the passage of time. They use shifting color palettes to make the flashback panels feel somber and muted compared to the neon chaos of the present. When the Anti-War Machine finally shows up, the sense of scale is genuinely staggering. The artist captures the sheer mass of the mech without losing the frantic speed of the battle. The panel density increases as the action picks up, mirroring the overwhelming force of Hammond's plan coming together. The facial work on the Fury LMD during his meltdown is particularly haunting. It sells the horror of a man suddenly realizing he is a monster, with his expressions looking more like cracks in a mask than human emotions.
Conclusion and Verdict: The Spark of Resistance
Vindication is the primary theme of Ultimates #20. For nearly two years, this series has put the heroes through a meat grinder of failures and compromises, making the resistance feel like a doomed effort. This issue changes the narrative entirely. It transforms the long wait of Jim Hammond into a strategic masterpiece that finally puts the Maker on the defensive. The arrival of the Anti-War Machine is not just a cool visual; it is a signal that the era of hiding is over.
Deniz Camp has successfully transitioned the book from a gritty insurgency story into a high-stakes epic without losing the personal stakes of characters like Janet and Rhodes. The psychological destruction of Nick Fury provides a dark, satisfying counterpoint to the physical destruction of the Helicarrier fleet. It is a dense, rewarding chapter that rewards long-term readers for their patience. As Hammond rallies the network at the end of the book, it is clear that the Ultimates are no longer just survivors. They are a legitimate threat to the world order.
Verdict: 8.5/10. An epic payoff that turns decades of silence into a deafening battle cry.