Just like I had done in previous issue reviews for this book, I’ll give a quick breakdown of the events held within and then we’ll discuss.

Issue opens with Wolverine and Nick Fury walking in the deserts of Kuwait .Assuming this happened during the Gulf War or right before, this ties the book directly into Ultimate X-Men continuity (as I believe this exact thing was shown in UXM 12). Wolverine saved Nick’s life and brought him out of the dessert. Course, we then learn by way of expository dialogue between Nick and General Thunderbolt Ross that Nick was the first Captain America and his blood is important.

That blood leads to Nick taking part in Operation: Rebirth or Wide-Awake (can’t remember what they called it) when they tried to revamp the super-soldier program using super-soldier blood taken from Nick Fury. Not blood from Cap but blood from Fury. So in order to create a race of super-soldiers, Richard Parker (Pete’s dad), Franklin Storm (Johnny and Sue’s dad), Bruce Banner, and the very young Hank Pym are supposed to experiment on the blood. But per Nick’s orders, no human subjects.

That all changes, of course, when Richard and Bruce figure out that Nick will take the experiment from them and hide their involvement. Richard goes outside to see his wife and newborn son and Bruce and Hank take it upon themselves to follow through on this and test it on a human. That human is Bruce, and he of course becomes the Hulk.

The Hulk’s first rampage kills Richard and Mary Parker and leads to a government cover-up.

That’s the majority of this issue. It ties back to the modern day stuff as Reed and the UFF find out exactly what the alien being/artifact is. It’s a Watcher, and it’s here to witness great devastation. It seemingly takes over Sue to tell us, the readers, that little bit of info.

As I mentioned, a lot happens here. We finally find out how Peter’s parents died and we finally find out how Bruce became the Hulk in the Ultimate universe. It really does all tie in.

One thing that doesn’t tie in yet (and I don’t know if they’ll even be able to mention this) is in Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter was a young kid, about 3 or 4, when his parents died. His dad had enough time to work on the Venom suit (his cure for cancer) and his parents died in a plane crash.

Now, it is possible that Richard and Mary were cloned by the top cops of the Ultimate-verse so that Pete and his aunt May and Uncle Ben had no clue what happened. It is possible that those clones then were on the plane that blew up.

This is all possible.

But it doesn’t add up. They’re trying to fill in the blanks too perfectly to prove a conspiracy, and so far, we don’t really have a perpetrator, unless this whole mini is there to show that Nick Fury is at fault. But that wouldn’t explain why mutants were created unless Nick’s blood was involved. And is Nick’s blood what caused Peter’s ultimate mutation?

It just doesn’t add up. It’s a better issue by far than most of the others, but unless issue 5 deals predominantly with linking all of these chains, then it will be worthless. It will have been another mini that promised something and didn’t deliver. Just like Ultimate Power.

And I’ll be pissed.

Great work by Butch Guice. The man is like a modern day Joe Kubert. His lines are solid and his artwork is super-detailed and pretty. Just look at the Hulk two page splash and tell me that doesn’t look just stunning. This could very well be some of his best work to date.

Bendis is in full cover-up, black ops mystery mode. So he’s firing on most cylinders. But I’m still worried it won’t all add up and we’ll be left cold at the end of this. Like there won’t be a resolution and issue 5 will just be all set-up for Ultimatum. And I still don’t know how the hell that’s even possible.