At long last, the weird forgotten story that languished for a few years in developmental hell even as the rest of the Ultimate universe was being tied up in a neat (by which I mean Gordian), tidy (by which I mean murderously violent) bow (by which I mean bow). After Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, which I would for my sanity place after Ultimates 2 ended and before any of the Ultimatum prequel-storylines, I will be explicitly in the “after we killed the Ultimate Universe and launched a new line of comics” territory, which is physically marked by my buying them in hardback graphic novel instead of paperback. Plus also, I’m almost completely caught up and will soon run out of new ones immediately available, which is a strange feeling all itself.

As for the story, well, the title kind of covers it. There are definite twists along the way, plus also pointers to Logan’s fate in the post-Ultimatum landscape, neither of which I have any interest in spoiling. I can say that series author Damon Lindelof, famous as an integral part of Lost’s creative team, is clearly the same guy you would expect to have written both things. He plays with the narrative structure pretty much from start to finish, calling it an effect of Wolverine’s constantly tampered-with memory even though we all know it’s an excuse to tell the story out of order for dramatic effect. I have no problem with that, and I guess I can see why he felt obligated, in a world he never made didn’t create, to come up with an excuse for why it was happening, but mostly what I think instead is, come on dude, we know you did this only because you think it’s awesome, so why pretend there’s a valid in-story reason?

Anyway, though, Hulk and Wolverine? They totally versus each other, way more than that time when Iron Man was supposed to but it turned out pretty much entirely otherwise. Truth-in-advertising for the win!