Ultimates #9 by writer Deniz Camp, guest artist Chris Allen, color artist Federico Blee, and letterer Travis Lanham continues the title's trend of introducing new members of its rapidly growing team of heroes, this time by revealing the new Ultimate version of a popular Marvel hero who has apparently been around behind the scenes this whole time: Luke Cage.
And along with the new Ultimate Luke Cage, we're also introduced to the new Ultimate Danny Rand - and there's a big update on the fate of Tony Stark/Iron Lad.
Spoilers ahead for Ultimates #9
Ultimates #9 follows Carl Lucas 'Luke' Cage, a long-time prisoner of a corrupt for-profit prison system run by the Maker's agents, who is chronically beaten by the guards for his resistance to prison policies.
Cage is beaten so often and so severely that, despite his muscular, well-honed physique, he's also covered in scars and spends so much time in the infirmary that other inmates speculate that every bone in his body has been broken at least once.
But then, one night, one of Iron Lad's spheres appears before Luke Cage, offering him the powers of super-strength and unbreakable skin that he was always meant to have, had the Maker not prevented him becoming empowered.
And, as it turns out, Luke Cage actually takes to his powers quite well, unlike the dozens of other subjects who apparently died, were injured, or walked away from their potential powers. Much like the new Ultimate Spider-Man, he embraces both his abilities and his role as a hero.
Since becoming empowered, Luke Cage has begun leading prison breaks across the entirety of the for-profit system that once held him, infiltrating the prisons and breaking all of those unjustly held in them out of confinement.
Along the way, he meets his right hand man and fellow former prisoner Danny Rand, though he's not the Iron Fist as that mantle is actually held by the Ultimate Hulk, one of the Maker's generals, who nearly killed Tony Stark/Iron Lad by crushing him in his armor.
Since that fight, Tony has been unconscious in a life-support chamber, barely clinging to life. However, in Ultimates #9, we get our first glimmer of hope that he might actually wind up being OK.
As She-Hulk speaks to him, begging him to wake up and help defeat the Maker, Tony's eyes pop open, indicating that he's woken up and may be ready to rejoin the fight sooner rather than later.
We'll find out more when Ultimates #10 releases on March 5, which will introduce the new Ultimate Namor and Ultimate Red Skull.
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