This week in comics feels like the calm before a multiversal storm, with heroes sharpening their claws, charging their rings, and, in one green lawyer’s case, getting ready to smash an entire planet back into shape.

Over at Marvel, Ultimate Wolverine just lit the fuse on the Ultimate Universe’s endgame when he freed his world’s version of Jean Grey and unleashed the Phoenix, now billed as the most powerful mutant that reality has ever seen. Her flames are turning the Maker’s carefully ordered world into cinders, and issue 12 pushes Wolverine from reluctant antihero into the guy who may have just broken everything on purpose. That blast of cosmic fire leads directly toward Ultimate Endgame, the crossover that will close the book on this ambitious Ultimate line.

Marvel is treating that finale like an event in itself. Ultimate Endgame 1 arrives in a blind bag, lottery-style, with one-of-a-kind sketch covers tucked inside, including pieces drawn by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. Retailers are being told to expect a months‑long “End of the Ultimate Universe” celebration running into 2026, as the final issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Black Panther, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimates, and Ultimate Wolverine all crash into the same cataclysmic story. Even after that universe dies, its toys live on: Miles Morales will carry weird Origin Boxes back to the main Marvel reality, seeding new heroes and plots for next year.

While worlds burn, another familiar gamma icon is heading back into cosmic trouble. Planet She-Hulk 2, out this week, drops Jennifer Walters onto Sakaar, the war‑torn world that once turned Bruce Banner into a conquering gladiator-king. Now it is Jen’s turn to see whether she can smash a planet into peace without repeating her cousin’s mistakes. Preview pages show a mix of arena action and political tension, and the hook is delightfully simple: what does She-Hulk justice look like when an entire world is broken?

On the DC side, readers are still buzzing about Absolute Batman, where the latest issue delivered exactly what social media has been passing around all week: a musclebound Joker dinosaur from a twisted alternate reality. That oversized, over‑the‑top series has become the flagship of DC’s “Absolute” line, and its success is already spilling outward. Absolute Flash 10 has surged to the top of this Wednesday’s most-anticipated charts, with DC dominating the upper ranks as fans follow this line of supercharged, prestige‑format takes on classic heroes.

The enthusiasm is showing up in more than just pull lists. Absolute Batman 1, which launched earlier this year, has been rocketing up the aftermarket charts, with copies flipping for eye‑watering prices and cementing the series as the breakout collector hit of 2025. Pair that with all the speculation around the new villain the Minotaur in Batman’s main series, and Gotham feels like it is in one of those rare hot streaks where every bat‑book matters.

Zoom out a bit and you can feel the shape of the near future forming. Commentators are already spotlighting early‑2026 debuts like a fresh Iron Man 1, a night‑out‑gone‑wrong in Batman 5, and the next chapter of Absolute Batman, which folds an Absolute Wonder Woman into its grand design. In other words, even as one universe prepares to die in a blaze of Phoenix fire, publishers are busy stocking the shelves with new beginnings.

For now, though, the week belongs to a clawed rebel who just uncaged a cosmic god, a green attorney trying to fix a broken battle world, and a Dark Knight who rides into battle beside a hulking Joker dinosaur. Comics continue to prove that there is always room to get stranger.

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI