ULTIMO

Real Name: Inapplicable

Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial construct

Occupation: Engine of Destruction

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Mandarin, "the Masters;"
    formerly Enchantress, Executioner (Skurge), Rumiko Fujikawa, Living Laser, Mandarin's Minions, Power Man (Erik Josten, now Atlas), Morgan Stark, Stark-Fujikawa, Swordsman (Jacques DuQuesne)

Enemies: Armory, Avengers (including Ares, Ms. Marvel, Wasp, Wonder Man), Bethany Cabe, Earthmover, Force (Clay Wilson), Golden-Blade, Hawkeye, Harold "Happy" Hogan, Iron Legion, Iron Man, Eddie March, Michael O'Brien, Rajaki race, Sapper, SHIELD I, SHIELD II, Jasper Sitwell, Sunfire, Thor, U.S. Army, Warbird, War Machine (James Rhodes), Yellow Claw, other races

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Devastator, Doomsday Machine, the Giant One, He-Who-Destroys, the Living Holocaust

Base of Operations: currently disassembled;
    formerly the S.S. Joseph C. Gillis in the Pacific Ocean;
    formerly Mt. Acheron in the Mojave Desert, California;
    formerly a mountainside in China;
    formerly a volcano in Africa;
    formerly a volcano in the Valley of the Spirits in the People's Republic of China

First Appearance: (shadow only) Tales of Suspense I#76 (April, 1966);
    (fully seen) Tales of Suspense I#77 (May, 1966)

Powers/Abilities: Ultimo is programmed to destroy. There are certain beings he seeks to destroy in preference to others (such as Iron Man and the Rajaki), but he ultimately destroys all life in his path. He has little capacity for independent thought or any emotions besides hatred. He can be programmed to serve various purposes by those able to access his circuitry. He possesses vast strength (Class 100) and durability (able to withstand virtually all injury short of a direct nuclear explosion), virtually limitless stamina, enhanced human speed, agility, and reflexes. He can fire beams of great concussive force and disintegrative power from his eyes; his eyebeams once even proved capable of preventing Thor's hammer from returning to him.

    The source of his power is uncertain, but he is believed to be able to provide a virtually limitless supply of energy if properly tapped. Under certain circumstances he can absorb energy from outside sources to grow proportionately in size and power.

Height: 100' (25' tall when first seen; 60' tall after absorbing energy from magma)
Weight: Variable
Eyes: Yellow
Hair: None
Distinguishing Features: Ultimo is composed of an unnamed metal, though he formerly was covered in a blue skin-like epidermis

History:
(Iron Man I#299 (fb) - BTS) - "Ultimo" was constructed several thousand years ago. Its creators referred to it as the Doomsday Machine.

(Iron Man III#24 (fb)) - For reasons unknown, "Ultimo" assaulted the planet Rajak, slaughtering the Rajaki people.

(Iron Man III#24 (fb)) - A clan of Rajaki merchantmen, off-world at the time of the attacks, survived as Rajak's sole survivors. Led by the Rajaki later known as Sapper, they scoured the stars for "Ultimo," seeking vengeance for their people. When they found him, he proved too powerful, and they were forced to flee. "Ultimo" pursued them across the cosmos, until finally (in Earth's 19th Century) they lured him into a meteor cluster near Earth. Battered by the meteors, both Ultimo and the Rajaki fell from the heavens. Ultimo impacted in China, shutting down.

(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition: Ultimo / Iron Man III#23 (fb)) - "Ultimo: was found by the Mandarin in a long-dormant volcano in the vicinity of the "Palace of the Star Dragon" in the "Valley of the Spirits," somewhere in the People's Republic of China; at that time, "Ultimo" was approximately 25' tall.

(Tales of Suspense I#77 (fb) / Iron Man I#299 (fb) - BTS) - The Mandarin succeeded in reactivating and reprogramming Ultimo to serve him, and the Mandarin named him Ultimo. The Mandarin also designed a blue, plastic-like epidermis to cover him.

(Tales of Suspense I#76) - The Mandarin summoned Ultimo from within his volcano.

(Tales of Suspense I#77) - The Mandarin claimed to have constructed Ultimo himself, while at the same time he sent Ultimo to attack the Chinese army. Ultimo easily overpowered the army and then stunned Iron Man when he arrived and attacked.

(Tales of Suspense I#78) - Realizing he was helpless to injure Ultimo, Iron Man led him back atop the volcano from which he had emerged and then goaded him into using his eyebeams, causing the volcano to erupt and seemingly consume him.

(Avengers Annual#1 (fb) - BTS) - Ultimo was merely either trapped or stunned. The Mandarin later retrieved him and transported him to another dormant volcano in Africa.

(Avengers Annual#1) - The Mandarin unleashed Ultimo against Thor and Hawkeye. The two were also unable to injure Ultimo, but Thor managed to drive Ultimo back into the molten core of the volcano, after which he used a storm to cover the volcano via a landslide.

(Iron Man I#69 (fb) - BTS) - The Mandarin transferred Ultimo into a mountainside in China.

(Iron Man I#69) - The Mandarin awakened Ultimo, sending him to destroy the Yellow Claw and Loc Do as part of the "War of the Super-Villains" orchestrated by the Black Lama.

(Iron Man I#70) - Sunfire and Iron Man managed to drive Ultimo to shatter the mountainside as they battled, causing an immense rockslide to bury him. With the Mandarin defeated by the Yellow Claw, Ultimo remained buried.

(Iron Man I#95 (fb) - BTS) - The revived Mandarin sealed Ultimo inside a metal capsule and contracted with Russians to send the missile towards Washington, D.C.

(Iron Man I#95) - The Russians launched the capsule like a torpedo onto the U.S. coast, and Ultimo emerged, easily overpowering the army as they tried to stop him. As Ultimo approached D.C., Iron Man tried to stop him by using his repulsor rays to smash him against the Washington monument, but only succeeded in cracking the monument in half. After exhausting his power in the act of restoring the monument, Iron Man was battered into submission by Ultimo.

(Iron Man I#96) - Jasper Sitwell used a SHIELD plane to attack Ultimo, distracting him and enabling Sitwell to rescue Iron Man. Recharging his power aboard the plane, Iron Man returned to the fight, blasting Ultimo and then using his repulsors to carve a tunnel into which Ultimo followed. Iron Man continued the tunnel until they nearly reached a volcanic fault, then goaded Ultimo into blasting him, causing the molten rock to burst forth and swallow Ultimo, while Iron Man flew to safety.

(Iron Man I#299 (fb) - BTS) - The magma flow carried Ultimo westward (in the process, melting off his blue epidermis), and he became lodged within the dormant volcano Mt. Acheron in the Mojave Desert, California, where he remained inert. In addition, he absorbed the heat energy to grow even larger and more powerful, reaching a height of 60'.

(Iron Man I#298) - A struggle between Iron Man and Earthmover unearthed Ultimo once again, and the monster climbed to the surface.

(Iron Man I#299) - Iron Man and Earthmover attacked Ultimo, who easily destroyed them both, ripping to pieces the Iron Man unit remote-controlled by Stark, causing him a massive psychic backlash.

(Iron Man I#299-300) - War Machine assembled the Iron Legion--Michael O'Brien, Bethany Cabe, Force, Happy Hogan, Eddie March, a group of Iron Man allies (most of whom had previously worn the armor)--who donned various past armors to oppose Ultimo. The powerful android overpowered the entire group who narrowly escaped death. Eventually Stark, having recovered from his psychic trauma, arrived in a new set of armor (Mark XII by my count, for whatever that's worth); he launched a Scanalyzer probe into Ultimo and then placed an electro-magnetic field generator on his back where he could not reach it. The generator acted like a lightning rod, tempting several hundred million volts down from the sky, overloading and purging Ultimo's command processors, wiping out his operating system and shutting him down.

(Iron Man III#23 (fb) - BTS) - Under the direction of Morgan Stark, Stark-Fujikawa obtained Ultimo's inert form, using it as a floating power station attached to the underbelly of the S.S. Joseph C. Gillis, hoping that it could be used to supply energy to the entire Western United States. Morgan's men managed to activate Ultimo's growth systems, causing him to reach a height of 100'.

(Iron Man III#23) - Despite warnings from Tony Stark, Morgan and Rumiko refused to dismantle their power source and remove Ultimo. When Sapper and Golden-Blade assaulted the S.S. Joseph C. Gillis to add its energy to their own, they were surprised to learn that the power source was actually their ancient enemy. Iron Man defeated the pair, but their manipulation of the energy flow had already reactivated Ultimo.

(Iron Man III#24) - Ultimo revived, casting off the ship at its back. Golden-Blade and Sapper broke free and began rescuing the ship's passengers, and Iron Man arrived, but was easily swatted aside by the monstrous android. However, from Sapper, Ultimo learned of the ship containing the Rajaki minds preserved via computer, and he sank to the bottom of the ocean and began walking straight towards that ship, heedless of the fact that the city of Spokane was in his path.

(Iron Man III#25) - Iron Man attached another EM generator to Ultimo, but found that the android had developed resistance to a repeat attack. Stark then used the codes and information of Stark-Fujikawa to develop the means to tap into Ultimo's programming. Sapper, Golden-Blade, and Warbird distracted Ultimo while Stark used his Iron Man armor to take control of Ultimo, managing to shut him down after some struggle. SHIELD then began the process of disassembling Ultimo.

(Avengers: The Initiative#1) - Under unknown circumstances Ultimo was reactivated and escaped to attack San Francisco. There he fought the mighty Avengers and was initially defeated by the young heroine Armory.

Comments: Created by Stan "The Man" Lee, "Adam Austin" (Gene Colan), and Gary Michaels.

The Mandarin was assisted by Professor Chen in initially reprogramming Ultimo; Chen later used the knowledge he gained from Ultimo's systems to build the Thermal Man.

Ultimo is another one of those inorganic (or at least non-human) creatures who has the good sense to cover his non-existent naughty bits via a loincloth (or shorts in the case of many others).

Ultimo was always described as the Mandarin's creation until Iron Man I#298. Ultimo's Masters remain unrevealed; an easy guess would be the Celestials, but it could be anyone.

Ultimo has an entry in OHotMU Master Edition and OHotMU 2006 A-Z#11.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
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