CBR reported Doctor Doom is a founding Avenger. Now, despite the direction the creative team ultimately went (excuse the pun) with the four-issue miniseries, Ultimate Invasion, it garnered a lot of positive reviews from readers and critics alike. This set the stage for the one-shot released in November, Ultimate Universe No.1, by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Stefano Caselli and David Curiel with letters by Joe Caramagna.
Doctor Doom is Reed Richards from an alternate reality (Earth-6160) controlled by The Maker, another version of Reed Richards who was Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four and eventually became a villain from a different reality (Earth-1610).
The Maker messed around with Reed, imprisoning him in The City, his base of operations located in Latveria after the Maker recreated the world of “The Ultimate Marvel Universe” in his image. The Maker introduced Howard Stark (this Earth’s Iron Man) to Reed who bore the same faceplate as the Maker’s former nemesis to replace a time-travel device known as the Immortus Engine. Reed worked with Howard on another Immortus Engine – with the previous one destroyed following his battle against the future warrior Kang – the pair of geniuses decide to turn on the Maker.
Doctor Doom founding The Avengers?!
Set two weeks following the events of Ultimate Invasion No.4, after Reed duped the Maker into a confrontation with Kang in the far future of Earth-6160 and fled away from the City before Howard blocked it off from the outside world, trapping himself, the Maker, and Kang behind, though not before Reed stole the Maker’s files on the Age of Heroes, he took the son of Howard, Tony Stark, who donned his Iron Lad persona to undo the changes that Reed’s villainous counterpart had made.
Reed, who adopted the name Doctor Doom, recruits Thor Odinson from Asgard with Iron Lad who was imprisoned in a cell. When Thor calls Mjolnir to him, he defeats the remaining Asgardian soldiers once Iron Lad begins his attack. Thor uses the Bifröst to teleport the three including Sif who got caught during the transportation to Stark Tower where a frozen Captain America remains inside a block of ice.
As they discuss how to free the Captain, Iron Lad persuades Sif to join in their fight against injustice while Doom explains the Maker is from an alternate universe of Earth-1610 and created their universe and manipulated events that prevented the coming of heroes of Earth-6160. Doom plans to amend using a memory log for individuals native to Earth-6160 while the Maker is sealed away behind the City.
Jonathan Hickman took a new take for the Ultimate Universe
The one-shot Ultimate Universe No.1 provided a self-contained tale and a new present state of affairs that will be the new status quo for a new line of titles set within Earth-6160 such as Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Black Panther, and Ultimate X-Men.
What initially was thought to be the return of Earth 1610’s Ultimate Universe is actually a different rendition of the universe that is a re-imagining of characters separate from and not a continuation of the prior imprint separate from the mainstream continuity that ended publication back in 2015. We are not sure whether Doom will reform The Ultimates (Earth-1610’s version of the Avengers) or will establish the aforementioned super team that will adopt the name “Avengers” much like Earth-616 but redefined for new audiences.