Writer: Deniz Camp
Art: Juan Frigeri, Federico Blee, Neeraj Menon, VC’s Travis Lanham, and Dike Ruan
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price:$4.99
Reviewed by: Anonymous
Release Date: August 13th, 2025
THE MONK, THE DRAGON AND THE FIST: SHANG-CHI! The Ultimates return to the site of their untimely deaths at the hands of the Hulk and encounter a young boy who has been starting his own insurgency!
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THE DISPATCH
In Ultimates #15, Deniz Camp delivers a striking blend of reckoning and renewal under the banner of “The Monk, the Dragon and the Fist: Shang-Chi!”—an arc that pits the team against past failures and emerging hope. The story finds the Ultimates returning, literally and figuratively, to the site of their own deaths at the hands of the Hulk. In facing that ghost of their greatest failure, they encounter an unexpected insurgent: a young boy rising in defiance and quietly setting the stage for a rebellion.
Camp’s script carefully balances the weight of trauma with youthful defiance. The Ultimates, long haunted by their fatal mistake, now confront that wound with renewed purpose. The boy’s insurgency cuts through grief with raw determination—he’s neither conqueror nor disciple, but a spark. For a team accustomed to monuments and missions, this small-scale resistance feels deeply personal and urgent, offering redemption through grassroots resistance rather than grandstanding heroics.
Artist Von Randal’s visual storytelling heightens this tonal shift. The locales pulsate with brooding shadows and memory-laced desolation, as though the very walls remember the Ultimates’ last downfall. The young insurgent, in contrast, appears bathed in light—not naive optimism, but resilient hope. Von Randal’s lines give fragility and fire to both the team and their young counterpart, making grief and resolve tangible in equal measure.
This issue feels like a turning point. Earlier chapters often focused on high-stakes conflict—villains like Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, corporate wars, and cosmic threats—but issue 15 brings the story firmly back to its heart: people responding to failure, choosing to act. The Ultimates may have fallen before, but here they stand—not for monuments, but for a boy with a cause. It’s a quiet revolution, one that reflects the wider shift Camp has been cultivating: from mythmaking to meaning-making.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In Ultimates #15, the heroes don’t merely confront their past—they begin to heal it. Beneath the specter of death, a new insurgency stirs, one where courage begins not with power, but with belief. It’s a fitting, emotionally resonant chapter in a series that has thrived on redefining heroism for a fractured world.