Ultimate Nightmare
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Ultimate Nightmare is a five-issue comic book limited series written by Warren Ellis of Transmetropolitan, Planetary, and The Authority fame, after signing an exclusive two-year work-for-hire contract with Marvel Comics). Issues 1, 2, 4 and 5 were penciled by Trevor Hairsine noted for working on the Ultimate Six limited series with Brian Michael Bendis), and inked by Simon Coleby who has previously worked on Marvel UK's Warhead series in the 1990s. The third issue was drawn by Steve Epting.
This is the first part of the Ultimate Gah-Lak-Tus trilogy. This series is followed by Ultimate Secret, and then concluded in Ultimate Extinction.
About this miniseries writer Warren Ellis wrote (at his column Streaming: part 12, at The Pulse in 2004) that "Ultimate Nightmare was originally intended as a set-up for a big Ultimate-line event that Mark Millar was going to do. Mark, however, has had health issues for some time, and that and his workload led to him bowing out and me once again being asked to step in and help out. And then, while I was getting into Nightmare, Joe Quesada had the idea of turning this event into a trilogy. (...) So I needed to come up with a credible second step in the trilogy fairly quickly."
[edit] Plot
The world's communications systems are pulled to a swift stop by tremendously powerful broadcasts, which are also echoed on the psychic plane, causing thousands around the world to commit suicide. The source of these effects is narrowed to the Tunguska Wasteland in Russia, the site of a comet crash a century ago (1904, as opposed to 1908 in the real world).
Having obviously drawn the attention of such Marvel Universe organizations as international intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and passive mutant rights, private school Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning, home of the X-Men, both send investigative teams simultaneously.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander Nick Fury assembles a team comprised of himself, Captain America, ex-KGB agent Natasha Romanov (the Black Widow), and Sam "Falcon" Wilson. Professor X sends Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Colossus.
Both teams enter the wasteland to discover a forgotten complex of the former Communist Russia. Unaware of each other's presence, both teams attempt to find the source of the interference, while fighting horrific monsters bent on killing them. As they progress, Nick Fury and his team discover that the Russian installation they are in once housed the Russian super-soldier program, which grafted parts taken from an alien machine to human beings, rather than the complex surgery and steroid enhancements used by the United States. These include a prototype Crimson Dynamo (A newer version is seen in The Ultimates 2 #9), the Unicorn and the Red Guardian-- all driven insane by years of abuse and abandonment.
Eventually, both teams discover the source of the interference -- and each other. There is a brief skirmish, but Nick Fury and the Ultimates manage to subdue the X-Men. They are then surprised to see that the source of the worldwide interference was a sentient robot called Vision. It told the Ultimates that it had come to Earth 100 years ago to warn them of a threat, but its ship malfunctioned, causing it to crash, and that it has only recently self-repaired. He warns the Ultimates that Gah-Lak-Tus, Eater of Worlds (clearly an analog of the original Marvel character Galactus) is headed for Earth. The X-Men, meanwhile, disappointed that the source of the interference was not a mutant, manage to escape the Ultimates' custody and retreat. Nick Fury then calls in S.H.I.E.L.D. to recover Vision, and hopefully find a way to stop Gah-Lak-Tus.
