At the turn of the century, Marvel Comics was in a bad place. Comic sales were dropping. Their movies weren't doing well, and neither were their cartoons. Marvel decided on a bold new venture that was even more drastic than yet another in-universe reboot. They created a whole new universe, one that housed all their characters but with drastically different, more gritty and often surprising new personalities. This became known as the Ultimate Universe-1610.
Here, for instance, Reed Richards becomes the villain, and Miles Morales is the new Spider-Man. Marvel's Ultimate Universe characters are just as powerful as their original counterparts, but with some surprising twists. Here are the 10 most powerful characters from the series.
10 Reed Richards
In every universe, Reed Richards is the smartest man around, but in the Ultimate Universe, he also has no moral qualms about imposing his will and technology on the world. The result is a Reed who serves as the main nemesis for the Avengers and is almost able to destroy all of reality using his mind.
In addition to being super stretchy, Reed is practically immortal. He also has an awareness of his body in every single universe, meaning he can quickly switch between realities. His technobot armies are also able to destroy the Asgardians and came very close to taking over Earth.
9 Loki
The shape-shifting god of mischief got a power upgrade in the Ultimate Universe. This Loki has the ability to shuffle time and space and reorder reality into any shape he sees fit. At his peak, Loki could reorder history into anything he desired.
He could take any form, summon armies of monsters, was impervious to Thor's hammer and basically could do anything he wanted. His father Odin eventually stepped in and imposed limitations on what he could do, to keep him in check.
8 Magician
An original character created for Ultimate X-Men, Magician was a reality-warper with seemingly limitless powers. The magician was able to create living beings, control his surroundings, mess with the powers of other mutants, and emit energy blasts of immense destructive strength.
In addition, Magician was revealed to be manipulating a complex chain of events without even being conscious of doing so. So vast were his powers that he was unable to properly control them and went off alone to try to get a handle on them.
7 Apocalypse
Once again, Apocalypse is one of the most powerful mutants on Earth. In this reality, Apocalypse is an ancient force that took over the body of Mister Sinister. He has the ability to absorb any mutant ability. He is physically strong enough to trade blows with The Thing and was able to match the might of the Phoenix Force.
At his peak, Apocalypse was able to take on the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and S.H.I.E.L.D. before finally being subdued after a huge, desperate effort on the part of the heroes.
6 Jean Grey
Jean in this reality is also a host for the Phoenix Force, which is a cosmic level entity capable of the destruction of the entire universe. Even without the Phoenix entity feeding her strength, Jean is an immensely powerful telepath and has access to her normal range of powers.
In possession of the Phoenix Force, Jean was able to travel across the universe in an instant, produce endless flame and even turn back time itself.
5 Tesseract the Everywhere Man
Tesseract is, theoretically, the most powerful being in all of the multiverse. He has the ability to combine with every iteration of himself across the infinite multiverse, making him powerful times infinity. Thanos realized how powerful such a being could be and took steps to neutralize him before he could be a threat.
Tesseract was kidnapped by Thanos and brainwashed into subservience. He was also unable to breach the defenses of the Cosmic Cube and was defeated by Ronan, so we never got see the hero live up to the potential his powers promised.
4 Thanos
Once again the Mad Titan is one of the most powerful beings in his universe. In this reality, Thanos was not after the Infinity Gauntlet, but rather the Cosmic Cube, which he used to bolster his powers. In addition, he had a giant, intergalactic empire of loyal minions and subjects that he used to execute his reign of terror on a universal scale.
In addition to having such vast personal resources, Thanos was also physically stronger than the Hulk. He possessed tremendous psychic ability, being able to possess anyone or resurrect anyone who perished, even himself!
3 Gah Luk Tus
Gah Luk Tus is, you guessed it, the Galactus of this version of reality. Naturally, the planet eater is one of the most powerful beings in his world. This version of Galactus was created by the Kree race, a massive robot swarm that consumed entire planets.
This swarm attained sentience and embarked on a malevolent mission to rid every planet of organic life before destroying the planet itself. Gah Luk Tus attempted to consume Earth, and when repelled, it merged with the Galactus of the main Marvel universe. In this state, he boasted unimaginable cosmic power.
2 Odin
The father of Thor is a background character in the series, but from what we know, he is possibly the most powerful being in the Universe. he was the source of all Asgardian power before his demise. So complete was his power over all things that came from Asgard that he was able to remove or grant powers to Thor and Loki at will.
It was also stated that Odin was powerful enough to take on every single superhero in the universe at the same time and still defeat them. The full extent of Odin's abilities was never revealed, but his presence was strongly felt throughout the series.
1 The One-Above-All
Any list of Marvel's most powerful characters, no matter which universe they belong to, should carry the same name at the very top of the list. The One-Above-All is the entity who created the multiverse itself. It is the master of the Living Tribunal, and the one responsible for the creation of all life and the very existence of reality in every form.
The One-Above-All exists in every Marvel universe, regardless of whether he is mentioned or not. Its powers are beyond human or even cosmic comprehension, even though the being rarely participates directly in the affairs of mortals or eternal beings.