Rick's Rant
Some ideas from backwater Germany:
I think we might not yet see the whole picture. From the moment I first heard something would happen to Hawkeye's family, I wondered "does that really prove he's not the traitor were guessing about wildly?". On the contrary, perhaps he's become a target because HE IS the traitor.
When I read the issue, however, got doubts. I wondered why Fury (I presumed it was his doing) would have Hawkeye's family shot? They had nothing to do with the whole ploy (and no, I'm not buying any silly plot about evil forces masquerading as Hawkeye's children; that's just dumb!), so why go after them??
So, it MUST be the traitor that's behind the assault on Hawkeye's family? Right? - Wrong!
I think there's someone inside the Team who's turned traitor for honorable reasons, and then there's the force Loki allied himself with. The two of them have nothing to do with each other!
SHIELD has been portrayed as pretty sinister throughout Volume two (and before, at that). The public has been mislead, they are hushing up things, breaking laws, now they're out, invading foreign countries. I've read interviews with Mr. Millar before, and he's clearly left-wing. He's also European, which means he's a lot more vary about Americas current imperalistic campaigns.
(Millar himself said that Ultimate War was about the deprivation of basic human rights to the people who've been (certainly some of them falsely) labeled terrorists and put away in Guantamo Bay without even as much as a trialtrial)
So, would it be that hard to presume the things the traitor said in Issue 6 were true? Perhaps he really is disillusioned with the was America is run nowadays. He might be an idealist, who shares Thor's convictions, only he's trying to work against the system from within. He's released information he thought the public ought to know, he's probably had a hand in keeping Banner alive, stuff like that.
I know, I don't have hard evidence, but it fits together: The Ultimates are the extantion of a imperialistic callous government. Fury is loyal to his country, but willing to do whatever's necessary to garantee it's savety and well-being. He's phasing out the idealistic heroes and replacing them by loyal soldier-types.
Meanwhile we may very well see the traditional Heroes gathering around a common banner (pun intended). Cap was already pissed of by Fury's callousness in Ultimate Six, he might have been further pissed off, so why not turn coat? Thor's been opposed to Fury's current course from the beginning. Hank wants to be a Super Hero again, so he'll follow close. Tony's a no brainer. Jan's clearly in HAnk's side as well, and so on.
And then we have Loki and his misteryous ally, trying to force a crisis, probably the "war to end all wars". They might very well get their hands on the Ultron robot, and even though I hate it, I think they got Natasha. The assault on Hawkeye's family cries out load "Black widow!", no matter how many times I reread it.
Yeah, that's my theory: We'll end up with Fury and probably the mutants (and Cap?) loyal to the imperialistic government. Loki, Natasha, Ultron and some mysterious ally will be the bad guys. And Thor will re-ASSEMBLE the Ultimates, that is Hank, Jan, Bruce, Tony. I'm not sure about Cap, I see him more with in line with Fury, from the way he's behaved lately as well as from the way he and the rest feel about each other. So, ironically, we might well end up with the original, pre-Avengers line-up. And no, I didn't see that coming, right until I wrote the line-up just now.
