Max Ride: Ultimate Flight #5 is the fifth issue of the second arc of Marvel's Maximum Ride comic adaptation.
Blurb[]
THE JAMES PATTERSON SMASH HIT SERIES CONCLUDES WITH THIS EPIC FINALE! MAXIMUM RIDE has been captured! Where did Max come from? Finally she comes face-to-face with her own origin story. But what happens when it’s in the form of a living, breathing DOPPELGANGER?!
Plot[]
Ari carries the unconscious Max away, while Max II takes her place and rejoins the Flock in the library computer lab. Nudge has been able to access the blueprints for the nearest Itex building. She then checks them into a hotel, even though they protest that this will use up most of their money. She baby-talks them, but when she prepares to give orders, they already have a plan in place. She's frustrated that they aren't listening. Meanwhile, Max wakes up momentarily to see Jeb's face. She reawakens, spurred by the Voice, and finds herself in a sensory deprivation tank. She holds her breath and slows down her heart, prompting the scientists to panic and remove her from the tank. Upon being freed, she beats them all up and emerges from the now-destroyed lab.
The Flock flies into the Itex building while Max escapes from her captors, and then they fly right into each other. Max II shouts that Max could be a dangerous experiment, but Angel runs to Max and hugs her. The Flock reveals that Angel told them right away that Max II was a fake. Max II threatens to kill them, when Jeb and the Erasers appear.
Jeb reveals that it was actually a test, which the replacement Max failed, while the original successfully escaped. The now-murderous Max II springs to fight Max, but the tables are soon turned. Max stomps her to the ground, but when Jeb tells her to kill her, refuses. Jeb says that she's passed another test and that he's proud of her, and allows the Flock to walk out freely through the ranks of Erasers.
Elsewhere, in a classified location, the Erasers are being replaced by Flyboys, while a team of whitecoats looks on, saying that they have everything the Director needs.