Only Hickman knows how to write The Maker properly
I read all the old Ultimate Universe from start to finish. After the death of Peter Parker and the much needed revamp of the line, Hickman came in and blew everything out of the park with his Ultimates. In just ten issues (last two felt completely made by Humphries, I wouldn't be surprised he had little input in the plot) he stablished The Maker as a megalomaniac, insensible and twisted Reed Richards who thought that he was saving the world and fighting for the future, seen in the fact that the philosophy oh his City was a mirror to his counterpart's Future Foundation.
Through these ten issues, Hickman presents a Maker who has a plan and doesn't create destruction for the sake of it, he convinces Banner and Sam to see his vision instead of killing them or imprisioning them. Hickman understands that a super intellect who was secluded for almost a thousand years would act in a very inhuman and almost robotical way when everyone surrounding them is everything but human, since they are just looking for perfecting evolution and technology. The City is alive, the Builders, the Dynamos, the Thinkers, Speakers, etc. have an identity and mission. They can detect genetic imperfections, teach fetuses algebra and disipate the idea of individuality for the sake of the mission: human transcendence.
Hickman also creates Tian, the Eternals and Celestials as the "natural" counterpart to the Maker's technocratic evolution, even confronting them directly and showing that Reed's seclusion in the Dome has weight, remembering a technology they flirted with six hundred years ago. He goes as far as to ask for counsel from the Quorum and, through the story, from the City, showing that his character has layers and isn't perfect nor completely egotistical.
It's only after Humphries takes over and the City gets defeated by Tony Stark's brain tumour (yeah, it's bad) that the Maker starts transforming into this caricature that we know today. Now he's only evil for the sake of being evil and, although Hickman tries to show his depth again in Secret Wars and Ultimate Invasion, the damage has been done. The Maker can't be anything but a pathetic loser who doesn't know how to regulate his emotions and, as Doom said in the last issue of Ultimate Endgame, is just a heartbroken nerd that doesn't know how to be alone.
The Maker could've been the next big Marvel villain if Hickman had more time to polish him and show that, in order to write an intelligent character, be it evil or good, you need to be smart and at least try to understand how a thousand year old amoral super genius with near infinite knowledge would act, speak and think.
Hickman's biggest mistake was being so popular and writing such an amazing Ultimates that editorial gave him control of Avengers and New Avengers truncating his storylines in this universe (whatever happened to the Kratos Club? what was the point of Thor seeing the asgardians as ghosts? what about the destruction of Montevideo and Germany?). After Humphries, Fialkov came in and destroyed what remained of the Maker as a character, trying to explain his actions in Ultimate Comics: Doomsday as being manipulated by a future Susan Storm (Kang) which results in the Maker's motivation for creating the City and the Children of Tomorrow as nothing but a continuation of Susan's mission and not Hickman's plan, which we will never know.