Customer Reviews

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 11: The Most Dangerous Game

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Longshot, Mojo and Spiral all enter the Ultimate series in this volume of Ultimate X-Men. The take on Longshot is an interesting twist on his overtly positive, almost child-like, nature in the main-stream Marvel universe- the Ultimate version is a violent human hating bigot; but Mojo and Spiral are utterly dull. Longshot is the unwilling star of a hit reality show (in Genosha) that is owned and operated by an overweight albino (non-mutant, non-alien, base-line human) named Mojo. In Genosha, mutant criminals are sent to Mojo's island where they are hunted down and killed to entertain the masses, but Longshot has outlived all previous contestants and as a result brought the show big ratings. Mojo figures he had best off his fugitive star before the luster fades, and hires a goofy-looking hit-man by the name of Arcade to kill him.

Meanwhile the X-Men are appalled by what they have seen of Genoshan Television, but Professor Xavier refuses to let them become involved in a dangerous situation or spark an international controversy. Some of the X-Men, namely Colossus and newer recruits such as Angel and Dazzler, decide to just go on ahead and do what they feel is right, and soon enough they are in over their heads in Genosha. The other X-Men eventually head to the tiny African island nation to search for their friends, and stumble across Spiral, Longshot's six-armed mutant girlfriend who presents them with a less flattering image of her lover than the team had first assumed.

Pros: The characterization of the X-Men is great, and the focus is finally, after many issues, shifted away from Wolverine, Xavier, Phoenix and Cyclops to the rest of the X-Men. Dazzler and Angel break the mold of typical superhero behaviors (she is a jerk and he is a coward), and Colossus gets a lesson in keeping his emotions in check. The sly battle between Dazzler and Colossus for the attention of Longshot is more than a little amusing, and Nightcrawler's reaction when presented with the possibility that Colossus might have different tastes when it comes to romantic involvement shows that even the oppressed can have prejudices.

Cons: It seems to be that writer Brian K. Vaughan is great at making the main cast more realistic and interesting, but his villains are some of the worst one could imagine. Any appealing qualities the X-Men villains had before he retranslated them into the Ultimate series are time and again stripped away and replaced by dull and mundane bad-guys who would be better served facing off with Steven Seagal (they tend to have no powers and almost phallic obsessions with firearms, and often dress like extras in bad cop movies). Mojo was a lot cooler when he was an insane alien wizard with no spine and a whole dimension of whack-jobs to call down on the X-Men; I mean, seriously, a fat albino? At least give him some mutant power, something formitable, anything. Arcade might have some hope, I guess it's possible for there to be an Ultimate Murder-World, but did we really need just another guy with a big gun? That's the best Vaughan could come up with? A big gun?!? And then there is Spiral: not even a villain. Not even a single moment of thought put into her, so, why even bother wasting a perfectly good character by including her in the story at all?

This story is worth getting for the good stuff involving the X-Men, but anyone expecting a worthwhile battle or villain will be disappointed. And for me, personally, I hate reality TV, but if the people on the shows were killed at the end I might start watching.

i keep waiting for vaughan to settle in and pick up the pace on his run of ult. x-men, but he seems content to just coast most of the time, or at the worst, phone it in. this is really a shame b/c his other work is usually consistently worthwhile and he could've done so much great work in the ult universe. this book is completely what you'd expect w/ zero surprises except for a little twist at the end. the story and the characterization are completely forgettable (although longshot's powers are still cool), w/ the main exception of dazzler who is great as a sarcastic wisecracking smart alec. i hate to say it but i'm def. going to skip his next ult x-men arc unless i hear rave reviews.

I had been enjoying the "Ultimate X-Men" series pretty well up to this point, but was turned off here by the lackluster plotline and even moreso by the slapdash artwork, which stands in painful contrast to the richly detailed illustration of the earlier volumes. This volume felt a lot like the mass-produced X-books of the late '90s, where there were too many heroes and too many titles, and they all started to melt together into one big kaboom-fest, filled with fetishistically hyper-muscular males and inflatible-doll anorexic female characters. Sadly, the series seems to be taking on that same factory-produced feel, and has lost its freshness and revitalized vigor. Hopefully Marvel can get the book back on track, but I'm not sure I'll still be around to read it when they do. Other, better books clamor for my attention.

A nice atmosphere
I didnt like Longshot,but I like Scarlet Witch-cancels out
Mojoworld was barfable in the main universe, this revamp is much better
this seires moves too quick though

I've liked Vaughan's work in the past, especially with the group of teenage superheroes in Runaways, I've always had some fondness for Longshot, and I was hankering for some good old soap operatic X-Men action, and to top it all off, I dig Stuart Immonen's work, so I decided to give this volume a shot, despite not having read any of the rest of his run on this series. At $9.99, how bad could it be?

Well, it's not bad, but that's the problem; that's the best thing I the way that the X-Men (and the reader's) can really say about it. My reaction was very tepid. I liked how the X-Men's expectations (and the reader's) expectations are violated, there's some nice character work (especially on Colossus and Dazzler), and at four issues, it's certainly not "decompressed", but this still didn't click with me like Vaughan's other work has. Maybe that's because he's working with other people's characters here, whereas the Runaways and the casts of Y the Last Man and Ex Machina are his creations, or maybe I'm just sick of the X-Men (not even Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men could hold my attention), but at the end of the day, I can't give it more than 3 stars.

While I think this hits the right beats for an X-Men story, and works for me a lot more than what Mark Millar did with the book at its inception, I'm still not as fond of it as I was Grant Morrison's New X-Men, which is the best thing I've read with the franchise since Claremont's glory days. I'd still say it's worth your $9.99, just don't expect Vaughan's best.

***I've written a review that encompasses this book, plus the earlier two volumes: The Tempest and Cry Wolf, which comprise the first year of Brian K Vaughan's 2-year run. Get all three paperbacks or the Hardcover Volume 5 for the complete story. They are all 5-stars, in my estimation***

I've posted reviews for hardcovers 1-3 in this series. Reviews that trashed the bloated, stupid mess that Mark Millar made of the first three years of Ultimate X-Men. In the issues contained in this volume, Brian Vaughan pulls off a work of genius: he manages to work with everything he's been given, and make it real, personal, exciting, fun, and actually resets the book on the path it should have been on all along: presenting the X-men as teenagers, who behave like teenagers, with all of their problems and flaws, plus the problems of learning about their mutant powers and roles. He makes the characters lovable. He writes plotlines that are taught and tense. He writes dialog that provides a particular voice to each character, and is frequently laugh-out-loud funny.

The artwork is exceptional throughout the whole book, with Brandon Peterson's typically serviceable pencils jacked up to ultimate levels by the incredible inking and coloring, and Stuart Immonen's typically genius work perfectly fitting the "teen" feel of the book.

Let's get specific. The first arc features a gleeful gutting of the Mr Sinister concept from the original series. This is a trademark of Vaughn's UXM-- take a familiar character or storyline, and recast it in a way that gives a wink and a nod to the old, but reinvents the concept in an unexpected way. Who cares if you loved the original Sinister? You can see him back in action in recent X-men titles like Messiah Complex, ok? He's scary AND ridiculous here, and it works.

The second arc once again ties some "legacy" concepts in new knots: Gambit is introduced, as well as the villains Fenris. The Gambit character works well here-- amazingly, Vaughan sets up the relationship between him and Rougue so well. Gambit's powers are used very effectively, as well--the fight between him and the X-Men, including an awesome throw-down with Wolverine, is perfectly choreographed!

The third arc is another genius reinterpretation of a classic: Longshot/Spiral/Mojo!! It is brilliantly plotted with a kicker twist. The character of Longshot is very well done, including his powers, which are used in some really clever ways.

Throughout each of these arcs, there is an excellent balance of character development and action. The fight scenes are are very well worked-out, with the character's powers feeling real, and playing off of each other in surprising ways. This is another monster improvement over Millar's UXM. In the earlier issues, the characters' powers were jacked up through the roof and they were always used in the bluntest manner possible. Vaughn takes the hard road and shows the X-Men regularly getting their butts kicked by resourceful villains. When they win battles, they win by working together and letting their powers play off of each other, or by digging in to reserves of powers or using their powers in new ways. (And NOT new ways like Pheonix cutting out a piece of the Earth's crust and sending it into outer space, ahem, Mark Millar, that was just STUPID.)

But the real focus of these stories is putting the characters on new footing--grounding their personalities, personal stories, and relationships with each other in utterly credible ways. Each character gets space and BV establishes motivations for them that will carry through the next two years of the book. Incredibly, he manages to work with all the plot and character elements that have been preestablished, and in many cases, he makes those prior events more believable and meaningful in retrospect than they ever were in their original forms, due to Millar's hack jobs. For example, Storm's relationship with Beast was always completely contrived. It never felt REAL, just invented for a plot device. But Vaughan uses it to establish motivation for Storm. He uses it to show her character, to give her motivation. He makes their relationship poignant in retrospect and gives it power and weight.

Professor X is, thank god, toned way down from the inexplicable maniac that Millar portrayed him as in issues 1-36. He's still icy cold and calculating, but hardly the stupid, deluded jackass prone to speechifying and pontificating he was. He's generally just less of an ever-present nuisance. His character takes a backseat so the kids can drive.

Jean Grey and Cyclops's relationship gets a much deeper treatment from Vauhgn as well. He's frightened of her powers, jealous of her mental intimacy with Xavier. Vaughan subtly introduces the idea that Cyclops is terribly scared to lose Jean-- to her powers, or to an identity as a world-class telepath--it is clear he is starting to cling. You finally feel the love--at least from Scott! All so ominous...It is all done with subtlety.

Wolverine and Storm work brilliantly together. Vaughan seems to have been inspired by the deep and conflicted relationship that Claremont established in the original series. The character's play off each other to reveal each other's personalities and inner turmoil. Previously, these characters were shown to be moody and conflicted, but in a vacuum--they always lacked motivation. Here, by putting them together in dramatic situations and deep conversations, we actually see what makes them tic.

Other character's seem to have their own natural pairings that allow their personalities and personal stories to bounce off of each other: Dazzler/Angel, Colossus/Nightcrawler, Iceman/Kitty Pride, this gang of six junior leaguers also get their due, with deep relationships and stories of their own. They also provide tons of comic relief. Vaughan's gift for humorous dialog shines when writing these characters. I was constantly laughing at the way they relentlessly crack on each other.

Back a few issues, I was pretty skeptical when Dazzler was introduced as a pissed-off (and utterly fake and cheesy) punk rock singer. But BKV does the character right-- she's hilarious and believable. In a lesser writer's hands, she'd be a caricature of teen angst with a loud mouth. In this gifted writer's hands, she's intelligent, disaffected, funny, and, unbeknownst to herself, completely lost and crazy.

Similarly, when Millar suggested Colossus was gay, I took it as yet another ploy to add "cool", "edgy", and "contemporary" elements to the book (another Millarism that ruined the first 3 years). But this writer makes him real. He's twisted up inside and feels like a mutant among mutants.

I could go on, but by now you get the picture: it is all here. Fantastic art, great characters, inventive plots and battles...this is the Ultimate X-Men we've been waiting for, and a worthy companion book to Ultimate Spider-Man, or Ultimate Fantastic Four. This is a work of super-hero genius, and luckily, it's just the first of two years with BKV at the helm!

Some people may not like the Ultimate Universe's take on some beloved characters, but for me I was just glad to see Longshot back in comic books. The original series by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams are still one of my favorite all-time comic books and having him around (although portrayed much different than the "Earth 616" version of him), is still great.