Customer Reviews

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 9: The Tempest

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

 

 

This is the first trade featuring Brian K. Vaughn's writing for Ultimate X-Men, and it's well worth the pickup. Vaughn cuts to the quick, giving us the anger and differing reactions of the X-Men's recent loss. From Colossus goading Wolverine to attack him to Storm's radical makeover, you can feel the difference in tone and the gaping hole Henry McCoy has left. Beyond this opening, Mister Sinister steps into the fray, a crazy (or is he?) nutjob committing serial mutant murders. The mystery of who Sinister works for and exactly how crazy he is all comes to a head on the powerful final page, something I'll not spoil. Brandon Peterson's artwork is beautiful, showcasing here his transition from pencil and pen to his later digital works; a great volume if you're a fan of either, and the perfect volume to pick up if you want to see either at their top game. "The Tempest" sets up the next volume very well without feeling like an incomplete story, something very rare in comics, and yet done as if it took very little effort to do so. High caliber work.

This story deals with the feelings of the x men over the death of hank, and seems to be leading into age of apolcalypse in the ultimate universe.

this was a good start to BKV's run, picked up right where Ult. X-Men left off and characterization the characters they should be. The art was decent. **Spoilers** pretty much this book introduced Northstar, Sunspot, Mr.Sinister and Apocalypse. All but Sinister were pretty brief in the story. Sinister was sort of interesting, talking to himself, killing people nearly murdering Bobby and the Professor which is pretty good. The relationship between Bobby and Rouge is good along with the good characterization of Bobby and how he feels him position on the is different now. overall a pretty decent book i guess i'd recommend it for hardcore fans, but not so hardcore should look for the book cheaper somewhere else.

Mr. Sinister is one of those characters who always seemed kind of silly and over-the-top in the regular Marvel Universe. In "The Tempest," Brian K. Vaughan has revamped the character, making him essentially a nutjob with a gun. While I'm sure that will tick off many of Sinister's longtime fans, I think the revamp works well for the Ultimate Universe. Sure, Vaughan could have given us a retread of the original Sinister, but let's face it--that story has already been told. One of the beautiful things about the Ultimate Universe is that we can get a new spin on familiar characters.

Other familiar characters in this volume are Northstar and Sunspot, but save for their ages and backgrounds, little has changed about their characters. The introduction of Northstar (one of my favorite characters) was a little short for me, but hopefully, we'll see lots more of him in the future.

Amazing art almost throughout
I like the Sinister reimaging, he's a killer
and he's crazy. He never did it for me in the main universe
Very nice characterization
kinda uneventful, but not really
worth it, to me

Out of all my Ultimate X-Men Novels this one rates as one of my favorites. Short of Vol. 6 and 8. I love a good read and solid story and though this may have little to do with future stories it takes a sorry, sad, goofy looking villian and turned him into a crazy and scary man with 45's. He looks better and his power of hypnosis works well with what he trying to do, kill mutants. The possibility of another major villian in this novel also leaves you with some high expectations for future novels.

Thank God for Ultimate Universe

this was really good! It had every thing that makes a comic good. With a story so good you can,t miss. but too top it off with the great art work to! this is a realy good read1

I actually rather liked this story. It's a nice easy four-issue arc, that fit well in the aftermath of the last volume. I thought this Ultimate Sinister character was actually pretty good, in my opinion. Anyway, I thought it was much better than the previous volume (some reviewers didn't like this revamping of Sinister, but at least that's much better than the skewering of Emma Frost, and the uselessness of most of the new mutants introduced in vol. 8). I especially liked Vaughan's take on mutant politics (sure, Xavier's school provides a safe haven for mutants, but is isolationism from the human population necessarily a good thing?).

Synopsis: Some one is hunting down mutants and killing them... again. But this time its not monolithic killing machines, its just some guy with a gun. One intended target (Northstar- in his debut in the Ultimate universe) has survived, giving the X-Men a possible lead in finding and stopping the shooter. It turns out the killer is Sinister, but he is simply a pawn for the mysterious Apocalypse, and he has vowed to murder a score of X-Men with Xavier as his prime target.

The scenes with the X-Men are great, but don't dig too deep and the lackluster Sinister plot takes away from the overall story quite a bit. The artwork is top of the line however, so it is a shame the story wasn't as inspired.

In "The Tempest", new writer Brian K. Vaughan uses Ultimate X-Men not as a venue to develop the core characters so much as it becomes a forum for Vaughan to state how lame he thinks staple villians are, namely Mr. Sinister, and how much better they would be if only they used guns and wore wife-beaters.

***Hey this review covers Paperbacks Vol 9-11, including Cry Wolf and The Most Dangerous Game, collected in Hardcover Volume 5. All three are fantastic!***

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 Vaughn 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, The Tempest, 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, Cry Wolf, 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, Vaughn 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, The Most Dangerous Game, 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 Vaughn 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. Vaughn 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. Vaughn 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. Vaughn'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 Vaughn 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!