Customer Reviews

Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 6 (v. 6)

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Just when I was ready to end my lifelong love affair with the X-Men, Marvel launched the Ultimate X-Men series, which abandoned existing continuity and gave my favorite mutants a fresh start. By keeping top-tier writers and artists on board, and constantly challenging the status quo, Ultimate X-Men has restored my faith in Professor Xavier's band of student/soldiers.

I've been following this series in installments by picking up each hardcover collection as it comes out. The wait is longer, but the high quality format makes it that much easier for me to go back to the bookshelf and re-read the series. Here's what you get in hardcover volume 6:

The book starts with a single-issue story featuring Professor X in the middle of a mutant bank robbery. This one is something of a throwaway story, though Steve (Preacher, Punisher) Dillon's artwork makes it worthwhile.

Next up is the 2-issue Shock & Awe storyline, in which Storm and Wolverine encounter the Ultimate version of Lady Deathstrike. In the Ultimate universe, Deathstrike has a past relationship with Storm, not Wolverine. This storyline doesn't seem that important either, and while I enjoyed Stuart Immonen's artwork on Ultimate Fantastic Four, his style just seems wrong for the Ultimate X-Men.

Next you get the first Ultimate X-Men Annual, which was also reprinted in the Ultimate Annuals trade paperback. In this issue, we get to see what Gambit and Rogue have been up to since leaving the X-Men. I won't give the ending away, but it ain't pretty. Tom Raney's artwork, however, is quite attractive. It's a shame he's only around for scattered issues, as I think he'd be a great artist for the series.

After the Annual comes the 5-issue Magnetic North storyline. This saga is worth the book's cover price all by itself. Polaris is unjustly imprisoned...in the same cell as Magneto! Havok and the rest of Emma Frost's mutants attempt to break her out, but must go head to head with not only the X-Men, but the Ultimates, whose main concern is keeping Magneto imprisoned. From teen angst to secret conspiracies to superhero slugfests, this one has it all.

Closing out the book is the special ½ issue by Geoff Johns that focuses on Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch in the aftermath of Magneto's "death".

Aside from the ½ issue, Brian Vaughn handles all of the writing duties. The X-Men are at heart a bunch of misfit teenagers, so it makes sense that the author of the Runaways series has such a good grasp of what makes these characters tick.

It may be a bit uneven, but the 6th Ultimate X-Men hardcover contains more than enough quality material to make it worth the cover price (or at the very least Amazon's discount rate). I know I'll be on board for volume 7!

This volume reprints the second year of Brian K Vaughan's UXM run. His first year redefined the characters and point of the book, while simultaneously preserving the character and plot developments that earlier writers established, but deepening the characters' personalities and motivations and relationships, making the action more realistic, and toning down the absurd levels of bravado, braggadocio, and, bombast that made the first 4 years of this title completely overblown and absurd. He focused the book on the idea that these are teenagers. He fleshed out their personalitiesand tied them to particular motivations and struggles based on their emerging relationships with each other, and their powers and identities.

When you read this second volume, keep in mind you are reading reprints of monthly comics, ok? So it is natural that a collection like this will contain multiple stories and have work by various artists. You can't expect a continuous, self-contained story in a compilation such as this.

Ok, let's get to it. The first story gives some face time to Xavier, who was mercifully relegated to the background in the previous year. He had become way too dominant a figure in the Millar run. He was also poorly written: he was unpredictable; his character traits seemed to change with every issue, he was absurdly dictatorial, and as written, prone to wild errors in judgment that everyone around him inexplicably ignored! BKV still keeps him freaky and frigid, but tones down his tendency to lecture ad nauseum. The highlight of this issue is the hilarious artwork by Steve Dillon. The "villian", an absurd conjoined twin mutant, is mutant comedy gold.

The next story, "Shock and Awe" further explores the character of Storm and the relationship between Storm and Wolverine. These two make a a great team, and Vaughan is obviously paying homage to the original and very deep relationship as written by Chris Claremont back circa issues 190-250 of Uncanny X-Men. I love that Storm's character continues to develop. She was being completely wasted by Millar and Bendis. The action here is excellent. It has always been difficult for artists to deal with Storm's powers. Check out the X-men movies for some particularly lame attempts at that. Millar just basically had her dropping lightning bolts on Sentinels, then stuffed her back in a minor role. But BKV and Immonen do her right, using her powers in an inventive, believable manner. Some criticize artists Stuart Immonen's cartoonish style, I personally love it. But one of his indisputable strengths is his ability to create dramatic compositions: the placement of the characters, objects, and the point of view to heighten the action and drama of the scene he is depicting. He consistently changes the size of the panels, the angle of the viewer, and the depth of the pictures to maximize the impact of the exciting action. This story is no exception, he does a great job with Deathstrike vs Storm & Wolverine. In what is probably a clever, subtle homage, this scene is set in the snow, a shout-out to the original Deathstrike vs Wolverine story by Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith from Uncanny #205?

The story "Ultimate Sacrifice" makes a major change in the Rogue/Gambit story. The pencils, by Tom Raney, could have been a disaster, but the skillful inking and coloring save the situation. The Rogue character is also handled well by BKV--the reader really cares about her. In Millar's hands, she was just another tool of Weapon X, a throwaway "dude, look how we changed things up in the Ultimate Universe!" type of character. This story has some real emotional weight and interesting ramifications for the character, and pulls and interesting twist and homage to the original Rogue/Ms Marvel power/personality drain story from back in the day.

Finally, the showstopper, Magnetic North, fleshes out Emma Frost's Hellions/New Mutants rival school, reveals the Mystique character, features a confrontation with the Ultimates, and the return of Longshot, the return of Lady Deathstrike, the blow-up of the Lorna Dane/Havok/Cyclops conflict (genius--the Havok/Cyclops relationship is another homage to the original, and it works even better than the original!), and the return of Magneto. It all comes together here: tight, suspenseful plotting, exploding character conflicts and interpersonal drama, exciting action and clever battles, goddamn it is awesome!

Magneto, as written by Millar in issues 1-36, was a JOKE. Constantly spouting unbelievable bullcrap. This criminal genius and wannabe messiah was simply a blustering, overpowered jackass. But in this writer's hands, he is depicted as a cunning, clever manipulator. His ridiculous rationalizations of his mutant supremacy agenda are shown to be just tools to further his personal goals of control. Awesome.

There are so many battles in this arc, I can't discuss them all, but be assured they are all handled with the inventiveness and surprise that BKV and Immonen have always brought. They gleefully throw the X-Men, the Ultimates, the Hellions, and the Magneto crew in a blender and hit the chop button. This is what comics are all about.

Somewhere in all these arcs, all the characters get their face time. Cyclops and Jean, Angel and Dazzler, Iceman/Kitty/Rogue, Colossus/Nightcrawler, all have their compelling and witty stories fleshed out. Finally, the very sensitively handled gay Colossus story is further developed here. A well done reinterpretation. Decent handling of a gay character is long overdue in super-hero comics.

I haven't even mentioned the hilarious and dead-on naturalistic dialog, which had me laughing out loud quite a few times.

This is great comics. This is what the Ultimate Universe is all about. No, the Ultimate Universe is NOT about "dark", "realistic" stories--that's the Marvel Knights, or the Marvel MAX line!! The Ultimate Universe is about resetting the continuity, using teen or young adult characters, and reinterpreting the original material in inventive ways that do honor to the source material but are vigorous and fresh in their own right. This run meets all those expectations and then some--genius, genius, genius!!!

I've heard a lot about the 'great' Brian K Vaughn with RUNAWAYS and what-not...but his issues of Ultimate X-Men have been nothing but dissapointments to me. Of course it's hard to follow on from Mark Millar, but the dialogue is lame and the storylines in this volume are beyond boring and unoriginal.

This volume collects a dull issue about a bank robbery involving Professor X, Wolverine and Storm encounter Lady Deathstrike and the return of Magneto where he does...well....nothing much.

The Ultimate line of books from Marvel are supposed to be a bit more mature content and a way for creators to mess with the Marvel Universe without serious reprecussions (ie. killing all those popular characters in earlier books) - but in this book Lady Deathstrike is just like the regular Lady Deathstrike. The deaths that are featured of popular characters are quick and anticlimactic which make the event even less shocking.

The only reason why I'd buy this book if you haven't yet already is if you're a completist like me and waiting for the Robert Kirkman issues which are supposed to be rather good. BUT you can miss this volume if you want to save some money.