Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ultimate X #2

Two last Marvel reviews tonight before I switch gears and spend the next few days reading some DC books. I'm still spending most of my time studying and such, so I'm not really sure how many reviews I'll be posting tomorrow, but I'll definitely have something up.

Ultimate X #2: Writer: Jeph Loeb. Pencils: Arthur Adams.
Last Issue: 9 1/2 out of 10.

Review: This issue deals completely with a mysterious woman named Karen Grant. We get started with Karen dying her hair black and using telekinesis to get dressed... That just seems lazy to me... She has a few pieces of her old life hidden in her room, including an issue of a magazine with the X-Men on the cover, as well as Cyclops's visor, that latter of which causes Karen to break down into tears. After composing herself, she heads to the mall where we find she's dating some mall security guard, as well as working at a clothing store. Upon arriving at work, her co-workers throw her a little celebration for being the top salesperson of the month. Karen spots a picture of herself and immediately flies into a rage when she learns that her boyfriend had it posted on his Facebook page, after she had implicitly told him to never take her picture, and especially to not put anything about her online. Karen blows her boyfriend off and heads to the food court where she is met by Rogue. The two women hug until Karen realizes that the woman in front of her wasn't Rogue, but was Mystique. Mystique explains that the few mutants left need to stick together, but Karen refuses to listen to anything Mystique says, until Karen spots Sabretooth hanging around the mall while a bunch of innocent children ran about. With little choice, Karen decides to listen to Mystique and Sabretooth, and the three head out of the mall where they are met by Karen's boyfriend, who thinking Karen was in some kind of trouble, pulls a gun on Sabretooth, which results in Tooth gutting the hapless security guard. That action puts Karen into a rage and she proceeds to pick up a bunch of cars telekinetically and smashes Tooth with them. Karen tells Mystique to leave before she suffers a similar fate, and then uses her powers to halt the security guard's bleeding while using telepathy to convince everyone around that the guard was stabbed by a man with a knife, and that the cars crashed in the ensuing carnage. Upon the cops arriving, Karen heads back home knowing that she'll have to leave and start over elsewhere, when Jimmy Hudson breaks into her house and introduces himself to her as Wolverine's son seemingly knowing that she was really Jean Grey, ending this issue.

What I Thought: Hey, I liked this issue! I was definitely disappointed that Jimmy didn't show up until the very last page, but the stuff with Karen/Jean was enough to keep me interested in this comic. I only vaguely know what happened in the Ultimate Marvel U during the Ultimatum storyline(I had stopped reading the Ultimate titles right before that storyline began), but from what I'd heard, it was pretty awful. Thankfully, the first two issues of this series has been the opposite of awful, they've been surprisingly good! While I wish this comic came out monthly instead of once every two months, I'll happily wait until the next issue comes out to see what happens next.

Score: 8 out of 10.Yeah, that's one guy I sure as hell wouldn't want to tangle with!

6 comments:

  1. I have to admit, I've only heard good things about this series. Is it a $3.99 title?

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  2. Yup, I've still got it right next to me, and it is indeed a $4 comic... With that said, I'm really pretty surprised at how much I've enjoyed the first two isses. I only picked up issue one as a spur of the moment buy, and I've got to say, I'm glad that I did.

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  3. $4...Can't do it for a regular sized issue. Especially Jeph Loeb.

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  4. I can't blame you Kello. I seriously don't know why it's a $4 comic, except for the fact that it seems that all of the remaining Ultimate books are $4 now...

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  5. Aren't most Marvel comics now $3.99?

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  6. Hmm, I don't know if I'd say most... It's probably about 50/50. They do still have a lot of $3 books(Amazing Spider-Man, most of the X-books, a few Deadpool titles, Black Widow), but all of their minis and many of the newer books are up to $4.

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