Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Ultimate X-Men #1

Check it out, it's another #1 comic for me to review! This time it's from Marvel, as the Ultimate Universe continues to get it's makeover. We've already gotten a new Ultimate Spider-Man series and a new Ultimates series, now it's time for the new Ultimate X-Men series.

Ultimate X-Men #1:

Summary: Valerie Cooper, the US liaison on superhuman and mutant affairs, holds a press conference to officially announce what the press had managed to dig up, that the US government was responsible for the creation of mutantkind with some experiments up in Canada as a part of the Weapon X Program some 60 years ago. Needless to say, this news has pissed off the US's allies the world over and has led to widespread rioting throughout the US. From the news conference we head to a couple of characters who will seemingly play a major role in this series... Let's first start with Jimmy Hudson, the star of the recently ended Ultimate X series. Upon hearing that mutants were created by the government, and that his father, Wolverine, was the first mutant created, Jimmy heads off to visit the shuttered Weapon X Project headquarters. Karen Grant(actually Jean Grey) is too late to save a girl, who recently manifested her mutant powers, from her own parents, who had killed the girl since they felt that being dead was preferable to living life as a mutant. Quicksilver interrupts a meeting between Nick Fury and the president of the United States and claims that he wants to help the president with his recent mutant troubles. We also get some glimpses of other mutants(Storm and Colossus to name two) who were living in government sanctioned concentration camps, as was the law(either a mutant surrenders to the feds or they can be shot on sight), and this issue ends with Shadowcat, Iceman and the Human Torch(who were living in the Morlock tunnels), seeing a news report that Rogue was being attacked by a Nimrod sentinel and deciding to head up to the surface to help.

Thoughts: This was a very good start to this series. Granted, I HATE the fact that Shadowcat is going to be the female lead in this series, but if that's the worst thing about this series I can tolerate it. Besides Shadowcat, I like every single other character in this comic book. Jean, Jimmy, the Torch, Iceman, Quicksilver, hell, it's almost like I chose that line-up myself! I'm also fine with the government being responsible for mutantkind in the Ultimate Universe. It's a bit of a stretch that from Wolverine a mutant “virus” formed that led to hundreds(thousands?) of mutants being born, but that's something I can overlook. All in all, this series seems to be in very good hands with Nick Spencer. As a matter of fact, the Ultimate Universe is looking really good in general since Marvel shook it up. And look, Marvel didn't even have to reboot the entire Ultimate Universe to make it interesting!

Score: 9 out of 10. You know, that's the forth 9 score I've handed out today. Methinks somebody needs to find a new favorite number...Wolverine's hairstyle must be genetic or something.

7 comments:

  1. oh you may think you hate shadowcat now but trust me you havent seen shit yet.
    read UNCANNY X-MEN soon u will see what i mean

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  2. Four 9's? You might be getting soft. Of course, except for Schism, these are the four comics I wanted to read this week (and maybe this month).

    I am realizing how much history the Ultimate universe is accumulating. If I didn't buy one of those Marvel digital accounts and read all of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics I could be really confused on many things, like why the Human Torch is hanging out with X-men (and why Johnny Storm has black hair). It is nice to see that this world-shakeup worked out better than the last one.

    Also, wasn't the Hulk with the X-men during the end of Ultimate X?

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  3. Don't worry Movieartman, there's nothing Kitty can do to have me hate her anymore. :P

    "Four 9's? You might be getting soft." I know, Jermox! It makes me feel weird inside! :D Once I'm done with the comics I was really looking forward to things should be getting back to normal with some 7's and lower. Wait, I HAVE to ask you then, how/why does Johnny have black hair?? I never found out why and it's been driving me crazy! Hulk WAS/IS actually on the Ultimate X team, which pops up in the Ultimate Hawkeye series. The Ultimate X team is like a covert SHIELD mutant team and yep, Hulk is still a member.

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  4. Ah, in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics Aunt May lets Johnny Storm and Bobby Drake move in since after the Ultimatum mess the FF and X-men were broken up. Since they were both big profile superheroes they both dyed their hair and went by aliases when they were going to school with Peter Parker. Aunt May pretty much started an orphanage for troubled superheroes (and Gwen Stacy).

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  5. Thanks a ton for the info, Jermox. I stopped reading Ult Spidey around issue #80 or so, so I missed a lot of Peter's final adventures in that series. That actually sounds kind of interesting(Aunt May's home for troubled superheroes) maybe I'll see if the post-Ultimatum Ult. Spidey stuff has been collected in any trades yet.

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  6. Yea, I was never a big fan of the Ultimate universe but I really liked Ultimate Spider-Man. Peter Parker was extra Peter Parker-ry since he was only 16. Half of the villains knew either his identity or his face since he kept losing his mask (often it was pulled off his face when he got his ass kicked). Aunt May is an ex-hippie raising a bunch of kids because she is a softie for kids with troubled families. I found the characters likable (which can be hit or miss when they are writing teenagers). Warning though, I believe there is quite a bit of Kitty since she likes to hang out with Spider-Man

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  7. Thanks for the warning, but I've already read through the Kitty stuff. To be honest, I should probably soften my stance on Ult. Kitty because she's nowhere near as insufferable as 616 Kitty. The Ult Spidey series pretty much lost me after the Hobgoblin storyline, it was like, "What more is there to do?" so I stuck around for a few issues longer before dropping it all together. SO I have #1-80ish, with the way Marvel pumps out those trades I'm sure I can find a couple of them floating around up there to get me to the end of Peter's run... Of course that's kind of contingent on me not buying 30 new comics ever week! :P

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