Written by Nick Spencer
Illustrated by Paco MedinaThe world is in a state of sheer panic. The United States government has been outed as the creator of the X-Gene and mutants have been branded terrorists. It is in this insanity that the X-Men emerge. How will these former X-Men fair in a world where they are criminals? Will they be willing to defend mankind when all of humanity cries out for their imprisonment?
Nick Spencer has joined the Ultimate Marvel Universe, and he’s bringing the mutants with him. And Johnny Storm.
Let’s talk about it after the cut!
I’ve been an Ultimate fan for about as long as I can remember, and the X-Men were a good part of the reason why. The original volume of the title had such a colossal line-up of talent on it: Mark Millar back when he was kicking ass and taking names, Brian Bendis popping in for a few killer shorter stories, Brian K Vaughan soon after to tell all my favorite Ultimate X-Men stories? Awesome. But around the time Robert Kirkman joined the book to tell his longform X-story, things started pittering out, until finally the book imploded and died in the wake of Ultimatum — and that was completely outside of the fact that 90% of the cast was now dead. No, the book died because it didn’t have life left in it anymore.
Post-Ultimatum, things continued to be dicey. Jeph Loeb and Art Adams, for all their best intentions, just could not give the new X-whatever the time and attention it deserved, resulting in a book delayed beyond accessibility. The book was “finished” just in time for the Ultimate Relaunch, but with a ton of dangling plot threads there certainly was a sour taste left in our collective mouths.
This is where Nick Spencer comes in. I’m going to just throw a complete guess out there and pretty much assume that Spencer is not taking the book where Loeb intended. Splitting the group in two immediately? Adding a heavy religious and political aspect? Forcing all mutants either into internment camps or underground? Somehow I don’t think this is what Loeb planned. However, Spencer is given the rather difficult task of picking up a ton of loose threads and trying to assemble them together (possibly into a sweater). The odds are fairly against him here for those who may have been turned off by what came before.
Bearing that, I am rather pleased to report that we’re off to a good start. Spencer doesn’t take a lot of time for world building here, instead throwing us right into the mix and letting us fill in most of the blanks. As someone who has been reading the Ultimate X-adventures for an extended period of time, it feels like a return to form in writing. Spencer is putting our characters in a world that fears and hates them, but he doesn’t let the characters miss a beat in terms of reaction. The attitude here is fairly exhuberant, and Spencer is appropriately upping the ante in our heroes’ tasks, not allowing things to be too busy and taking advantage of the action sequences that this results in (Johnny going nova, Kitty’s sewer run). Medina is also doing a rather bang-up job on the book, returning the youthful look to the characters that has long been absent from the title.
That being said, there is a lot to consider as far as what is actually going on in the book. We don’t actually have any X-Men. Not yet, anyway. We have a few scattered mutants fighting for survival against Reverend Stryker (a foe I’d guess most people forgot about, as he was introduced in the Ultimatum tie-in, which I’d guess most people skipped) Quicksilver is off doing his thing with his imaginary sister, and something worse looming in the distance. We have a very focused issue, but in the back of my mind throughout the entire read I wonder why we don’t see more, and where certain people are. If we can judge a book by its cover, the first issue’s cover gave us Jimmy on the cover, but outside of a brief reference to him in this issue, where is he? I’m also still fairly confused on what is going on with Jean Grey Karen’s team (outside of them being in the emply of Nick Fury, which I’d like to see) given their lack of appearance.
As far as a relaunch goes, the book has it’s hits and misses. To put it simply, on the positive side of things Spencer and Medina have a winning book on their hands — it’s entertaining, it reads well, it looks good. This is a very solid comic, and while it doesn’t address all of the things I want to see I have faith (which, given the issue, I suppose is appropriate). However, the negative aspect comes in that it is not as readily accessible for those who didn’t read Ultimatum, or Ultimate X, or Ultimate Fallout. It’s the same basic issue that Hickman’s Ultimate book has, but Bendis’ Spider-Man doesn’t; where Spencer and Hickman faulter is that they are essentially just writing “what comes next” after previous writers, as opposed to really letting the books start at #1. There are enough introductions in general to have things add up, but bringing Stryker back? Bit of an odd ball there with that one.
However, given the overall quality of the issue, I’m willing to let Spencer and Medina spin a few plates for a bit.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy
