Ultimate X-Men

Ultimate X-Men is written by Mark Millar and pencilled by Adam Kubert who is known for his art in the other X-Men lines. The Ultimate X-Men comics comes from the newly created Ultimate Marvel line which includes Ultimate Spiderman and Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. This new X-Men comic takes the storyline of how the X-Men would have formed in the 20th century, taking a more modern look at the team. It was also created mainly for the movie fans of the X-Men Movie so they can have a fresh start. The comic's very first page features a deadly Sentinel targeting young mutants and killing them. The team already consists of Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Ororo Monroe, Piotr Rasputin, and Dr. Hank McCoy. The team is much younger than the original and so they are still learning about their powers and team work. They are later joined by Logan who is secretly working for Eric Lensherr to assassinate Charles Xavier, and they are also joined by Bobby Drake who is still a teenager. The story so far is fresh and each page is filled with good information, and the comics are never short of action. Being a true X-Men comic too, it also has a serious mood. The art is also well done and just makes you want to see more of it.

This comic book will be remembered in the future as one of the great Dumb Things Marvel Comics Has Done.

So let's say you've got a big-time hit movie on your hands (namely, "X-Men") that adapts one of your most popular comic titles (namely, "X-Men"). So do you work to create awareness of your comic and allow the buzz from the movie to carry over into increased sales for your existing comic books? Well, sure, that's what you and I would do, but Marvel chose to create an entirely new comic book (namely, "Ultimate X-Men") that replicates the look and mood of the movie while casting aside over 30 years of comics continuity and alienating existing fans who now have to fork over extra bucks to buy yet another X-Men comic book. Right now, the series appears to be generating a lot of good press, but it's all coming from either rabid Marvel Zombies or Wizard Magazine, which seems to have an editorial policy requiring them to love everything Marvel does. And of the three "Ultimate" Marvel books, "X-Men" has been way, way inferior to both "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "The Ultimates"...

In short, if you've bought this comic, sell it now while everyone still thinks it's hot, 'cause when the buzz wears off and the readers and speculators go away, "Ultimate X-Men" is heading straight for the "Four Comics for a Quarter" bins...

This is in reply to Jet-Poop's criticism of Ultimate X-men above. Do I believe that this will be one of Marvel's great mistakes? No. They've done far worse things, and this isn't even close. In fact, this is a good idea!

So, they made a movie... FINALLY! It's been so many years since comic books have been anywhere near vogue, that the movie hardly created a swarm to Marvel's titles. You need more than one simple film to get new comic readers, or else all those Batman films would've created such a gathering of comic readers that we wouldn't even be talking about this.

Replicate the mood of the movie? Um.. sort of.. if you mean quite a few degrees darker, since we have the man who continued The Authority after Warren Ellis left. This isn't trying to be anywhere as kid friendly as the movie was. In fact, just a few weeks ago, Marvel announced that it would no longer be following the Comics Code Authority(smart move!), after all, no one else is. They are also getting some of the highest rated comic writers to write for them: Garth Ennis, Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, and others. What is Marvel trying to do these days.. invite new readers. They started off with Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men. Yes, X-Men did have thirty years of continuity... what a pain in the ass!

Not only did the writers have to check up on the status of old characters, how their moods were, what devices were in whose control, but so did the readers! And that's going to cost you a hell of a lot more than buying a couple issues of a brand new comic, slightly based off of past exploits.

By recreating the X-Men, they invite new readers. After all, how many people want to start a series of books in the middle?