I'd actually been planning this post since last weekend. It was going to be about why I'd dropped Ultimate X-Men. I was going to wax on (and on, and on, as I tend to do) about my important revelation. That being that I felt I read my various titles expecting certain things, and I'd come to the conclusion that I had no expectations for Ultimate X-Men. And if I have no expectations, no things I really want to see, why buy it?
Surprisingly, a book with a Michael Turner cover and Cable helped me to understand myself. I realized what I like about Ultimate X-Men: it's the X-Men, in a simpler way. Please holds the "Well duh!" for later.
When I look at Marvel X-continuity, it's a series of characters going one way, then the other, then back to the original, then back that first direction and so on. It weighs things down an awful lot.
Look at Jean Grey. First she was Marvel Girl, fledgling telepath/telekinetic. Then she was housing the Phoenix force and saved the universe. Then she went evil and threatened the universe. Then she died. Then we find out that was just the Phoenix Force impersonating Jean, and Jean's been in a cocoon the whole time. Now she's back, and just a telekinetic. Then telepathy reenters the equation. Then the Phoenix force shows up again. And I'm sure I missed a half-dozen other twists-turns in there. And the X-universe always seems to tail back into that Phoenix/Jean stuff, like it's a black hole and the X-writers' imaginations can't escape it's pull.
And really, you could say the same of the whole "Days of Future Past" scenario. I mean, it was good idea initially, but it's been seen too many times. Too many people fleeing the dystopian future that never seems to get much better, no matter how hard anyone tries.
With Ultimate X-Men, it was all starting over, which - I know - was the whole point of the Ultimate Universe. And so far, so good. Yes, they introduced the Phoenix, and yes, I screamed in horror and abandoned the book for that recent three issue arc which revisited it. But really, it's still ambiguous. Jean could be crazy, she could be housing an ancient and powerful force trapped within the core of their planet, like a Celestial Egg from that Earth X stuff. We don't know yet, and even if they do commit, that would be OK, if they don't start the cycle of reversing and retconning and so on.
We were discussing at the store how Ultimate Cable is probably a signal of "Ultimate Days of Future Past", which again, is not a bad thing in and of itself, as long as they go with something other than "Well, here's yet another person from the future who will fail to actually change things." Just off the top of my head, have people actively fleeing the future in droves (yeah, I know South Park did that, but I think we could get a better story out of it here). What's Nick Fury going to do about that? What's Reed Richards going to come up with to stop it? Would they stop it, or would they try to hoard future tech to continue Fury's plan of world domination?
What? That's what Nick Fury is up to.
So anyway, an opportunity to avoid tiring repetition and confusion is what drew me to the book, and with a little luck, it'll continue that and everything will be OK!
Yeah, I don't really believe it either, but what the hell.
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7 comments:
I was initially drawn to the Ultimate X-Men for the same reason, especially after I saw Brian K. Vaughn actually do something interesting with Mr. Sinister - my least favorite character in the X-lexicon.
But, reading over Ultimate trades and essential X-men books simultaneously (I've been in a mutant mood recently), I realized I missed the epic feel of those Uncanny issues from the late 70s and early 80s.
It would all go horribly wrong by the time X-Factor debuted, of course, but at one time the Shi'ar and the Brood were way cool and its too bad the Ultimate universde eraased such space-opera elements for more "contemporary" parallels to Scientology and Danger Room holograms.
Guess that's what years of Claremont comics will do to a guy, weird transformations and all.
Reading your comments about Jean I realize that she hasn't really had a character since that first arc from Marvel Girl to dead. When she came back, she lost what made her her and just entered this death and rebirth phase. I mean the most she's been since then is Scott's wife. How interesting is that?
A future story in the Ultimate X-verse could be good if they just did one.
I'd also like to note that Mike Carey's X-men has been good so far.
fortress: I think I missed a lot of the space stuff, but I do remember the Brood using mutants for hosts so those Brood would have superpowers, and that was pretty cool.
"Epic" probably would be fun to see, if only because it'd be interesting to see how teenage X-Men deal with it, since they were all adults back in the 70s-80s.
jim: Yeah, Jean's had some problems, although I remember being OK with her around the time they got married. She was on one team, Scott was on another, their relationship didn't seem to overshadow everything else.
And I have heard high praise for Carey's work. And Brubaker's, so who knows, maybe we're entering another Golden Age of X-books?
just wanted to mention that in the normal marvel universe all the time traveling X-Men (Cable, Bishop and Rachel) have stoped their respective timelines from happening.
elad: Really? Ok, well that's good. I suppose myquestion is, have they stopped what seems to be a consistent thread through them, that either the mutants or humans are subjugated by the other (usually mutants being wiped out by humans).
They may have closed off one avenue of that occuring, but not another.
To be fair, we only think U-Cable is from the future, because 616-Cable is. This new one might not be (although he probably is). The beauty of the Ultimate concept, as BKV showed with his version of Sinister, is that whatever Bendis seems to think, you don't actually have to do the same stories as Stan Lee did thirty years ago, just with added video game references.
kelvin: That's a good point. Maybe Cable is a clone, or forgotten offspring of Wolverine?
I'd prefer that to the "Sabretooth is Wolverine's son" story.
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