I've read a couple of X-Men books over the years and was wondering if Ultimate X-Men is worth getting into. I really enjoyed Ultimate Spider-Man and was curious to see what everyone's opinion on the equivalent X-Men series is.

Millar's run, maybe. Anything after simply no.

I'm not a big fan myself but mainly cause I can never get into alt universe stuff

No, Millar is a horrible writer. He'll strip a property of all it's substance in favor of being edgy and kewl.

So like what you like ?

I liked it. I thought it was a good for the first 80 issues or so. The main complaint that people give it is being different from the mainstream universe, but it is supposed to be.

I'd say so. Only thing it didn't like was probably the last story arc or so, once Ultimatum happened alot of great Ultimate Series went to hell.

@luna_joestar: Shhh! You're not supposed to know that.

@sprior93: I won't be ignored.

Depends....are you in a happy place in your life, satisfied with your mood and usually a jolly person but your looking for a way to put a stop to all of that? Then sure buy the whole collection and I promise you will be depressed and cutting yourself in no time.

Otherwise stay away....even when it gets good, it just seems to be working to hard to prove that dead = dead

I would say it was the worst out of all the Ultimate "Big Four" series (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Ultimates, X-Men). Skip it and just drink an iced tea or something instead.

@sprior93:

Meh it worked for Ultimates which was simply frigin awesome. Him not being edgy enough and not using the same maguc with the X-Men maybe is the reason for this run being mediocre. Dibs on crappy Ultimate X-Men being the Achilles heel of the Ultimateverse and its subsequent downfall.

Sounds like it's a no then. I'll probably look at that reading checklist for the main universe someone recently posted.

Actually after the "Ultimatum" story arc, which takes place after 100 issues or so, a lot of the X-Men die and Kitty Pryde is featured as the main character becoming a militant leader for mutant interests. Essentially what she should have been in the regular continuity by now. So, if you are a fan of Kitty Pryde, it may be worth reading post-Ultimatum stuff.

i'll co-sign that. Pretty much the entire "Ultimate Comics: X-Men" is really working toward things especially during the Spencer period. I suppose Wood's run may not be as appreciated if you don't know all the insane crap that too place in and immediately after "Ultimate X-Men" but it's as good as the series gets....though how good that is is up to you as a reader.

I loved ultimate x-men, until all the stuff after ultimatum

@dman1366: smh.....rebel

Ultimate X-Men was awesome.

@koays: lol I just really liked how dark it got. The whole wolverine being a psychopath/rapist, the legion story, so good. Plus Vaughan and Kirkman's run were amazing!

@koays: oh and the weapon x arc with the X-men being blackmailed

@dman1366: I vaguely remember the weapon X arc, but i do agree it was a solid point for the series, and that's generally how i think some people picture wolverine when they write him 616.

But I think after they did that thing where Polaris and Magneto were in the prison playing chess and he seemed genuinely impressed with her skills....and then he started beating the crap out of her in their cell because everything up till then was just a set up for his escape....that's when I just mentally clocked out because it seemed like everytime something interesting or world building was going to happen, it was immediately jackknifed into the ground and turned into a trail of bodies so that it could never be brought up again.

I think it is. It goes off the rails a bit when the pile of bodies starts getting ridiculous, but there are still a few enjoyable stories in that series once you get past the morgue.

Agreed

@koays said:

I am not saying the material is Eisner Award worthy or anything, I just think it was more interesting because it showed Kitty Pryde mature into essentially the George Washington of mutantkind. The stories and supporting characters aren't even all that great post-Ultimatum, it's just Kitty was presented so well as you rarely see character progression and legacies being achieved like that in the 616 continuity...You know me, as I am always a huge advocate for youthful characters of the yesteryear of X-Men continuity fulfilling their places as the A-list X-Men today, the characterization appealed to me heavily. That is why I suggested that it might be a must read if they are a fan of Kitty specifically.

@dman1366 said:

lol you know the funny thing is, as i was just alluding to, nothing like that was allowed to happen anywhere else in the Ultimate X-Men franchise. Theres no real staples or concepts or even characters that are built upon to make you feel somewhere down the line that an idea or individual is vindicated or validated. It might be just because they were trying not to over complicate things with continuity so they avoided to many swerves and developments....but i guess in a way it sort of made Ultimate Kitty that much more relevant when she finally decided to step up to that role, especially considering i don't think she was even a fraction of as important as even 616 Armor to the team, before they pushed her into a matured into the leader.

I disagree... developments like that happened like that all over the Ultimate Universe, that is actually the only thing I liked about it. Reed Richards went on to become a villain and essentially replace Dr Doom as the big bad of that universe. An occurrence I had always thought was befitting since it has often been teased in the 616 continuity that Reed's absurd level of intelligence can lead to mental instability. In the Ultimates, the team went from a line up that heavily resembled the familiar, fan favorite line ups, like having Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Wasp etc. as members, to having teams with different characters taking up legacies like Punisher-Cap, Belova-Widow and variations of classic characters like Hawkeye brandishing firearms instead of Archery equipment, and James Rhodes utilizing Iron Man Armor to function more like a giant mech suit instead of the standard Iron Man suit.

So, there was a lot of change and progression in the Ultimate Marvel series along with General Kitty. Were the stories that facilitated them very good?? Not particularly. But, I think it's better and more interesting than just having the same characters have the same roles and never age for like 50 years.

@cattlebattle: Lol I was speaking more specifically to the Ultimate X-Men then the greater Ultimate Universe....which aside from Spiderman i havn't really explored deeply.

With the ultimate X-Men, we get the initial deconstructed & modernized portrayals that seem to be the norm for that Universe. Storm is a runaway and thief and that's how she views the world, Logan is a mercenary out for himself with dubious morals, Jean is a self-absorbed girl warped and shaped by her powers..all of this is good when their introduced. But at the end of the day no one really developed from that initial characterization....they either stayed the same,died, or just dropped those traits entirely.

When Ultimate Storm breaks free from prison, what should be a rousing character moment....is just Storm doing something after spending years being just the generic good soldier character...and it's immediately forgotten so she can go back to playing the good soldier to kitty. Polaris is made out to be this girl accused of something she didn't do, who is locked up in the cell with the most evil man on the planet and forced to interact with him and see their similarities....and just when it seems like this could be the start of villainy....it turns out to be just another crazy Magneto story where he overplans everything.

I feel like for all the magnificent flaws that are present in the 616 X-Men, we always have the ability to say "oh maybe this will happen to make this more interesting" and even if the writer is Bendis and we don't get any payoff or background to improve the idea, we can still find potential in it for someone else to pick up on. I mean you get an arc like The Twelve....which isn't that good but at the end you get Polaris flying off with Magneto and that starts a period of training and near villainy for her, which even if it doesn't payoff majorly...its still got more repercussions on a character level then anything a Ultimate X-Men story arc has.

There's just so many oppurtunities that have the doors closed tightly so that you can't look for any potential high point.

Ah, you did. Sorry. Sometimes I just gloss over these posts ad misread them when I am reading these on a phone.

Bare with me because it's been a long time since I read the entire run, but I do recall Wolverine eventually redeeming himself and becoming the leader of the X-Men eventually. And Storm went through a lot of change as well as she was one of the X-Men to survive and wound being a part of Kittys revolution towards the end of the series.

The series started out with more traditional X-Men characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm and Jean and by issue 50 or so I remember the line up being much different with Nightcrawler, Dazzler and Bishop on the team. I also recall it having a lot of team evolution and rotation throughout its existence in traditional, Claremont fashion. So, I think that was a pretty good aspect about it. The stories that catalyzed the necessity for the changes were pretty lack lust, but, I think that was something to admire about it.

I agree. It always felt like the Ultimate Universe could never find its identity. The Millar run in the beginning kind of follows what the initial concept of the Ultimate Universe was and tries to make everything more pragmatic, and 'mature', probably because of the movie's influence at the time. Then later they started introducing classic X-Men tropes like demons, time travel and mysticism. Some story lines would be like an episode of a sitcom where the effects of it were not really mentioned in future issues, and some of the character "re-imaginings" were pretty bad, like geriatric Bishop, WolverCable, Mr Sinister being just some generic criminal....it's like they opened a box that contained every bad idea someone could possibly have and decided to use it as the guidelines for the series.

First two dozen issues or so (including Ultimate War) are very good.

@god_spawn: @invain: @pyrofn: @mcklayn: How about Mark Millar´s Ultimate X-men, is it good ??

If you have too much time and nothing better to do, sure.

@thor_parker82: If you are interested to hear my thoughts on it, I think it sucks to be honest.

@krleavenger: Really ?? Why ?'

@thor_parker82: I'll PM you because I don't want to risk saying anything inappropriate.

@thor_parker82:

I liked it a lot when I first read it, but it was also the first X-Men comics I read. In hindsight it doesn't seem as good. After reading Claremont's run, it makes Ultimate X-Men feel kind of unoriginal. But if you're a fan of Mark Millar, you'll probably still enjoy it.

@invain: Been reading a lot of opinions and it seems to be a divisive run, there are a lot of people who hate it, but there are also a lot of people who praise it, guess I´ll have to judge myself, though I still have a lot of reading to do before looking at that run.

Dude if your new to X men there is plenty of Old stuff to read better than this, if your just really really bored then meh why not but I would never be like "hey bro read this it will make you love X men!" at the same time I see enough of it's quality points to certain readers where I would never totally insult it (of course i never insult much of anything other than bendis....) so yea I would say skip though

I mean Im bored and rereading old comics and I just started X men 2099 before I am reading that lol

I´m not new to X-Men, I mean, I´m not the #1 fan in the world but I have read a healthy dose of X-Men comics such as:

• New X-Men by Grant Morrison
• House of M
• Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon
• Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender
• Days of Future Past
• Dark Phoenix
• Magneto by Cullen Bunn

So I´m looking for more books to add to my mutant craving soul hehe.

I obviously intend to read more of Claremont´s run, I have also heard that "God Loves, Man Kills" is amazing.

@thor_parker82: Yea i enjoyed all the Messiah books for sure, and the New X men that came after house of M in the decimation era. OK let me give you some of my suggestions

Messiah Complex > Messiah War > Second Coming

Mike Carey's Supernovas

Cullen Bunn's Uncanny X men

Kyle and Yost X force

Kyle and Yost New X men (I think the Volume is Childhood's End)

Scott Lobdell The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix

Mike Carey X men Legacy Divided He stands

Peter David's Entire X Factor Run

Ed Brubaker Rise and fall of the Shiar Empire (Uncanny X men)

Ed Brubaker Deadly Genesis (read this before the one listed above)

With the Except of the Lobdell story that is mostly more modern style stories, and I think some that don't get as much credit as they may deserve and didn't appear on your list. IMO Peter David, Mike Carey, Kyle and Yost, Cullen Bunn are all solid so if you see a story they wrote I would suggest it. I like Fraction but most people don't and I will agree most his work was more like idk Cyclops and the X men then typical X men stories but I loved his take on the man. Also Kieron Gillen (sp?) had a really short Uncanny Run that was pretty good until it got destroyed by AVX and I guess if you read the Messiah Series you might want to read AVX to see how it all finishes but meh that was bad lol.

So yea Also always go to the very back and just buy the old black and white essentials and reread claremont stuff its good, dated but still great.

@mcklayn:

Also Kieron Gillen (sp?) had a really short Uncanny Run that was pretty good until it got destroyed by AVX and I guess if you read the Messiah Series you might want to read AVX to see how it all finishes but meh that was bad lol.

I´ve already read AVX hehe.

Messiah Complex > Messiah War > Second Coming

Mike Carey's Supernovas

Cullen Bunn's Uncanny X men

Kyle and Yost X force

Kyle and Yost New X men (I think the Volume is Childhood's End)

Scott Lobdell The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix

Mike Carey X men Legacy Divided He stands

Peter David's Entire X Factor Run

Ed Brubaker Rise and fall of the Shiar Empire (Uncanny X men)

Ed Brubaker Deadly Genesis (read this before the one listed above)

With the Except of the Lobdell story that is mostly more modern style st

Will check these, thanks a lot for the recommendations.

It's good as long as you understand where it's stemming from and don't think it is the actual source. Ultimate X-Men varies more than Ultimate FF or Spidey--such as mutants being the result of a Weapon X experiment--but sometimes it is for the better. But not always. I'd say it's worth a read, just read skeptically.

Other than that I have to concur with the earlier. New X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Messiah Complex, those are all great. Personally I found it best to start with New X-Men and read clear through Legacy--taking a small break for House of M and Decimation--all the way to Utopia. It doesn't have some of the big names that Uncanny does but it is good for someone without a ton of prior X-knowledge.

Is the Ultimate Comics X-Men series in the same universe as Ultimate X-Men?

@shepardoakenprime:

It's the same universe. Ultimate Comics was a soft reboot that they did with the Ultimate line in 2010.

@invain: Ah okay thanks!