Ultimate X-Men...volumes one to three

[fajrdrako]

One day in 1963 I bought a brand new comic called X-Men #1 and I fell in love. I already loved comics. I already loved Marvel comics. But I will never forget the special thrill of discovering the X-Men. I read that comic over and over.

I bought the first issue of Ultimate X-Men when it first came out, read the first few issues, didn't really like it much and stopped reading that particular title for a while. (Lucky thing there are other X-titles to read.) This is the reboot version of the X-Men - starting the history over with the same characters. It started out written by Mark Millar, the writer I already expressed some doubts about with Ultimates and The Authority. He's a good writer, a clever and articulate writer, but I don't like his characters. I find his tone not just dark but ... vaguely unpleasant, without involving me emotionally. I don't trust his characters. I don't particularly like them. When we're talking about Wolverine and Jean Grey, it feels strange to be saying that.

I've been reading trade paperback graphic novels from the public library lately, and they had the first three issues of the collected volumes of Ultimate X-Men - bringing us to the end of Ultimate X-Men #20.

The art by Adam Kubert is lovely. Still, as with the writing, I didn't get the feeling I was reading about people I've always known as the X-Men, even given the different continuity. The different writing (and the different writing style) had such a strange ambience that these felt like total strangers with familiar powers. Professor X seemed untrustworthy and remote to me till almost the end of Mark Millar's story arc here.

It made for good reading and I enjoyed myself, but... Did I like this version of the X-Men? Not much. Not as much as I usually do. Not as much as I wanted to.

Then I read the last story in vol. 3, which introduces Gambit to this continuity. I don't know which issue that is from and a quick earch online doesn't tell me. Gambit is one of my favourite X-Men characters; one of my favourite characters in fiction, ever. And though he was young here, and a little more sweet than sinister, it was the Remy Lebeau I know and love through and through. I adored this story. Can't be by Mark Millar, I thought, not unless he's suddenly changed his style. I checked the credits. Nope, it's by Chuck Dixon. No wonder I liked it. The story is called "You Always Remember Your First Love".

Yup, Gambit, thief of hearts, that's the one.

Comments

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, you don't know how often I've wished my parents were comic fans, or that my older brother had been an XM fan, and collected from issue 1! I have the older issues in the reprints they did a few years ago, but. Of course, the comics my brother did collect he stupidly loaned to his girlfriend's little brother, who traded them off for Richie Rich and Archie... This is a pain that has never gotten better for him.

I actually like the Ultimates, as an AU kind of thing. I agree that it's darker, and I don't think I'd care for it if it were the primary XM tone, but as a variant, it interests me, in kind of the same way Days of Future Present did. There's always been a slightly grim edge, or a possibility of greater grimness, with the XM, at least post-Giant XM #1, I think, and I find it interesting to see that more fully explored. I do agree that it doesn't feel like familiar characters. I wonder if having the movie come out, which felt similarly to me -- not grim, but unfamiliar -- helped make a break for me between the "real" XM and this AU variant. The Prof in Ult. XM certainly seems more free with using his powers to change the minds and memories of non-mutants, and that in itself is disturbing. I think one of the reasons I do continue to find the title interesting is that it reads not simply as a "what if the title were started now," but as a title informed by all that has gone on before in the XM, in terms of relationships and events. It isn't just a contemporary retelling of events, but a mingling and mixing and transformation of the original origin story viewed through a lense of the entirety of XM history -- if that makes sense.

I don't think I've caught up to Gambit being introduced, but that sounds wonderful. I'm still a little bitter about the cancellation of his solo title.

The one title I haven't kept up with is X-treme XM, which is ironic, since Claremont is my original favorite writer, particularly his work with Magneto. I'm hoping that his move to Uncanny will work for me, although I've heard that he'll still be working with Storm, Bishop, and Sage, and that combo doesn't thrill me. Still, if he has Gambit regularly, as I hear he might, I will be consoled, I think.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Everyone who ever collected comics as a kid has a sad story about how they lost a bunch of them to no purpose. My mother talked me into giving away most of my collection when I was fourteen.... Luckily (by accident) X-Men #1 escaped the purge.

Yes, Ultimates is certainly interesting. It kept me reading and it kept me wanting to find out - and not being able to guess - what was going to happen. I certainly wouldn't stop reading it! But it lacked the magic that some X-Men stories have, which is heavily character-based for me. You're right about the movie being similar - it's like witnessing an alternate universe where everything is similar but everything is changed.

Of course you're quite right, UXM uses what we know of the X-Men to develop the story - playing on both knowledge and expectation.

As gor Gambit - I'd like to see more Gambit material anywhere.

I like Claremont too, and especially on Magneto as well. I've read two recent issues of X-Treme (yes, I have a lot of catching up to do: but I own them all!) I loved one, hated the other. We shall see what I think when I get to read them all, chronologically.

It will be easier when I get another comic box to sort them out. Then I have to figure where to put it.