Scans_Daily

This summer, I read Ultimate X-Men right the way through. The first thirty issues were a slog.

Millar's stuff is too Millary (Ooh, look at Nick Fury, isn't he fucking badass?) and there's not really a lot of distinction in the voices of different characters. Also, there didn't seem to be much in the Magneto/Xavier relationship that was especially new, so the book came off as a retread of 616 X-Men, which was as bit dull. Bendis covered a lot of that ground as well, and the Ultimate Wolverine/Ultimate Weapon X stuff didn't really seem to offer much new. Why did Ultimate X-Men have to focus on Wolverine as much as the existing X-Verse did?
Chuck Austen's run in between Millar and Bendis with his Ultimate Gambit story was surprisingly good. Not just good-for-Austen good, but actually good-good.
BKV's run was pretty cool, developing Ultimate Emma Frost's Ultimate Academy of Tomorrow and adding in new X-men like Ultimate Alison Blair. Robert Kirkman's run was good in places, though by the time that Larrocca was drawing the Apocalypse arc it had gone pearshaped in a bad way. Kirkman did too much in the way of "Not really dead." Both writers managed to keep the ensemble-nature of the book going, which was a very good touch.
Coilete was in for a final arc and then Ultimatum. It's not really his fault that Ultimatum was awful, and killed off Ultimate Alison Blair, Ultimate Nightcrawler, Ultimate Angel, Ultimate Juggernaut, Ultimate Emma Frost (her Academy of Tomorrow stuff had SO much potential), Ultimate Beast (again), Ultimate Polaris. It is his fault that the Banshee arc, which stemmed from a nice idea (Ultimate Colossus is metal and invulnerable, but that doesn't mean that he's strong enough to lift his own body weight) and mangled the characters.

However, this is about a happier story, with Ultimate Xavier's Academy (Head: Ultimate Scott Summers) taking on Ultimate Academy of Tomorrow (head: Ultimate Emma Frost) ( at softball )