If you had told me 3 years ago that Ultimate X-Men would feature much better art than both Ult. Spider-man and the Ultimates, and that Jeph Loeb would be writing circles around Bendis and Mark Millar, I would have slapped the stupid out of you.

But damned if that isn’t the case.

You may not remember my first review of the series, but it was cautiously optimistic.   Without jumping the gun, I’m much less cautious. The first issue was a decent, well-drawn, though not quite spectacular introduction.   In it we were introduced to Wolverine’s biological son, Jimmy Hudson.  From the series’ descriptions, it seemed like Ultimate X was designed to be an unfocused book exploring different mutants in the Ultimate Comics universe.  Issue 2 disproves that premise.

It’s very clear by the end of the story that Loeb is putting together some sort of X-Men team, though to be honest it looks more like an Ultimate Defenders team than X-Men.   The casual observer might point out that any idiot could predict this was going to be the new X-Men book.  Which is fair.  But I have to admire the way Loeb is going about this.  At the end of Ultimatum, the world was changed irrevocably.  In books like Ultimate Comics Spider-man and Ultimate Avengers, it seems like everything is just business as usual.  Spider-man beats up bank robbers like nothing ever happened.   Mutants don’t get to do that.  A single mutant in this world is a pariah, but a team of them?  That’s almost cataclysmic.  By slowly building his cast and team, it gives the reader a sense of the gravity of these circumstances.

Holy Nacho Sauce, Jeph Loeb has found depth in writing again!  HALLELUJAH!

*AHEM*  Sorry.

Better still, the guts of issue 2 is entirely character based.  It’s about a girl named Karen who is quite obviously a mutant.  She’s also a little emo, but don’t hold that against her.   Karen just wants to live a normal life and forget that she’s a mutant.  In fact she’d rather forget that she has a past altogether.  But secrets have a way of catching up with you, and Karen’s secrets are a killer.

This is a solid issue.  It’s surprising and heartfelt and even manages to be subtle at points.   And the art is of course fantastic.  It’s Art Adams.  That’s all you need to know.

I’m still holding out for the other shoe to drop.  I’ve been burned by Loeb many times over the last few years.  But Ultimate X is a good book.   Issue 2 is currently for sale in reprint, along with first editions of Issue 3 (which I haven’t read yet) at BSI.

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Also I’d appreciate it if you’d check out some of my other work.  Here’s a post on Superman #700.  And you can always find my thoughts, reviews and other things at my site, Rebelcomix.com.   The newest entries are a review of Avengers #2 and a short story.