Reading Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men run is such a unique experience that it would be a futile waste of space to spend too much time comparing it side-by-side with the established mainline X-Men comics. It’s sort of amazing that she has been able to pull of something so idiosyncratic with these characters and this world, because when you look back on the history of X-Men and mutants it can seem like everything has been done – every iteration, every possible twist and take on these concepts. From alternate timelines to alternated timelines, what-ifs and more, it’s lately felt like so much of the mutant world is a retread of something we’ve seen before. But Momoko’s world is something all its own, and something that every comic reader should check out.
Of course, there are some recognizable concepts and characters from the mainline X-Men in these books, but this whole project feels like the middle movement of a wild symphony where all of the themes have been metamorphized into brand new, elegant inventions. The DNA is still there, though, as the whole run is still rendered in a way that respects the source materials.
The first volume of Ultimate X-Men is a moodier and more spacious read than this volume. It takes its time in making a sort of artistic argument for her vision and ideas, introducing characters slowly while showcasing the wild versatility of her style. This volume takes what was established previously and fires on all cylinders. There are some truly shocking moments in this collection, scenes that raise the stakes from contemplative self-discovery to all-out horror.
Momoko’s art is at its best when she trusts it to tell the story in a way that words can’t. The silent, contemplative, and melancholy moments are so potent, when characters and landscapes are shown in their sad isolation. The reader can take a breath here and take in the power of Momoko’s greatest tool: the use of mood and subtle suggestion to fit big ideas onto a single page.
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The uniqueness of the art in this book is what makes it so great—not just its virtuosity. The art here functions in a different mode than the superhero comic art that many readers have become accustomed to. To use another musical analogy, the issues in this book are like finely tuned compositions in which the entirety of the page alters to meet the changing moods, internal thoughts, and even the morphing genres that the story demands at each moment. The words and plot don’t just sit on top of the art — they synthesize into a single art piece. Emotion doesn’t just resonate from the script to affect the art as an afterthought, it launches from the page in a unified leap. This is part of the magic of writer-artists.
Ultimate X-Men is best experienced in the trade paperback medium. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t be buying these comics off the shelves (You should! Support and artists and your local comic shop!) but that you should read them again as a more cohesive unit. Momoko’s storytelling style is as unique as her art, and sometimes the mysteries and revelations are more successful when in the immediate context of other issues.
The story continues from the first volume, still closely following the slow awakening of this intriguing band of mutants, still with a strong focus on Hisako Ichiki, also known as Armor. She’s still struggling with the trauma of her close friend Tsubasa’s suicide, and still trying to discover what the omamori he left behind for her is all about. There is still so much truth to be revealed about the intricate nature of the powers present in the main characters that one wonders if Momoko is going to explicitly reveal these things at all during her time at the helm of Ultimate X-Men, or, if in a Lynchian way she’ll leave some things unanswered to exist as eternal mysteries for readers to think over forever.
The oddest mystery of Momoko’s take on the X-Men is the real truth about mutants. At the end of the book, the true nature of mutants is still up in the air. Are they born this way, or are they all made from the sadistic experiments perpetrated by the Maester and his insidious cult? Is it a little bit of both? And, most importantly, how will that revelation change our understanding of mutants? This is the single point that I think is worth comparing to the original concept of the mutants, as so much critical work has been written about the X-Men and the social implications of othering, race, and a menagerie of social ills that are reflected in our world. I think we’ll come to find that the answer are more complex than the questions.
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A lot of the ways in which Marvel readers think of mutants are connected to American concepts of race, gender, acceptance and bigotry. In Momoko’s work, the characters are not living through that lens. In Ultimate X-Men we see these ideas through a Japanese cultural viewpoint, with cultural festivals, clothing, social ordering, and history all taking part in the worldbuilding. At the end of most of the issues, Momoko even leaves for the reader a primer on some of the cultural or historical concepts used in the preceding issue. The way the characters come to meet each other, and the way that their actions ripple out through the story are then a quite different experience. It does the dual work of grounding the work in real social concepts while also presenting a new background for readers who might not know much about these cultural practices.
The fan-favorite character Psylocke is introduced in this volume, but not in any extreme way. Her origin is still a mystery, as are her true intentions with our band of misfit mutants. At this point, it feels as if she’s slightly antagonistic in a way that will push Hisako to be prepared for the bigger dangers that are on the horizon. Perhaps she’ll turn out to be a close ally in the future.
Her character presents another interesting concept in Momoko’s X-Men: there don’t seem to be many clear lines drawn on what defines good and evil. We know from other Ultimate lines that the Maker is truly evil, and that his minions represent unregulated power in his absence. But this book asks another question: how does pure evil trickle down to affect the everyday people who find themselves in the eddies of the unraveling horror that is the Children of the Atom?
Each of the Ultimate books have to do the work of individual world-building through both the plot and their visual worlds, despite being part of a shared universe. That’s partly why the whole Ultimate Universe has been so successful; it’s been a playground for some of the best writers and artists that Marvel has in its tool belt. Ultimate X-Men is an absolute must-read book, and Peach Momoko continues to be the most interesting and exciting artist Marvel has working right now. Whether or not you read the rest of the Ultimate books doesn’t matter – don’t miss this one.
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