Rating: 4.5/5- The Original X-Men Visit the Ultimate Universe!
by ComicSpectrum reviewer Gabe Bustamantez.
While the teachers of the New Xaiver school are away the students get into an adventure across the multiverse. The time-displaced X-Men and X-23 have been separated and sent to the Ultimate Marvel Universe by a newly emerged mutant. Young Jean Grey teams up with Miles Morales–the Ultimate Spider-Man– to hopefully find a way to get the X-Men back to the 616 Marvel Universe. Which is not going to be an easy task. While the other members have each been scattered all across the Ultimate Universe and are in the middle of their own troublesome situation.
Writer Brian Michael Bendis is giving each member of the All-New X-Men team their own spotlight to shine. Each of the situations he puts the characters into is interesting, fun, well set up and includes some Ultimate Universe guest stars. The standout star of this issue is artist Mahmud Asrar whose artistic ability is perfect for an issue with lots of talking heads (a Bendis trademark) spread out across many pages and a double page spread or two. Panel layouts become very critical in comics with large amounts of dialogue across pages . If the panels and characters are not positioned correctly the reader will get lost and could end up reading dialogue, panels or even an entire page out of order, which can be very frustrating. None of that happened here for me thanks to Asar’s skills as a visual storyteller. Along with the panel layouts Mahumd’s art throughout the issue is great and there is even a homage to Stuart Immonen’s scene from when Jean finds out about her future in issue #5 that could easily help readers get some understanding about the Ultimate Universe.
It is very fitting that the second time characters from these two Marvel Universes have crossed over and shared a story together is happening in a comic all about a team of time displaced younger X-Men characters. The mini-series “Spider-Men” was the first time the two universes collide and gets referenced in this issue. Dimension hopping has always been a part of the X-Men lure, now we get to see these young X-Men deal with being in the Ultimate Universe where there are almost no X-Men left. The issue is a very quick read that serves as set up to the remaining story and the side stories. The smaller stories for each character within the larger main story really helped to make the issue feel like I was getting much more which kept my interest and will bring me back for the rest of this story arc.
Reviewed by: Gabe Bustamantez
(gabe@comicspectrum.com)
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