Ultimate Comics X-Men #16 Review

Marvel Comics
Ultimate Comics X-Men #16 Review
By Andy Frisk
September 14, 2012 - 19:08

Writer(s): Brian Wood
Penciller(s): Carlo Barberi and Paco Medina
Inker(s): Juan Vlasco
Colourist(s): Marte Gracia
Letterer(s): VC's Joe Sabino
Cover Artist(s): Dave Johnson
$3.99 US

Kitty Pryde has lead her rag tag band of X-Men to the American Southwest and is surprise greeted by the long missing Nick Fury. Fury wants to aid Kitty in any way possible with her revolution against Stryker, the anti-mutant fundamentalist who has taken over the American Southwest and rounded up mutants for extermination. Kitty has to lead this revolution though, not Fury. A mutant must rally the interred mutants to fight. Inspiring a downtrodden race to rise up against their oppressors isn't as easy as it might at first seem though...

Brian Wood begins the second phase of what will hopefully be a reunification of the Ultimate Marvel Universe's United States of America, and its floundering comic book titles. Aside from Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, with it's new protagonist Miles Morales and all the hype surrounding the character, most of what's left of the Ultimate Comics line is pretty boring. Wood is working his magic pretty deftly in Ultimate Comics X-Men though, and that's no small feat since most of the most popular X-Men characters are dead in the Ultimate Universe.

Barberi and Medina's art is solid, and they do a good job of recreating the American Desert Southwest effectively. There isn't a large amount of action in this issue and most of the characters are just standing around talking about their plans. Nevertheless, it takes a solid sequential artistic team to make such scenes engaging, and Barberi and Medina pull it off.

While United We Stand doesn't look to be much of a writing challenge for Wood to overcome, he's been writing about revolutions against fascists for what seems like forever now, this is X-Men like you've never seen. I couldn't think of anyone else who could write a X-story without any of the major (and most recognizable) characters around and make it this interesting.

Rating: 8/10