By Brian Wood, Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Carlo Barberi, Agustin Padilla, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-525-3
Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed-more sophisticated tastes of modern readers and free from decades of extraneous story baggage.
Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum†culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.
The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men – and many other superhumans, good and bad – died, and in the aftermath anybody classed as “Homo Superior†had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hidden…
Mutants had always been feared and despised. As the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were generally believed to be an intrinsically hostile species: the new race destined to take the world from humanity as we took it from the Neanderthals…
This volume, collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men issues #13-18 (August – December 2012), is part of an imprint-wide crossover which saw America fall into chaos and civil war, with the events affecting and seen from the points of view of a new Spider-Man, a restored team of Ultimates and the current crop of X-Men…
The world had been stumbling from crisis to catastrophe ever since the Deluge (for fuller comprehension the reader is also advised that a thorough reading of companion series Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates volumes 1 & 2 will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hours) when word was leaked that all the mutants proliferating around the globe were the result of a 50-year old covert program of genetic manipulation which had slipped from American control, rather than a process of inexorable evolution and natural selection.
Humanity went crazy and a wave of violent prejudice quickly threatened the existence of the feared and despised metahuman lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, bloodshed grew to global panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), and the President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants.
The super-swift manipulator had a Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanity…
Quicksilver planned to co-opt the latest Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker had outwitted him by taking personal control of the entire program.
The hate-filled preacher then unleashed every killer robot in America’s arsenal to hunt down all remaining mutants wherever they might be hiding, turning a large part of the southwest USA into a killing zone where the freaks were held in experimental facilities, just waiting to die…
However in Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the humans guards and slaughtering Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the normals had been secretly perpetrating against the captives they erupted into open rebellion.
Tragically, before the situation could escalate further, the sky filled with unstoppable Nimrods who began their program of total eradication by indiscriminately targeting human and aberration alike…
…And after the camps, the Nimrods turned their attention on those human cities which foolishly allowed mutants to live amongst them, before beginning to construct their own robotic god and master – a Supreme Sentinel which somehow gained the personality of the recently killed Reverend Stryker…
Simultaneously in Washington DC, the President and the entire Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack from Reed Richards‘ future men of the Dome (that’s all in the Ultimates volumes) whilst Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War began…
Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence and had gathered a few young mutants together for safety. After vanishing during the burgeoning Asian conflict her role had been taken up by “Mutant Terrorist†and public enemy Kitty Pryde…
Now Jimmy Hudson (whose dead father Wolverine had been revealed as the Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’), languished in hiding with Pryde as well as Iceman Bobby Drake, Marian “Rogue†Carlisle and Human Torch Johnny Storm, all on the run ever since their friend and fellow teen prodigy Peter Parker was murdered in his Spider-Man identity…
The kids had been laying low after Stryker was killed trying to eradicate all of New York’s mutants in a televised ambush. The kids had all survived and subsequently become accidental guardians to a group of mutant children found in tunnels beneath the city…
Written in entirety by Brian Wood, the unRealpolitik begins with ‘Born Free’ (art by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot) as Kitty and her band reel in shock as President Howard officially cedes control of the Sentinel-held southwest states to human anti-mutant militias and mechanical murderers; legitimising the mass murder of their rare breed…
Unable to abide any more, Pryde decides to make a stand and invites any who feel the same to join her as she travels across her hostile homeland to Camp Angel. Only Johnny declines: as a mere enhanced human, he believes he’ll be safely left alone to look after their young mutant charges. He’s tragically mistaken and has sorely misjudged how much mankind can hate the different…
The twinned event begins with ‘Divided We Fall‘ and the 2-part ‘Road Worn’ as the freedom fighters escape from New York and slowly make their way across the broken country to Sentinel-subdued Arizona/New Mexico/Utah/Oklahoma, encountering and defeating vile prejudice and murderous men, but only by surrendering to those worst aspects of behaviour that they apparently share with savage unforgiving humanity…
At their lowest point the teen rebels link up with the long-undercover Nick Fury and a young mutant Paige Guthrie. The disgraced and disavowed superspy has been secretly saving the hunted Homo Superior and hiding them from the hordes of would-be genetic purifiers…
Now with inspirational and gutsy fighters to inspire his demoralised charges, Fury takes a back seat and schools Kitty in the role of Mutant Messiah for the upbeat fight back of ‘United We Stand:’ (illustrated by Barberi, Medina, Vlasco & Agustin Padilla)…
The desperate campaign begins with an assault on a newly constructed death-camp and the visible destruction of a brace of the not-so-invulnerable Nimrods, but these robot killers have hidden advantages the freedom fighters are painfully unaware of.
Soon the colossal Super Sentinel that thinks it is William Stryker is on the move with his entire artificial army assembled to wipe out the stain of mutants forever…
As other sectors of the sundered country begin their own climactic last battles, in the southwest states the tiny mutant force faces its greatest martial threat and emerges as an independent Mutant Nation, but victory only brings new problems…
This bombastic battle for life, liberty and honour is deliberately tangential to the other story arcs comprising the full saga (and can thus be read independently if desired), so I’m not going to spoil the manner in which Kitty’s magnificent triumph is soured, except to say that the new President of the forcibly re-United States extends the hand of friendship and cooperation whilst simultaneously offering the rebel leader the most punishing of choices…
The darkly trenchant, nihilistically cynical Ultimate fare, with its trademark post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but sweetens the deal here by offering a powerfully uplifting message of hope for the determinedly worthy that is both satisfying and keenly tantalising. However for maximum impact you really should read the other two collections in this triptych of comics delights…
As usual the volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants by Kaare Andrews, Dave Johnson & Phil Noto, Jorge Molina & Adi Granov, and this up-to-the-minute epic also incorporates 21st century extras for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.
Many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.
Stay tuned, fans, there’s much more to come…
™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.