Luke and Devin are back with the X-men who have all been arrested for doing crimes to the government, except for Wolverine who is Canadian and is therefore above the law?!? Also Gambit is here with his love for Oscar winning soundtracks and then Professor X has a son and he just kinda quits at the end. Ultimate X-men!

Oh, and Rhythm Bastard made out new theme song.

Issues Covered:

• Ultimate X-men Vol 1 #7-20

Other Things Referenced:

• X-plain the X-men on Fatal Attractions 
• Exiles World Tour
• Exiles written by Chuck Austen
• Battle of the Atom on Chuck Austen 
• Monster Factory Sweeps

Check out the show notes and images after the jump!

Ultimate X-men #7-20

Return to Weapon X – #7-12

Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Adam Kubert, Tom Ramey, Tom Derenick Inks – Art Thibert, Scott Hanna, Joe Kubert, Danny Miki, Larry Stucker Colors – Richard Isanove, Jung Choi, Transparency Digital, David Stewart Letters – Richard Starkings and Comicrafts’ Wes Abbott and Saida!

In Finland, Nightcrawler, a blue furred demonic looking mutant with teleportation powers, works to escape a mysterious facility while being watched by Dr. Cornelius and Wraith. Despite his best efforts he is ultimately captured and returned to SHIELD’s Weapon X program.

Meanwhile Wolverine has arrived at a now abandoned Arizona base, as he seeks revenge for them experimenting on him, with help from Professor X.

Back at the X-mansion Beast, Hank McCoy, and Marvel Girl, Jean Grey, talk about how Xavier keeps the mansion safe by making it look like a Jehova’s Witness Chapter, as she makes sure Beast is doing alright.

Meanwhile Cyclops, Scott Summers, Storm, Ororo Munroe, and Colossus, Piotr Rasputin, are doing a tour in Japan where they are beloved by the Japanese population in a way that is sort of weird. As they walk through a crowd, a mysterious female mutant with a streak of white hair touches Colossus as they board the Blackbird. This mutant named Rogue was able to use her powers to find out the location of the X-men’s base as they seek revenge and to recapture Wolverine.

Cyclops and Wolverine meanwhile go after the Russian mob boss who brought Colossus over and threaten him to drop the deal and on the way back, Cyclops offers the help of the X-men if Wolverine ever needs it.

Outside of town Beast and Storm are having a nice afternoon as Storm practices flying and Hank is having serious self esteem issues because he doesn’t understand why Storm is attracted to him.

Back at the mansion Iceman, Bobby Drake, returns after a visit home for his mother’s birthday and Professor X and Jean discuss the fact that Bobby bragged about being an X-men. Professor X has issues with the idea of erasing it from his mind but ultimately it feels like he just wanted Jean’s approval before he did it and Wolverine leaves to go hunt Weapon X.

Colossus asks Iceman about the girl later on and he doesn’t know what Colossus is talking about but before it gets any further Weapon X attacks with a mix of troops, the Juggernaut who is a big boy in a gimp helmet and Sabretooth. Sabretooth quickly takes out Beast and Storm, while Nightcrawler incapacitates Cyclops by stealing his visor while Colonel Wraith watches on. Bobby goes to attack but Rogue using Jean Grey’s powers makes Bobby relive his appendix removal without anesthetic and they drag Xavier out last and bring all the X-men back to their base.

Nick Fury meanwhile is in Dehli looking for an illegal genetics testing lab which he finds using his super spy tech until he gets captured. Weapon X is informed of this after all of the other retrieval attempts fail by General Ross who also explains the secret base is currently moving and Nick Fury’s spy brain is on the line. Wraith, who has been conditioning the X-men brags about capturing them which pisses off Ross and Wraith also insults Sabretooth by calling him the poor man’s Wolverine. Wraith also shows that he has been experimenting on Beast with help from Dr. Cornelius and Ross gets angrier especially since they don’t have Wolverine so Ross just tells him to get Fury.

Meanwhile in the prison, Rogue and Juggernaut are angry that the X-men stopped Magneto because they wanted to go to the Savage Land and have already taken to deifying him. Cyclops meanwhile believes the president will help him but nobody else thinks so, while Jean psychically communicates with Nightcrawler in his dreams to help him since he only speaks German but it is weird because she is completely fine with him picturing her in her underwear which – Jean is just kind of a bunch of weird choices. They get interrupted when Beast is returned and now he is all blue.

The X-men are then sent to India in two teams – one with Beast, Sabretooth, Iceman and Colossus is sent to save Nick Fury while Jean, Cyclops, Storm, and Nightcrawler are being sent to complete Fury’s mission and they have bombs in their bodies to kill them if they don’t comply. Meanwhile Wraith plans to use Cerebro to hunt down Wolverine.

Fury is currently on a train so the X-men work together to derail it using Colossus and Beast retrieves Fury. Meanwhile Cyclop’s team finds a massive mutant hivemind essentially and are forced to blow it up which they accomplish. Jean and Storm are meanwhile ordered to kill the doctor in charge of research and Jean doesn’t want to so Wraith threatens Cyclops and she makes the choice as the Doctor, Atul Pandva begs for his life and mentions he has a family and is a person, but Jean goes through with it.

When they return Jean won’t talk and Iceman is having severe issues as well as Colossus tries to convinced him that Wolverine will save them all – until he turns up as well – having been captured.

Meanwhile Cornelius tries to warn Wraith that despite the successes of Weapon X, the program will be shut down, but he doesn’t listen because he plans to use Professor X to control everyone in SHIELD.

We then get a flashback to 11 years ago in Kuwait with Nick Fury when Weapon X was freed in an attack. Wolverine ended up finding Fury after killing the attackers and Fury, who lost his eye, begs for death. Instead, Wolverine returns Fury to the camp alive and collapses and Wolverine is captured and returned to his cage by Wraith’s orders.

Back in the present, Fury has returned home to find a new message on his phone from Wolverine.

Wraith gets a call about the cutbacks he’s getting and is told Weapon X will be phased out in two more years and he’ll be expected to free and compensate every mutant. Wraith refuses to accept it though, unaware that the Ultimates are being set up, and so he uses Professor Xavier to destroy the military base – somehow.

Sabretooth meanwhile brought Wolverine out to the cold with a charcoal grill and all of Wolverine’s files – including those from before he lost his memory and Sabretooth lights them on fire and laughs about Wolverine’s wife and kid who he killed. As this is going on though, Cornelius notes an abnormality in Wolverine – one Wraith recognizes as a tracking device and the power to the base goes off freeing the mutants as the Brotherhood of Mutants – Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Blob, Toad, and Mastermind appear – having just removed the bombs in them.

With Wolverine freed Sabretooth prepares to fight, revealing he now has adamantium teeth and four claws on each hand. Inside the X-men fight and Wraith, worried about Xavier, shoots him three times in the chest and prepares to try and escape. Cornelius tries to save Xavier and when the Beast finds them, he realizes they need to work together.

Sabretooth and Wolverines fight keeps going on with Sabretooth ultimately trying to drown Wolverine till he gets stabbed in the nards and tossed off a cliff by Logan. Meanwhile Colossus wants to destroy the entire Weapon X base complete with everyone inside but Jean works to stop him using her powers, while Blob is holding down Wraith’s helicopter. Cyclops wants them to stop them but Jean wants them to live by Xavier’s dream and Cyclops relents but Storm is still angry, especially after what they did to Beast so she uses her powers to blow up Wraith’s helicopter – but not before Nightcrawler saves him, saying he didn’t want Storm to be a killer. Wraith, being a major asshole prepares to kill Nightcrawler anyway but then Fury shows up and murders Wraith and apologizes and Wolverine explains that he called them in, because Fury actually freed him last time.

The X-men return to their quickly rebuilt home and she asks him how they could deal with having killed and Xavier said he doesn’t kill – which is a surprise because everyone believes he killed Magneto.

 

Ultimate X-men 13-14 – Thief in the Night

Writer – Chuck Austen, Pencils – Esad Ribic, Inks – John Livesay, Colors – J.D. Smith, Letters – Sharpefont

In New York the fonts are actively bad. Also a young girl sees Hammerhead, a man with a very flat head, kill her parents. He tries to kill her too but she escapes. Meanwhile Gambit is being a card sharp doing tricks and talking in a Cajun accent and sometimes using his combustion powers.

The young girl asks for help because she sees he can do magic and she wants Gambit to bring her parents back to life. Gambit using the Creole slangbook that Chuck brought decides to help but her family is too far away and she doesn’t understand the limitations to Gambit’s magic and she thinks he is a wizard and honestly, I wouldn’t mind Gambit being more magic.

He offers to help, and uses her to help run cons but she messed with the plans when he tries to steal a fully cooked chicken or like – peahen? They get offered a place to stay but doesn’t accept and leads them to stay in the abandoned subway car. They go to listen to music and just a weird bit is Gambit being all about Allison Krauss and he theoretically has the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack on tape but she falls asleep in his lap and then he falls asleep.

When he wakes up she is missing. He breaks into a card game trying to find what happened to her and ultimately threatens Patch who tells him to look for Hammerhead who works for Silvermane. Patch and another guy draw guns on one another and kill each other. Gambit, looking for the girl, who never gets a name, bumps into Xavier who tells him off and also hints that Xavier would molest him. Chuck.

Gambit goes to Silvermane’s office and blows stuff up until he gets directions and he ends up getting surrounded. Hammerhead says Silvermane sold the girl to Nathaniel Essex but he doesn’t believe it, starts making more explosions, loses his shirt, and gets his ass beat by Hammerhead who gloats the girl is still alive, and so Gambit blows up Hammerhead’s head. Jesus Chuck. And then he rescues the girl, takes her to the people who offered a safe house earlier, distracts her and then abandons her only to I guess, stop by later to drop off a heart.

 

Ultimate X-men 15 – It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Adam Kubert, Inks – Danny Miki, Colors – J.D. Smith and Dave Stewart, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos

The framing device here is Professor X is penning an article about mutants to help promote his book by talking about the school where we get a lot of weird moments, some nice moments and a reassertion of the status quo. Like the X-men play baseball and Hank says he’s going to masturbate to HBO. Professor X also equates the mutant abilities to being able to play music and doesn’t really get a lot of apt comparisons.

We find out some things like Marvel Girl is working to help the police solve missing persons cases, Storm is helping to use her powers in farming communities, Cyclops spends his free time helping underprivileged youth, Bobby is a major creep who tries to see Storm and Jean nude but also gives sandwiches to homeless men – which is a weird one. Beast is working on new open source drug patents and he’s also cybering with someone. Also Wolverine and Colossus are working as detectives for fun.

We find out Spike Lee is making a Magneto biopic which seems to be not great considering, and we find out the Brotherhood of Mutants under Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are working on alternate wars to deal with aggression towards mutants, and that Toad and Cyclops are good friends who like the Lord of the Rings.

The last thing is that Xavier reveals that Magneto is still alive but Xavier has edited his mind preventing him from accessing his memories or his powers and he believes he is Erik Lensherr and Xavier didn’t think he should die. There’s also some weirdness where his watch is only working like a compass and when he thinks he recognizes Xavier, Charles edits his mind again.

At the end we find out that Beast is actually chatting with Blob, unknowingly, and Xavier’s article doesn’t get published because it is too pro-mutant or I think – it is not a well written article.

 

Ultimate X-men 16-19 – World Tour

Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Adam Kubert, Inks – Danny Miki, Art – Chris Bachalo Colors – Dave Stewart, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos

In Scotland the police check out a boat that came from the mutant populated island of Muir Island. When they get on they find only one survivor, a professor, currently possessed by David, a mutant who jumps into the body of one of the rescue workers, kills the others and heads to Burger King.

Earlier in London the X-men landed as part of Professor X’s book tour where Jean and Storm work together to stop a gunner, while in a club in Soho Bobby accidentally reveals the X-men are at the bar causing Wolverine and Colossus’ drug sting to fall apart. And in Leicester Square Cyclops and Beast stop a mugging.

All of the stories are shared in the morning and Professor X grades all of them but because the groups beyond Beast and Cyclops caused a lot of collateral damage, they get the best grade and he reminds them to try and not make humans more afraid of mutants.

As they go to their next conference, Colossus vanishes and they are worried about him but before they can do anything else, Moira MacTaggart calls to say their son David escaped.

The X-men go to Muir Island which is set up as a mutant hospital to help those who can’t function in regular society. Moira explains she was previously married for 15 years, and is financed by the same people mysteriously financing the X-men.

When David’s powers activated which caused his body to destroy itself so they kept him sedated for a while but now he can swap bodies but it runs them down.

The X-men are joined by STRIKE Agents, Dai Thomas and Colonel Betsy Braddock of the Psi-Division with STRIKE being British SHIELD. Charles tracks them to Aberdeen finally breaking out of his stupor and find Proteus in the Burger King where he has killed everyone else, he tosses the Professor from his chair and comes out possessing Wolverine and reality bending powers.

He knocks out Beast and Iceman but Storm and the telepaths come in and try to stop him, so he runs away, and switches into a trucker’s body who drives over Wolverine.

Meanwhile in Russia, Cyclops and Jean are going after Colossus who quit the team to help retrieve a stuck submarine. They talk about how Wolverine seems to want Jean and Scott to spend time together even though Scott still has issues talking about how he feels but when they find Colossus they tell him to leave.

Betsy finds the wreck where Proteus lost control of the truck and calls the X-men and Moira in and a still recovering Wolverine warns that David wants Xavier killed.

Cyclops and Jean try to convince Colossus to help but he mentions the Ultimates should do it. Colossus explains that he can live without using or managing his powers and he wants that life because he can do that.

Meanwhile the X-men are in Berlin chasing David with some promised help coming from SHIELD based on Betsy leading the team and Moira realizes David is heading to where Charles and David were on the last family vacation. Betsy asks if Xavier plans to help his son and Charles believes he can be a hero.

We find out that Charles and Moira got married very early, she helped build Cerebro, and then Magneto showed up and got Charles attention so he gave less attention to David before he left, got crippled and started up the X-men and Xavier regrets not being there for his son, but more because it’s like he didn’t train his dog on where to pop.

Meanwhile the Ultimates are too busy to save the sub and Jean and Scott try to convince Colossus to help and he brings up how Magneto isn’t dead but Scott and Jean aren’t really listening and Colossus brings up how they don’t know him and in the first of several bad clues that Colossus is gay, his favorite show is Will and Grace. Ultimately though, Colossus at home with his family sees the news talk about the families of the sailors on the sub and goes to help them.

And Charles and Betsy share a night in the park and Charles reveals that he knows David had possessed Betsy when she found the car wreck first, she killed Dai Thomas, pretended to call the Ultimates and SHIELD and has been waiting to improve the power control and now plans to get revenge.

Storm meanwhile wonders if Professor X is manipulating the X-men considering how much their lives have changed when they are found by David who beings changing Betsy’s body into a weird Scott MacFarland-esqe creature with nails in its head and chains. Wolverine tries to drive their car into him but he easily stops them and pushes Xavier to try and lead the team. David tries to tempt Beast by making him beloved but when Beast rejects the offer he admits it was a lie and knocks him out. He goes to attack Cyclops next who takes him by surprise while Xavier inspires Iceman to attack – only for him to get knocked down.

David starts teleporting Charles around the world to major cities and killing hundreds and then thousands instantly until Betsy starts to regain consciousness inside. He weakens her enough and Betsy asks to be killed and Charles won’t so Colossus does, smashing David with a car and Iceman falls unconscious.

They meet at Betsy’s funeral and Xavier feels like his dream because he was careless is dead especially with Bobby being taken out of the school and so he plans to shut it down.

 

Ultimate X-men #20

Writer – Mark Millar, Pencils – Adam Kubert, Inks – Danny Miki, Colors – Dave Stewart, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos

While the X-men fight the Acolytes in New Zealand, Xavier pens his resignation letter, essentially saying that he failed and his dream is over and he is going to undo the blocks he put on Magneto.

Meanwhile Wolverine and Colossus discuss how the Acolytes they found left the Brotherhood because they didn’t think Magneto’s kids were following his legacy.

Charles goes to meet Erik Lensherr, Magneto’s new personality, and mentions how he is going to close the school which shocks Erik because he doesn’t blame Xavier for what happened but Xavier sees the fact that they had to kill David as proof that Magneto is right.

Meanwhile Beast and Storm work on the Danger Room but Beast is worried Storm was just made to love him and he can’t logically understand it.

Erik points out that Magneto had the less progressive mindset, the more gut reaction and that the Brotherhood is following Charles ideas now but Charles just feels empty and that he can’t be emotionally available and that nobody wants to hear him. Erik reveals though, that he bought tickets to listen to the professor and he hugs him.

Meanwhile Jean and Cyclops visit Bobby in the hospital and they talk feelings and they kiss and Xavier decides to keep the school open.