Warning: Contains potential spoilers for Ultimate X-Men (2024) #1!Marvel’s new Ultimate Universe is introducing its own Ultimate X-Men, and a new variant cover perfectly captures both of the team’s two announced heroes. It’s a unique cast for an X-Men book, and one that promises to tell a different type of story than readers are used to. It’s a younger team for a newer universe, one in which many of the heroes that readers might expect aren’t around at the moment.
As first revealed by Marvel, readers have gotten a new look at the heroes of Peach Momoko’s upcoming Ultimate X-Men via Mark Brooks’ variant cover for Ultimate X-Men #1.
The heroes included are classic X-Men character Armor aka Hisako Ichiki, and Momoko’s own new character, Maystorm, who first appeared as Momoko’s design for Storm’s young sidekick as part of Marvel’s “New Champions” initiative. These two younger heroes are the only two characters announced yet for the team, an in-universe inauspicious start for one of Marvel’s biggest factions.
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One of the New Ultimate X-Men Has a Surprising Real-World Origin
Under Brooks’ pen, Maystorm’s clothing contains buttons referencing various Marvel heroes and teams. This design element also featured in Momoko’s original New Champions painting, which debuted as a variant cover to X-Men (2019) #27. However, since none of the characters that the buttons reference have appeared in this universe yet, and Momoko’s Maystorm design sheet for the upcoming series doesn’t include these button logos, it’s likely this is just Brooks taking a page from Momoko’s original piece. It’s a great Easter egg, but shouldn’t be taken too literally as a hint towards the story.
Momoko’s run spins out of the setup of Ultimate Invasion and Ultimate Universe #1.
In these stories, the evil alternate Reed Richards known as the Maker secretly takes over the newly introduced Earth-6160, preventing this Ultimate Universe’s superheroes from emerging. Readers get their first hints of the Ultimate X-Men in Ultimate Invasion #1 when a news report mentions the miraculous survival of a girl involved in a car accident in Hi No Kuni aka Japan. This is almost certainly Armor’s powers catalysing, which is backed up by seeing the moment from her perspective in Marvel’s own trailer for Ultimate X-Men.
This is a Shockingly Small X-Men Team So Far
Momoko’s roster is so far shying away from classic X-Men mainstays, at least in preview art. While a new Ultimate Storm, also designed by Momoko, is appearing in Bryan Edward Hill and Stefano Caselli’s Ultimate Black Panther, this new world is still bereft of most of its classic X-Men. This suggests that perhaps the Maker has dealt with classic X-characters like he has other superheroes. It’s notable, though, that Momoko’s roster only includes two heroes so far, so there’s still plenty of room for other characters to join the fledgling team.
It will be interesting to see how this limited roster impacts the story. If Armor and Maystorm feel like they’re alone in being mutants, then it might only amplify their sense of isolation. They’re still young, and it’s easy to imagine that their mutantdom only exacerbates the usual teenage feelings of loneliness. It’s a dynamic that’s under-explored in X-Men. While there are numerous teams of younger mutants, they’re usually larger, more established, ensembles. For the new UltimateX-Men, hatred and fear becomes much more potent when there’s only a few of them.
Ultimate X-Men #1 will be available March 6 from Marvel Comics.
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