Volume one of this series had a very similar vibe to Momoko's X-Men Demon Days. It's a beautifully watercolored magic story with characters reminiscent of X-Men but not adhered to any characteristics any X-Men have outside the Peach-Momoko-verse.

Volume two pulled in some wider Ultimate characters, and also threw the characters into a more familiar mutant arc as opposed to the basic magic friends story from volume one. I thought it was an improvement.

While volume three continues the mutant storyline, the characters are just incredibly flat. This reads less like a modern superhero book and more like a manga for young children. Not teens. Pre-teens.

The writing is incredibly basic. There's less of a plot and more of a hinted homage to every basic plot from children's' tv.

The art is, as usual in a Momoko book, spectacular. But Momoko has given no personality at all to any of these meticulously-designed characters. Every time a character appears they repeat what happened last time they were in the comic and then don't do anything worth talking about the next time they appear.

I don't really know where the story is going, but I also don't care where the story is going.

It's ok. Not every book needs to be aimed at my demographic, which is why I'm giving it a three, even though I didn't really enjoy it. I'm glad there are mediocre comics out there that don't look like or read like other mediocre superhero comics. I much prefer this to a Fabien Nicieza X-Men story, or many of the stories from the 2010s X-Men. At least it's different, and might grab a few readers who wouldn't usually pick up an X-Men book, but who see this artwork and decide to give it a shot.

The first (and I believe now it can be labeled "only") crossover event in Hickman's Ultimate Universe has about one and a half issues of ideas spread across five issues.

It's mostly a quest where Miles Morales (from the original Ultimate Universe, and later from the 616 Universe) follows his baby sister into a portal to the new Ultimate Universe. Apparently, she's somehow important to destroying/rebuilding the new Ultimate Universe...or the old one? I don't think the story tells you anything other than BABY IMPORTANT...for reasons.

Mostly, this series gives Miles a chance to interact with the various groups: The Spider-Men, the Ultimates, Black Panther's crew, and the X-Men. It's pretty by-the-numbers and none of the interactions appear to affect the regular series in any way.

Also, see how they placed Wolverine on the cover? I finished reading this yesterday and have no memory of him appearing in the book. I'm pretty sure he's not in it but I have no desire to pick the book back up and double check.

Everything about this is truly forgettable. Which means, at least, it isn't bad. It's just unnecessary and not as fun as I hoped it would be.

If you're planning on reading the entirety of this second Ultimate Universe, there's no reason NOT to pick this up. But there isn't a compelling reason to read it, otherwise.

This was an interesting evolution from volume one. The self-contained magic story gets a big push into a more common mutant-trope as it also pulls in some characters from the wider Ultimate-Universe, in order to set the stage for the upcoming Incursion.

I'm not sure it entirely works. The characters are still fairly flat, as all of them seem to have the same vocabulary, same temperaments, and same worldview. Even at the end when one of the characters seems to become someone altogether different, they still just feel stiff and without much purpose.

So the plot is kinda meh, but it's the same kinda meh that a lot of X-Men comics inhabit, but this has way better art.

I'm curious to see how this fits into the Incursion, but not terribly excited about what will happen in Ultimate X-Men Vol 3.

While there have been a few writers who've been able to tell really compelling stories using Marvel's most overused character, a lot of the stories with him are just "man with no memory kills things".

That's what this is.

If you like a Logan that kills but doesn't really talk, this is the book for you.

Condon's work in the first six issues have a lot of off-putting looking anatomy, which doesn't gel well with the dark colors and ultra-violence. His paneling is creative and cinematic but doesn't always serve the story well. The last two issues by Alex Lins are more cartoony but also suffer from odd poses and anatomical choices. I love his Leech and Artie but his Wolverine is neckless and often looks hunched.

One of the things I enjoyed about the early 2000s Ultimate Spider-Man was that Bendis often combined famous Spider-Man storylines so that the Doctor Octopus revenge story and the Kraven The Hunter storyline were told in an intertwining way, converging in the final issue. I loved that reimagining.

Hickman takes it a step further and throws a Kingpin/Sinister Six storyline that introduces Mr. Negative, throws in Kraven the Hunter, shows us the origin of Black Cat and gives us a wild variation of the clone saga storyline. All at once. They aren't just intertwining stories, they are one story setting out to tell several classic Spider-Man plots. And they work!

While I mostly enjoyed the first volumes of the 2023 Ultimate Marvel line, Spider-Man is, by far, the most fun volume two.

Once again, Spider-Man is the highlight of an Ultimate comic line!

I found the pacing of this volume pretty unimpressive. After a fun and conceptually satisfying Nick Fury issue, everything felt pretty stagnant. It was pretty much the opposite of what I enjoy about Ultimate titles. Usually, they take a couple or few familiar Marvel storylines, jumble them up and accelerate the storytelling. Here, each issue has one thought and it is draaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggged across an entire issue, so you get about two issues worth of stories over six issues.

It's by no means terrible, but it felt like a real letdown after what I thought was a really enjoyable first volume.

The last page reveal was pretty much the only exciting part after the Nick Fury issue.

A really fun action movie reinvention of the reinvented Avengers.

While this is completely readable as a follow-up to Ultimate Invasion, with no other context, it has some wonderful digs at the worst parts of the previous Ultimate Universe with with jabs at the horrible way Jeph Loeb wrote Giant Man and Wasp, and a one-panel middle finger to Mark Millar's foulest Captain America gag.

I really enjoy the potential of this series, and I'm sad that I'm already 1/4 of the way through it.

If you like quippy heroes with shallow but well-meaning political satire, this is a really solid book.

While I did enjoy this, I am very nervous about where this is going, since it appears to be going nowhere interesting.

The political intrigue portion of the book is fun. The mystical aspect is boring and doesn't appear to have a purpose in the larger narrative.

I hope I'm wrong, but the Moon Knight angle seems to have completely fizzled away, and they've introduced a major character who has very little backstory or personality.

A solid reimagining of the Black Panther, Storm, and Moon Knight characters and how they fit into the Ultimate Universe.

With no crossovers to the other titles, this is a contained story about T'challa struggling to keep Wakanda safe during the early days of his reign.

You don't need to know anything about any previous Black Panther or Ultimate stories to read and enjoy this. In this first volume, the book is as isolated from the rest of the Marvel Universe as Wakanda is.

I recommend it for Black Panther fans, people interested in Black Panther but not sure where a good entry point is, and people who wanted to be fans of Black Panther but had bad experiences with other runs. This is a solid political thriller book with a touch of mystic bologna, but not enough to leave a weird taste in your mouth.

This is more in-line with Momoko's Demon Days X-Men books. It's focused exclusively on non-white women (that's a plus!) who are teenagers (that's par-for-the-course for an introductory X-Men book). I like several things about this book (Momoko's art, especially).

I don't like that it's a magical/ghost story more than it's a mutant/science story.

That's okay. Not every book needs to be for me. But I really enjoy the idea of the cast for this book, even though they're unrecognizable from their 616 counterparts.

Unlike Hickman's "Ultimate Spider-Man", where he's taken the origin tropes away from Peter Parker, creating a new version of him, Momoko has just slapped X-Men powers on a group of high schoolers and is telling her own story.

Again, that's not necessarily bad, it's just not what I was hoping for. I'm curious how, if at all, this is going to fit into the larger Ultimate Universe, as it feels as disconnected from superhero comics as Demon Days.

If you like manga, this will feel familiar and probably a bit fun. If you're looking for a superhero comic about mutants, this isn't it.