Product Description

The deluxe hardcover reprints the materials from Ultimate X-Men Vol. 6: The Return of the King and the Ultimate X-Men Vol. V: Ultimate War storyline, plus extra bonus features! Professor X thought he'd solved the problem of Magneto, but the mutant master of magnetism has regained his memory and his mission! Now the X-Men are on the run, with the Ultimates hot on their trail! Can the X-Men stop Magneto before he executes his plan to enslave the human race?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #518970 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 312 pages

Customer Reviews

Great Edition, but the story isn't quite 5 stars
I'm lovin' the Hardcover Editions of Ultimate X-Men! I'm a bit old (and tight on money now that I'm an adult) to be spending all of my hard earned cash on single issues and then boxing them etc - so having 12 issues(!) collected in a well bound hardcover just like a book is the best! It goes on the shelf and looks all snazzy next to the other HC books I have. Not to mention, it's a lot harder to damage.

Now lets talk about the 12 issues for a second, this edition reprints Ultimate War #1-4 and then Ultimate X-Men #26-33 (Return of the King storyline). Also, they skip all of the extra stuff like the titles on the first splash page of each issue and replace it with a tasteful single page at the beginning. It makes for a much cleaner look and a real novel feel for the book.

Now the stories themselves didn't impress me as much as the first two HC editions of Ultimate X-Men (or first 4 trade paperbacks) but thats just me I guess. They're still good, but nothing beats seeing Magneto go crazy in the first story arc of Ultimate X-Men.

So, highly recommended and if you're looking to start reading Ultimate X-Men definitely go for the hardcover editions which are all available thru Amazon.com.

Millar's best
Ultimate X-men Hardcover Vol 3 collects Ultimate War 1-4 and Ultimate X-Men 26-33 and is easily the best Ultimate X-Men collection so far.

This is the first Ultimate X-Men novel where both stories (Ultimate War and Return of the King) actually tie into one another and as such it's a natural fit for the hardcover. Like The Ultimates it seems like one continuous story and does a much better job of drawing the reader in.

The two arcs collected in the hardcover are two of Millar's best on Ultimate X-Men and include more solid storylines like in the first two and the last arc (Return of the King) offers some of the strongest character development, including the beginning hints at Colossus' homosexuality.

The beginning artwork by Chris Bachalo is great, but probably the novels weakest point. While Bachalo is a very strong artist his work feels somewhat awkward in the more realistic Ultimate Universe. Otherwise the artwork is sensational and includes the first Ultimate X-Men comic illustrated by David Finch.

All in all this is one of the strongest collections of Ultimate X-Men comics and the best suited for the hardcover edition. If you don't already own it in comic or trade paperback form, and you're an Ultimate Marvel fan you'll want to check this one out.

Mental Midget Mark Millar Massacres Mutants Mercillessly
In what is surely the worst episode of Mark Millar's career, this book concludes his overblown, bombastic, silly, and nonsensical interpretation of the X-men. Previous volumes established the pattern: take familiar storylines from X-men history, and reinterpret/bowdlerize them in the most jacked-up, brainless "blockbuster" style, while erasing any trace of believable motivation, likeable characterizion, realistic dialog, and credible plotting. Add liberal doses of absurd and ridiculous military/industrial/political/presidential politics and intrigue that have absolutely no connection with reality, nor are they any credible exaggeration of reality.

Mr Millar is completely capable of works of super-hero genius. Read his brilliant "Marvel Knights Spider-Man" or "Wolverine: Enemy of the State" or "Civil War"--they are the some of the best Marvel Comics of the past 10 years. They feature huge-scale action, intrigue, excess, and yes, sometimes characterizations that are a little more smarmy than we are used to seeing in Marvel comics, but it all works.

Ultimate X-Men literally seems like something he farmed out to an understudy. Some apprentice teenager who he hired under the table to do his work for him. There is just nothing here to like. The characters are all stupid, or insane, or jerks, or just lacking in sensible motivation. The characters' powers are off the charts and ridiculous. The dialog is so over-the-top, everyone is constantly yelling at each other and spouting maniacal nonsense, or spicing their speech with military/espionage-poseur BS:

Nick Fury: "With Xavier down, that cult of his is just a bunch of TERRIFIED KIDS running around with the might of the U.S. MILITARY MACHINE on their tail." (word emphasis from the original!)

"The US military machine"?? That is so corny and ridiculous. But those kinds of lines are on every page. Everyone talks like that! Everyone tries to sound like they are too cool for school. But it doesn't work. They just sound like badly-written characters created by someone who's only knowledge of the world comes from watching Michael Bay movies.


On to the specifics about the stories in this volume. The first arc, "Ultimate War", deals with the Ultimates vs Magneto vs the X-Men. The characters of Magneto, Prof Xavier, Nick Fury, and Captain America are the main ones here. And they are completely annoying. Every line they spout is overblown with stupid braggadocio. The clash of wills between Magneto and Xavier is absurd. They are supposed to be the two poles to which mutants are supposed to gravitate, but their ideologies are so ridiculous and stupid that nobody could possibly fall for their BS. We've now had to slog through 35+ issues of Xavier and Magneto delivering interminable sermons. Their characters never behave or develop in credible ways. They simply brood, strut, spout crazy-talk, and order people around.

At one point, Xavier asks Jean Grey whether he's ever given her reason to doubt his judgment in the past, and she says no. That is absurd! Every story arc has featured his misjudgements--from brainwashing Magneto, to leaving his family and allowing his son to grow up crazy and kill hundreds of people, to being suckered in by the Hellfire Club-- everything Xavier has done on Millar's run has been disastrous. Yet everyone still acts like he's god, including himself! That's just bad writing: inexplicable character motivation and behavior.

In this Ultimate War arc, there are some pretty cool battles between the X-men and the Ultimates. The characters' powers and abilities play off interestingly against each other. The art by Chris Bachalo is generally excellent, one complaint being the fact that the art is so densely packed onto the page that you frequently have to work to figure out what is happening in the action sequences.


In the last half of the book, we have the final confrontation with Magneto, as he attempts to kill off the world's population by reversing the Earth's magnetic poles. There's a parallel plot in which Cyclops lies dying, dropped to the bottom of a gorge by Wolverine, who was trying to get him out the way in order to get with Jean Grey. Um, what? That is just stupid. It is not believable. It is also not believable that Cyclops would survive for days at the bottom of this gorge by eating bugs, then get rescued by Magneto's goons, then get completely healed by spending one day in a bed at Magneto's floating sanctuary. And it is certainly not believable that he would then take Wolverine back on the team at the end, with everything honkey-dorey.

The characters' powers are jacked up to the maximum as usual, so the battles and conflicts lack jeopardy. In one completely ridiculous situation, Magneto destabilizes the reactor of a nuclear power plant...so Jean Grey telekineticaly cuts out that section of the Earth's crust and flies it into outer space. Uh, WTF??? Stupid.

Xavier's relationship with Nick Fury continues to develop, in similarly ridiculous ways. Finally, in the last issue reprinted here, we are treated to yet another multi-page blab-fest when Xavier visists Magneto in prison. Haven't we all had enough of these two and their endless clash of wills? Especially as presented by this writer, the relationship between the two is simply devoid of nuance and utterly tiresome.

The good news is that this is the last of Millar's UXM. Next up, Brian Bendis and David Finch jump start a new direction for the book with a brilliant 12-issue run. Then, in volume 5, Brian K Vaughan and a roster of excellent artists truly take this book to the heights. If you've read this far, stick with this series, because it gets so much better.