Ultimate X-Men Collection, Book 4

Ultimate X-Men (Collected Editions) #7-8

by Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch (Artist)

This deluxe hardcover collects Ultimate X-Men Volume 7: Blockbuster and Ultimate X-Men Volume 8: New Mutants, plus a hefty helping of DVD-style extras. In Blockbuster, Wolverine returns to New York after a short time away from the X-Men - with a strange strike force armed with sophisticated military technology on his tail. To survive, he's forced to rely on the Big Apple's own Spider-Man and Daredevil - not to mention a little help from his fellow X-Men! In New Mutants, the President of the United States decides in the face of growing racism and paranoia between man and mutant that Professor X - with his mysterious psychic powers and shrouded background - might be the bigger problem. The President's get the U.S. Government involved in the mutant-training business. With the help of Emma Frost, the President handpicks a class of "New Mutants" to serve his political agenda - including Dazzler, Karma, Havok, and Polaris. But who is this mysterious Emma Frost and what is her connection to Xavier?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, X Men, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

304 pages, Hardcover

Published February 23, 2005

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Ultimate Collection book kicks off with the Ultimate X-Men, Volume 7: Blockbuster with Bendis taking over the writing, and just like that the book starts killing it… literally. A highly trained, highly effective, heavily armed force goes after Wolverine all guns blazing... in the middle of the day, in New York! Logan as left the X-Men in fear of pulling them down with him, but in the middle of NY, in the middle day, he does find allies, of sorts! And just like that, this series becomes a must-read.

Bendis is now fully in control of this series and slams in the momentous Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 8: New Mutants, where the 'New Mutants' are ones that the someone somewhere is trying to recruit for some reason or another. There are also new mutants for the X-Men, Angel and; in the best Ultimate comic book printed as of 2003, a mutant whose power is to kill any organic matter in his radius; how will the X-Men deal with that! Bendis brings the X-Men in line with the Ultimate Spider-Man and starts telling truly new stories with little relation to the mainstream universe, and does it very well. 8 out of 12 overall.

2022 read; 2017 read; 2011 read

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

"What do we do next?
I don't know."

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This particular volume is all too relevant in the hate-filled world of today. And Yesterday. And sadly tomorrow.

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

When we last left Ultimate X-Men it appeared that Mark Millar was hellbent on a scorched earth policy before leaving the book, leaving quite the mess to clean up for whatever creative team was going to follow his run. Enter Brian Michael Bendis, writer of the excellent Ultimate Spider-Man . His task--to clean up Millar's mess and shepherd the book until a different creative team could be assigned (it ended up being Brian K. Vaughan, but we'll discuss that when we get to the next volume.) The results? Well they are mixed at best.

Given how Millar left the book and especially Wolverine, Bendis had to bend himself in creative loops in order to try and restore some normalcy to the book. He starts by focusing on the problem child himself, Wolverine, bringing both Spider-Man (who Bendis was writing at the time in Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil, who up to this point had only been seen ina pre-costumed version in the Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra miniseries. In some ways, this is a smart move given Wolverine's spurious status with the X-Men at the end of Millar's run and is actually a setup for the larger story arc that fills out the rest of the volume and brings the X-Men back in the fold to address the new conflict. In the end, while not as messy as Millar's end of his run, there are still some major things that go down here that would have been difficult for the next creative team to address, although given how I recently felt after reading the first collection of Vaughan's Runaways , I'm looking forward to where this is headed.

Ultimately (pun intended?) I think Millar left too big of a mess for Bendis to clean up in a way that would be satisfying to folks who, like me, found Millar's take on the X-Men to be a lame rip off of stuff that came before (especially the Claremont/Byrne run) and when he did attempt to strike out on his own, he made the worst of narrative decisions. Perhaps if Bendis had committed to the book for longer he would have been able to accomplish more, but with his focus on Ultimate Spider-Man it's not shocking that he didn't want to stick around.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvel struck gold when they launched the Ultimate X-Men series. By unshackling the popular characters from four decades of convoluted continuity and starting fresh, they were able to let new fans and old in on the X-Men from ground zero. I've been following this series through these deluxe hardcover collections, which contain roughly a year's worth of individual issues and at least two full story arcs.

The fourth Ultimate X-Men hardcover collection includes the following issues:

Blockbuster - You'd think the X-Men would get a chance to catch their breaths after their recent cataclysmic confrontation with Magneto. Instead, Wolverine spends this entire arc being hunted by rogue Weapon X agents who want him dead. Spider-Man and Daredevil are Wolverine's backup support in this arc, written by Ultimate Spider-Man scribe Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by David Finch. I find the Ultimate Spider-Man character extremely annoying, and the Ultimate Daredevil has none of the personality Bendis gave the "real" Daredevil in his legendary run on that title. Still, this was a fun team-up story, and the artwork was just gorgeous.

New Mutants - Bendis and Finch continue their run with this story arc, which finds one time Xavier student Emma Frost leading a new government sponsored mutant team, which includes some very familiar faces. Unfortunately the team's debut is interrupted by an assassination attempt and Sentinel mayhem. Oh, and an X-Man dies at the end.

If anyone was capable of following Mark Millar on this title, it's Bendis (or maybe Warren Ellis). Bendis has a great understanding of what makes the Ultimate Marvel Universe work so well, and he's not afraid to shake things up. The fact that he's paired with an artist of Finch's caliber is the icing on the cake.

I highly recommend Ultimate X-Men, not only to new X-fans who might be bewildered by the continuity of the older series, but to old school X-Men fans like me. If you keep an open mind, you should find this series quite enjoyable.

[Krzysztof Grabowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Czwarty już tom przygód tych "innych" X-men, którzy broją w świecie Ultimate, gdzie wszystko może się wydarzyć, gdyż główna linia wydawnicza Marvela dzieje się w innym świecie. Zatem nie zdziwcie się, że autorzy bardzo łatwo pozbywają się różnych postaci, dając nam okazję to paru zaskoczeń.

Tym razem na moment serię objął Bendis, któremu ewidentnie jeszcze się chciało pracować i tworzyć dobre opowieści, choć trzeba przyznać, że całość nastawiona jest raczej na więcej akcji. I w pierwszym momencie dużo poświęca się miejsca Wolverine'owi, na którego ktoś poluje. Będzie to oczywiście większą intryga, ale poturbowany Rosomak może liczy na pomoc... A jakże, Spider-Mana oraz Daredevila. Niecodzienna gromadka musi dać odpór kilku wojakom z projektu X. Będzie dużo wybuchów i żartów niskich lotów. Fajnie.

Potem autor poszerzy trochę paletę X-men dodając nam Angela, który ma własne problemy. Nieco gmatwa relacje Beasta, oraz wprowadza nam nową grupkę mutantów pod dowództwem... prezydenta Stanów Zjednoczonych, który próbuje polepszyć swój wizerunek, jaki człowieka odseparowanego od Xaviera. Dochodzą tu m. in. Emma Frost czy Alex Summers. Oczywiście nic nie może pójść prosto, bowiem ktoś w rządzie planuje sabotaż planów głowy państwa. Fury będzie miał sporo roboty

Całość w interpretacji Fincha wygląda bajecznie, co widać po twarzach. Jest kolorowo, dużo bardziej niż w poprzedniej historii o Magneto, ale i akcenty są tu inaczej rozłożone.

Bywa przygnębiająco, jak historia pewnego mutanta, który wydzielał kwas przez skórę, przez co wszyscy wokół niego ginęli. Końcowo odwiedza go Wolverine i załatwia sprawę, pokazując jaką tragedią może być mutacja. Pożegnamy też przyjaciela.

Kolejny dobry tom, tym razem w interpretacji Bendisa. Na półce już mi się grzeje kolejny, z pewnością sięgnę. I myślę, że to wystarczy za rekomendację.

[RafaCSQ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, I will give this one a four. Might be a stretch, but overall it works. Main reasons:
1. I like Finch's pencils;
2. Ultimate Spider-man is in here;
3. Bendis writes dialogues and characters better than Millar;
4. This has one of the best X-Men issues ever (#41).

So yeah, a good one. Also, interesting political plot, but I wish Bendis remained on the book longer, so we could have seen it being developed in more issues. One thing to note is that a certain character dies in this book, and the fact that I felt absolutely nothing because of it says a lot about how poorly he was depicted in this universe.

Overall, I think I had higher expectations because of prime Bendis on this one. But it works, I enjoyed my time reading it, and it kept me in for the next ones.

[Evan Dossey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bendis was writing Ultimate Spider-Man at the time and still deep within its golden era when he took a fill-in gig on UXM between departing Millar and arriving Vaughan. His run on UXM is very wolverine centric without ever being about anything, and without answering any questions it raises. Finch's art is appreciated but otherwise it's just really dull. Kudos for featuring the ever-wasted Ultimate Daredevil Character.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad times. This book ends with the death of the Beast, who should probably never die. Arguably, you could build the entire line around that character.

The Wolverine story feels a little bit like it's really a Spider-Man story? And then the second story feels largely build-y.

[Rangga Sukmawijaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dua episode yang berbeda dalam satu kumpulan koleksi. Yang pertama adalah misteri yang melingkupi kehidupan Logan alias Wolverine, dimana ia diburu oleh tentara-tentara misterius. Di sini dikisahkan ia dibantu oleh Spider-Man dan Daredevil. Episode yang kedua adalah cerita mengenai munculnya mutan-mutan baru dan juga musuh baru X-Men.

[Ty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the spiderman issues but I'm just gonna read that story next so it feels kinda weird. he pretty much just wrote wolverine and no real team dynamic.

[Dony Grayman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bastante seguro de que no tenía casi ningún issue de este tomo en ediciones anteriores. Alguno en revista a lo sumo.

[Pedro Espada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomo trascendental en la saga Ultimate mutante,con mucha accióny personajes nuevos. Muy bueno

[Holden Attradies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid read. Perhaps not one of the strongest in the ultimate X-men line, but faaaaaar from the worst.

Just about all of the story lines with Wolverine and Peter Parker had some awesome comedic moments, and the story line in here with Parker didn't disappoint.

I'm not sure how I felt about Ultimate Emma Frost. I liked that she ideologically opposed to Xavier without being an out right villain, and I liked how her ideology was shown not to work in the real world. I guess I just wish that aspect of that particular story would have been flushed out more. Perhaps it is later on?

[Ramón Nogueras Pérez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia muy amena que cruza a Lobezno con Spiderman y con Daredevil, cuando el primero se pone emo y deja la patrulla X y resulta que todavía le siguen persiguiendo y acaban en territorio de Daredevil. A partir de ahí la historia escala haciendo honor a su título, hasta acabar en un cipote tremendo que, por alguna razón, me parece un poco desconectado del resto del universo, como pasa con el cine donde los X Men iban a la suya. Igualmente, interesante.

[Nicolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

On retrouve à novueau les X-Men dans leurs aventures d'une complexité inégalable.
Je trouve que, dans la premmière partie, qui donne sa couverture à ce recueil, Spiderman est juste bouffon. A part, ça, comme d'habitude, Wolverine est clairement mon idole.

[Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

The interactions between SpiderMan and Wolverine cracked me up.

[Gary Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 4

[Josephine (biblioseph) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complete review forthcoming.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

normally, I'm all about Wolverine.. but this story-arc was lame

[Willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to give this 0 stars because of all the feels at the end but given the emotional impact of said feels, I have to go with my initial thoughts and give it 5 stars.