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Ultimate X-Men (Collected Editions) #9
Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 9: The Tempest
The X-Men team have become more that just a team - they've bacome a family. but even the strongest family can be ripped apart by tragedy...and the death of one of their own leaves the remaining X- Men struggling to deal with the loss. Then Mr. Sinister arrives, intent on giving the X-Men a lot more to mourn.
Collecting: Ultimate X-Men 46-49
Collecting: Ultimate X-Men 46-49
112 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2006
7 people are currently reading
422 people want to read
About the author
Brian K. Vaughan
1,057 books14.2k followersBrian K. Vaughan is the writer and co-creator of comic-book series including SAGA, PAPER GIRLS, Y THE LAST MAN, RUNAWAYS, and most recently, BARRIER, a digital comic with artist Marcos Martin about immigration, available from their pay-what-you-want site www.PanelSyndicate.com
BKV's work has been recognized at the Eisner, Harvey, Hugo, Shuster, Eagle, and British Fantasy Awards. He sometimes writes for film and television in Los Angeles, where he lives with his family and their dogs Hamburger and Milkshake.
BKV's work has been recognized at the Eisner, Harvey, Hugo, Shuster, Eagle, and British Fantasy Awards. He sometimes writes for film and television in Los Angeles, where he lives with his family and their dogs Hamburger and Milkshake.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
April 23, 2020
Sinister: I know Xavier's greatest weakness.
Xavier: What are you doing?
Sinister: STAIRS!
*Proceeds to throw Xavier down a flight of stairs*
Okay I know it's bad to laugh but it did, and Sinister is a piece of shit here but damn if he isn't fun. I love a good villain and when Sinister is introduced as a horseman to Apoclypse, the X-Men have a new baddie to deal with. Rogue, Nightcrawler, Angel and more get to shine here as new members of the X-Men team. We also get Dazzlers crazy ass to help too.
Overall, this is a quick but fun volume of X-men. To see them all have to figure out how to stop someone as sinister as Sinister was fun. Brian K Vaughan keeps the dialogue tight with some good jokes, good character motivation, and fights. This continues bendis strong run for the series and I'll jump into the next one soon!
A 4 out of 5.
Xavier: What are you doing?
Sinister: STAIRS!
*Proceeds to throw Xavier down a flight of stairs*
Okay I know it's bad to laugh but it did, and Sinister is a piece of shit here but damn if he isn't fun. I love a good villain and when Sinister is introduced as a horseman to Apoclypse, the X-Men have a new baddie to deal with. Rogue, Nightcrawler, Angel and more get to shine here as new members of the X-Men team. We also get Dazzlers crazy ass to help too.
Overall, this is a quick but fun volume of X-men. To see them all have to figure out how to stop someone as sinister as Sinister was fun. Brian K Vaughan keeps the dialogue tight with some good jokes, good character motivation, and fights. This continues bendis strong run for the series and I'll jump into the next one soon!
A 4 out of 5.
November 19, 2017
Another really interesting story line. Brian K. Vaughn crafting a damn good yarn with plenty of action, characterization, and team bonding. Honestly, I keep liking this series more and more.
July 4, 2016
How much you like this volume will probably depend greatly on how much you like the 616 version of Sinister. This volume is basically about Ultimate Sinister, who is a very different character from the original. This version of Sinister is not, apparently, a mutant, nor is he much of a genius. Instead, he's an unstable man with a gun, killing mutants on the orders of Apocalypse. Here, Apocalypse is either a voice in his head or something that he's channeling. It certainly seems to be the former, but I'm not ruling anything out at this point. This is, indeed, quite a different vision of the character. I didn't particularly care for it, but then, I'm not terribly attached to Sinister as a villain. Hate the original Sinister? This might intrigue you. Sinister was your favorite? Yeah, you might want to skip this one. That aside, it's a nicely plotted and paced story. Not the best Ultimate book yet, but a very good one.
September 2, 2009
Ultimate X-Men: Volume 9: The Tempest is a well-paced action story that does little more than keep superhero comics ordinary and average.
If you haven’t read the comics, seen the cartoons, movies or the TV show rip-offs, the X-Men are a group of people who mutated into beings with superhero powers. Some of these mutations leave them looking like regular people (but with the ability to say, read minds or run through walls), whereas others are more overtly freakish. They often fight against other mutants while maintaining a high moral standard in an attempt to sway prejudiced humans to accept them. This may seem obvious to anyone who’s paid attention to anything comics-related in the last 45 years, but when Marvel launched the Ultimate series in 2000, it was done in an attempt to bring in new fans who couldn’t jump into an ongoing comic without knowing the convoluted (and often conflicting) past storylines. They started from scratch, redoing the origins of a lot of heroes and villains, even going so far as to bring in a decent group of writers to update and tweak the now classic characters for a new generation. For an industry that had simply been gouging the collectors for way too long—rehashing old storylines, putting out the same comic with multiple covers simply because the nerds would pay—this seemed like not only a step in the right direction, but a necessary move to retrieve burned out fans and ignite new interest.
Nerds, however, are strange creatures, often with an insistent demand that the rules/standards be retained (even though the problems comic book producers created seem to clearly disregard that), but then again, there are enough universes per superhero that I’m sure you’ll run into one you don’t like along the way. Though I’ve enjoyed the Ultimate reworkings of (at least for me) formerly boring villains—namely Venom in Ultimate Spiderman—this time around it was my favorite (X-Men) villain that got relaunched and I can’t say I’m thrilled with the results produced by writer Brian K. Vaughn. Even though the pacing is well done, impressively using the visual storytelling to cram in multiple character plotlines in such a small space, sometimes there are just too many X-Men for one poor little comic to take, and this time, it’s the villain Mr. Sinister who gets the shaft.
In Ultimate X-Men 9, the X-Men are looking for an untraceable man going around killing mutants. This man cannot be tracked by scent, mind control, or really anything except the naked eye when he’s standing right in front of you. This man is Mr. Sinister. Admittedly, Mr. Sinister was one of those characters where his powers—seemingly more mental than physical, based on what is given to him by a super mutant or genetic manipulation—were never quite defined, but unlike most undefined powers prone to plot abuse (akin to solving a problem by making up scientific jargon at minute 56 of a “Star Trek” episode), Mr. Sinister was always more about being cruel than having unstoppable power. This time around though, he’s given a gun instead of a brain, and even if I prefer Brandon Petersons’ artwork to a lot of what I’ve seen in Ultimate X-Men, it’s a shame to see the pillars of what made a character (whether you liked them or not) replaced.
To me, superhero comics are not unlike action movies. More than anything, I’m just looking to be entertained, but every once and a while, one comes along that reminds you the genre could be so much more and that the bulk of it truly is plain average. Ultimate X-Men 9 still has the nuts and bolts covered, putting a quick smirk on your face, but there are enough comic story clichés—You killed my lover, but they’d want me to forgive you! or Oh no! We’ve fallen right into his evil plan!—to make it seem like opportunities missed, and really, wasn’t that the evil the Ultimate series was supposed to be fighting all along?
Two stars.
If you haven’t read the comics, seen the cartoons, movies or the TV show rip-offs, the X-Men are a group of people who mutated into beings with superhero powers. Some of these mutations leave them looking like regular people (but with the ability to say, read minds or run through walls), whereas others are more overtly freakish. They often fight against other mutants while maintaining a high moral standard in an attempt to sway prejudiced humans to accept them. This may seem obvious to anyone who’s paid attention to anything comics-related in the last 45 years, but when Marvel launched the Ultimate series in 2000, it was done in an attempt to bring in new fans who couldn’t jump into an ongoing comic without knowing the convoluted (and often conflicting) past storylines. They started from scratch, redoing the origins of a lot of heroes and villains, even going so far as to bring in a decent group of writers to update and tweak the now classic characters for a new generation. For an industry that had simply been gouging the collectors for way too long—rehashing old storylines, putting out the same comic with multiple covers simply because the nerds would pay—this seemed like not only a step in the right direction, but a necessary move to retrieve burned out fans and ignite new interest.
Nerds, however, are strange creatures, often with an insistent demand that the rules/standards be retained (even though the problems comic book producers created seem to clearly disregard that), but then again, there are enough universes per superhero that I’m sure you’ll run into one you don’t like along the way. Though I’ve enjoyed the Ultimate reworkings of (at least for me) formerly boring villains—namely Venom in Ultimate Spiderman—this time around it was my favorite (X-Men) villain that got relaunched and I can’t say I’m thrilled with the results produced by writer Brian K. Vaughn. Even though the pacing is well done, impressively using the visual storytelling to cram in multiple character plotlines in such a small space, sometimes there are just too many X-Men for one poor little comic to take, and this time, it’s the villain Mr. Sinister who gets the shaft.
In Ultimate X-Men 9, the X-Men are looking for an untraceable man going around killing mutants. This man cannot be tracked by scent, mind control, or really anything except the naked eye when he’s standing right in front of you. This man is Mr. Sinister. Admittedly, Mr. Sinister was one of those characters where his powers—seemingly more mental than physical, based on what is given to him by a super mutant or genetic manipulation—were never quite defined, but unlike most undefined powers prone to plot abuse (akin to solving a problem by making up scientific jargon at minute 56 of a “Star Trek” episode), Mr. Sinister was always more about being cruel than having unstoppable power. This time around though, he’s given a gun instead of a brain, and even if I prefer Brandon Petersons’ artwork to a lot of what I’ve seen in Ultimate X-Men, it’s a shame to see the pillars of what made a character (whether you liked them or not) replaced.
To me, superhero comics are not unlike action movies. More than anything, I’m just looking to be entertained, but every once and a while, one comes along that reminds you the genre could be so much more and that the bulk of it truly is plain average. Ultimate X-Men 9 still has the nuts and bolts covered, putting a quick smirk on your face, but there are enough comic story clichés—You killed my lover, but they’d want me to forgive you! or Oh no! We’ve fallen right into his evil plan!—to make it seem like opportunities missed, and really, wasn’t that the evil the Ultimate series was supposed to be fighting all along?
Two stars.
Read
July 28, 2011What a disappointing story arc. In this volume, a villain whom we learn and care nothing about is easily thwarted. Yawn. Storm is the only character that has anything remotely interesting happen to her and even she isn't enough to save this. Disappointing, especially coming from Brian K. Vaughan.
November 23, 2023
My Ultimate Year #10
BKV is finally here! There are some nice beats in this story, though a few unfortunate dialogue choices I’m confident Vaughn himself would now cringe at. I liked his Chamber and Mystique stories better, which are actually older - it seems that he’s trying to match the tone of the prior Bendis books, and I’m hoping it feels more *him* in the coming issues.
Read for x-people navigating that awkward time between childhood and adulthood, and…Sinister?
BKV is finally here! There are some nice beats in this story, though a few unfortunate dialogue choices I’m confident Vaughn himself would now cringe at. I liked his Chamber and Mystique stories better, which are actually older - it seems that he’s trying to match the tone of the prior Bendis books, and I’m hoping it feels more *him* in the coming issues.
Read for x-people navigating that awkward time between childhood and adulthood, and…Sinister?
March 4, 2025
Another engaging story arc -
Loss of Beast puts the X-men under various state of depression with Storm being hurt the most. As they patch up things with SHIELD and the government, a new assassin, invisible to the minds of Prof X and Jean, surfaces and begins to kill Mutants. With no way to locate him, the X-men end up searching by the streets.
The Assassin, calling himself Sinister, seems to be taking commands from an entity that he calls Apocalypse and seems to be in a contract to serve Apocalypse with 10 Mutant souls.
The Prod being cautious sends in the big guns to the streets while retaining the new students at the institute.
When Sinister foresees this and uses the opportunity to turn to the institute, things get violent.
Loss of Beast puts the X-men under various state of depression with Storm being hurt the most. As they patch up things with SHIELD and the government, a new assassin, invisible to the minds of Prof X and Jean, surfaces and begins to kill Mutants. With no way to locate him, the X-men end up searching by the streets.
The Assassin, calling himself Sinister, seems to be taking commands from an entity that he calls Apocalypse and seems to be in a contract to serve Apocalypse with 10 Mutant souls.
The Prod being cautious sends in the big guns to the streets while retaining the new students at the institute.
When Sinister foresees this and uses the opportunity to turn to the institute, things get violent.
July 24, 2019
At the beginning, I was led to believe this volume to be another "solid 4" from me. Maybe it's my draw to Storm, but this set was exactly what I'm looking for from an X-Men story. The "Hunger Games" type story doesn't seem to overstay its welcome, unlike those in The Ultimates 1 and 2 and Ultimate Nightmare. Wolverine was done so well here, and emotional "check-ins" were given to just about every character. Plus, giving Professor X his own issue to shine was super cool. I can't remember a volume being this diverse in tone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 2, 2019
This is a tough one... I liked where the story was going and how Apocalypse was teased here and also the interaction between the X-Men but the villian felt wasted. I'm not an expert but Sinister is supposed to be one of the more initimidating villians in the X-Men but he just felt like an incapable tool here. The end especially gave the characters some insane plot armor and it ended in a pretty unsatisfying way in my opinion...
Still, the art was gorgeous this time around and I'm curious to see how this'll continue.
Still, the art was gorgeous this time around and I'm curious to see how this'll continue.
March 26, 2020
This wasn't bad, but seemed like a big drop from the quality of the last couple of volumes. The art style, while high-quality, just didn't seem to characterize the the familiar characters nearly as well. The plot was intriguing and should've been fascinating, but it basically just fizzled out. Some of the dialogue was pretty thin also. I felt like this could've been so much more (and some of the previous volumes set those expectations high), but it wasn't, it was just more typical so-so x-men fare. Hopefully it'll improve again in coming volumes, I'll see.
October 5, 2017
This was by far the best Ultimate X-Men story I have read so far. Sinister is an incredibly creepy villain, a night and day difference than he is in the Marvel main universe. Also, seeing the team in mourning after the death of Hank McCoy in the previous collection adds an emotional weight to this collection not surprising as Brian K. Vaughan is at the helm for the first time in peak of his powers, Runaways era form.
April 28, 2021
The Tempest adalah episode yang menandai adanya tingkat perkembangan dalam Ultimate X-Men. Dalam episode ini muncul istilah X-Men senior dan mutan kelas dua. Setelah episode New Mutants, episode ini juga mengisyaratkan adanya mutan-mutan lain di luar sekolah X-Men dan mereka juga memiliki kemampuan bertarung untuk melindungi lingkungannya sendiri. Di sini juga diperkenalkan calon musuh besar X-Men yang lain.
March 9, 2024
The Tempest (#46-49). Vaughan enters UXM with a very traditional feeling story: the X-Men versus a mutant serial killer. Except the serial killer is Sinister who is "crazy as a bag of ferrets", and not in a good way like Krakoa-era Sinister. Overall, the comic feels slow and the depiction of Sinister (and Apocalypse) like one of the bigger flops of the Ultimate era, like Vaughan is just trying way too hard to be edgy [3+/5].
April 17, 2023
Full review / all my reviews available on my blog
Hank is gone. Time to mourn? Not nearly.
A quick introduction to Mister Sinister… and perhaps someone even more sinister behind the curtains?
A decent story.
Onward.
Hank is gone. Time to mourn? Not nearly.
A quick introduction to Mister Sinister… and perhaps someone even more sinister behind the curtains?
A decent story.
Onward.
January 23, 2024
This volume contains issues 46-49 of Ultimate X-Men and is 112 pages. Once again, the story of the UXM continues to be fun. I love this version of Sinister being a lunatic that speaks to the voice in head and leaves you wondering if “Lord Apocalypse” is real or not. Definitely recommend if you enjoy alternate universe takes on classic characters.
June 11, 2019
Not the strongest volume in the series, though I love the artwork. The story seems more a bridge to a better conflict. To me Sinister was a rather weak opponent, and most of the story is about the characters dealing with the loss of a friend. Hopefully the next one will be better.
June 14, 2022
Vaughan has written some of my absolute favorite comics ever (Y) and he did not fail to deliver entertaining and gripping read this time also. Art was a bit posey, but still decent also.
If this was ment to be a filler arc among the series, it was the best filler arc like ever.
If this was ment to be a filler arc among the series, it was the best filler arc like ever.
July 19, 2025
Actually one of the better alternate-universe X-Men stories (there are so very many of them). The Sinister here is cool, mean and has an interesting arc, and there's a lot to like about the portrayal of the X-Men themselves.
November 19, 2018
One of my favorite writers, Brian K. Vaughn, starts his run on this title. Like Bendis, he mixes in fun ideas with small character moments and big action set pieces.
August 20, 2019
A more interesting twist on a classic villain with a some great character work by Vaughan, who seems to really get the X-men more than Bendis.
March 4, 2020
Peaso de Mr Siniestro Psycho Killer que trae Vaughan, y también el teaser de Apocalipsis, dos de los grandes villanos de la Patrulla.
July 19, 2020
a filler arc if i ever saw one, but still entertaining
May 24, 2021
The change up of the writers so soon was a little jarring at first, but by the end I was won over. A short but fun arc.
January 7, 2022
Good story-movement. This felt very "classic X-Men" in its intrigue and action.
August 1, 2023
Someone is murdering mutants. Someone sinister...
Reworking Mr. Sinister into a basic serial killer is really boring, but this book itself is quite fun.
Reworking Mr. Sinister into a basic serial killer is really boring, but this book itself is quite fun.
November 18, 2023
Sinister!! Apocalypse!! But, like, the weird Ultimates versions. Some good character moments here, but I think the cast is currently too big to give everyone time to grow and shine
April 21, 2024
I liked the younger class of students. Next volume!
January 28, 2025
I haven't been choosing the best comics to read. Thoroughly mediocre, and again makes me wonder sometimes what I see in superhero stories.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews