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Ultimate X-Men (Collected Editions) #6
Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 6: Return of the King
Magneto, the X-Men's deadliest villain, returns. They've faced the Weapon X program, Proteus and even the superhuman strikeforce known as the Ultimates. Now, still licking their wounds from their prior battles, can Xavier's mutant team possibly survive the return of their most powerful foe? Starring all the X-Men that you met in movie - including Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Storm.
Collecting: Ultimate X-Men 26-33
Collecting: Ultimate X-Men 26-33
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
9 people are currently reading
471 people want to read
About the author
Mark Millar
1,514 books2,561 followersMark Millar is the New York Times best-selling writer of Wanted, the Kick-Ass series, The Secret Service, Jupiter’s Legacy, Jupiter’s Circle, Nemesis, Superior, Super Crooks, American Jesus, MPH, Starlight, and Chrononauts. Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, and The Secret Service (as Kingsman: The Secret Service) have been adapted into feature films, and Nemesis, Superior, Starlight, War Heroes, Jupiter’s Legacy and Chrononauts are in development at major studios.
His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.
Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.
His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.
Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
November 12, 2017
Great story. Great art. Cool guest stars. And X-Men who are damn interesting and intellectually stimulating without resorting to non-stop political preachiness.
April 20, 2020
Magneto is back and he's making sure everyone pays.
With the X-Men without their leaders (Xavier and Cyclops) they do their best to prove they are still the good guys. On the flipside you have Magneto starting basically a new world, readying himself to kill billions of humans once more. Then have Xavier locked up making his moves, doing his best to try to help his X-Men. You also get to find out what happened with Cyclops and Wolverine back on the island.
This is pretty long volume...abit too long. This is Millar's last volume and I'm assuming he was trying his best to do a grand epic closure. Honestly though there was some padding here. Having Magneto tell his plan out was a bit boring for the 3rd time. And the X-Men made moves so slow it was weird. But when things did get going it was alot of fun. Mostly thanks to someone returning, a new x-Men member, and more. I wouldn't say it's the best ending but a solid ending for Millar's run. A 3.5 out of 5.
With the X-Men without their leaders (Xavier and Cyclops) they do their best to prove they are still the good guys. On the flipside you have Magneto starting basically a new world, readying himself to kill billions of humans once more. Then have Xavier locked up making his moves, doing his best to try to help his X-Men. You also get to find out what happened with Cyclops and Wolverine back on the island.
This is pretty long volume...abit too long. This is Millar's last volume and I'm assuming he was trying his best to do a grand epic closure. Honestly though there was some padding here. Having Magneto tell his plan out was a bit boring for the 3rd time. And the X-Men made moves so slow it was weird. But when things did get going it was alot of fun. Mostly thanks to someone returning, a new x-Men member, and more. I wouldn't say it's the best ending but a solid ending for Millar's run. A 3.5 out of 5.
March 13, 2012
This trade paperback collects the last story arc of Mark Millar’s run on Ultimate X-Men. He is joined by artists Adam Kubert and David Finch. Millar launched the title with Kubert six paperback collections ago, it is fitting they finish their last story together.
Millar started his version of the X-Men promisingly enough. I thought “Tomorrow People” was one of the best new X-Men stories of the new century. The follow up stories were good, but with room for improvement. My only knock was on the inconsistent art, unlike the other titles in the Ultimate line, it had rotating cast of artist. Even Kubert, whose art appears on the majority of the issues, could barely finish an arc. Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimates were career defining moments for its artists because they stayed for consecutive issues.
The first arc worked because everything seemed new and Millar seemed willing to do stuff never before done with the X-Men. He made the X-Men in to celebrities getting their fifteen minutes on the tabloids and talk show circuit. He even had Professor Xavier kill Magneto in front of television cameras. But that was a ruse, Millar would never get rid of the main villain, he would return for the final arc.
MIllar wraps most of his open subplots and leaves some for the new writer to build upon. Nothing really changed, he introduced a few new Ultimate versions of X-Men characters but still he returned it to status quo. The X-Men are back at their school and Magneto is plotting his next scheme, albeit in a non-metallic prison. It seemed the stories didn’t matter because nothing really stuck.
Despite the initial promise, his run ends on a whimper. This is probably why X-Men fans are hating on Millar, but he did gave his own contribution to the mythos. He gave Cyclops a personality, made Jean Grey edgier and Colossus a metrosexual. He even introduces a post-human philosophy that espouses non-violence that sees mutants transcending the violent nature human never was able to wear off and inherited from cave-dwelling ancestors.
This final arc could have been better, but Millar saved his best concepts for Ultimates. Ultimate X-Men would always be the little sister to Millar and Hitch’s opus. That was done in a grander scale; this however sputtered along and seemed never to take off.
Millar started his version of the X-Men promisingly enough. I thought “Tomorrow People” was one of the best new X-Men stories of the new century. The follow up stories were good, but with room for improvement. My only knock was on the inconsistent art, unlike the other titles in the Ultimate line, it had rotating cast of artist. Even Kubert, whose art appears on the majority of the issues, could barely finish an arc. Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimates were career defining moments for its artists because they stayed for consecutive issues.
The first arc worked because everything seemed new and Millar seemed willing to do stuff never before done with the X-Men. He made the X-Men in to celebrities getting their fifteen minutes on the tabloids and talk show circuit. He even had Professor Xavier kill Magneto in front of television cameras. But that was a ruse, Millar would never get rid of the main villain, he would return for the final arc.
MIllar wraps most of his open subplots and leaves some for the new writer to build upon. Nothing really changed, he introduced a few new Ultimate versions of X-Men characters but still he returned it to status quo. The X-Men are back at their school and Magneto is plotting his next scheme, albeit in a non-metallic prison. It seemed the stories didn’t matter because nothing really stuck.
Despite the initial promise, his run ends on a whimper. This is probably why X-Men fans are hating on Millar, but he did gave his own contribution to the mythos. He gave Cyclops a personality, made Jean Grey edgier and Colossus a metrosexual. He even introduces a post-human philosophy that espouses non-violence that sees mutants transcending the violent nature human never was able to wear off and inherited from cave-dwelling ancestors.
This final arc could have been better, but Millar saved his best concepts for Ultimates. Ultimate X-Men would always be the little sister to Millar and Hitch’s opus. That was done in a grander scale; this however sputtered along and seemed never to take off.
July 2, 2016
Like the first volume of Ultimate X-Men, this is just another Magneto story that could have been done at any time, with any cast of characters, including the original, 616 band of merry marching mutants. It is, in fact, so much like so many Magneto stories that I've read that it simply lacked dramatic impact for me. But Millar does some very interesting things in making Xavier significantly more morally ambiguous than he's usually acknowledged to be. Just the suggestion that he may have manipulated events to exactly this outcome is cool to think about. And that final outcome, with the X-Men positioned as an official governmental training school, could lead to some good and different stories. Millar did, eventually, lay down some good groundwork for future writers, but he could have gotten there a bit faster.
March 21, 2019
Millar's Ultimate X-men run was great stuff!
April 24, 2022
4.5 stars
March 21, 2023
My Ultimate Year #7
An enjoyable journey along the x-men / Brotherhood ongoing game of tug of war. There are a few story telling choices that are tough, but overall great story & battles.
Read for another fast paced Ultimate entry (tho the epilogue is a little slow). And for Millar/Kubert cameos.
An enjoyable journey along the x-men / Brotherhood ongoing game of tug of war. There are a few story telling choices that are tough, but overall great story & battles.
Read for another fast paced Ultimate entry (tho the epilogue is a little slow). And for Millar/Kubert cameos.
October 11, 2011
Leído también de la edición en Marvel Deluxe que incluye esto junto a Ultimate War. Más pasan los tomos y más me cuesta no comparar los Ultimate X-Men de Millar con los New X-Men de Morrison, y hasta ahora Millar salió perdiendo siempre. Cuando parece que repunta un poco en cuanto a originalidad y desarrollo de personajes y conceptos innovadores, después da dos pasos atrás. O al costado, pero nunca para adelante. En este tomo está el caso del re-regreso de Magneto y su nuevo megaplan para cagar matando literalmente a todo el mundo. Parecido a que intenta cerca del final de NXM pero más aburrido (y me parece que lo de Morrison es posterior, pero como está mucho mejor hecho, no parece plagio ni nada de eso). Claro que acá el dibujo nunca ayuda. Kubert sigue oscilando entre la mediocridad y la ineficacia, y son pocas las partes en las que el dibujo aporta algo a la historia, o en las que se nota qué se supone que están sintiendo los personajes. Ahora que tengo a mano el tomo anterior, seguro le dé esta última chance de momento para ver si repunta. Pero sabiendo a dónde va a llevar todo eso (o sea, a ningún lado), le tengo poca fe. Veremos después cómo la reman los demás autores. Si siguen más o menos así, no me veo venir ni gratas sorpresas ni enormes decepciones.
Y hay algo más que quería reseñar sobre esta historia que ahora evidentemente me estoy olvidando, pero bueh... Si vuelve a mi mente, rerreseñaré y toda la porquería que digo siempre.
Y hay algo más que quería reseñar sobre esta historia que ahora evidentemente me estoy olvidando, pero bueh... Si vuelve a mi mente, rerreseñaré y toda la porquería que digo siempre.
January 10, 2009
Bleegh! Mark Millar's Ultimate X-Men is bad. It's boring and contains some terrible dialog. To me, Millar's a "Big Picture" writer because he overuses the ideas of grandeur, epic, and awesome for his stories. The chapters routinely have a "WOW" or dramatic action scene that would be at home with any summer Hollywood blockbuster and just as dumb. There's nothing really new with the characters except surface changes, so it leaves readers wondering how, why, and what's the point to all of this. The chance to make new unrestricted continuity using templates of established characters seems to be the idea behind the Ultimate universe. Unfortunately for Millar's Ultimate X-Men, the characters and the stories seem all to close to their mainstream progenitors and history. Sure there's a small difference here and there, but I always imagined the Ultimate Universe as having a more distinct personality than being almost a "What if.." clone. Millar's Ultimates is better at creating that difference in universes and is just executed better in general.
I pick this up on a whim. While stopping in at the library to pick up items on hold, I popped over to the graphic novels and saw a huge run of Ultimate X-Men trade paperbacks. Impulsively, I checked all of them out, thinking I could read a huge chunk of the series in a very close and short setting. I guess we'll see how far I make it.
I pick this up on a whim. While stopping in at the library to pick up items on hold, I popped over to the graphic novels and saw a huge run of Ultimate X-Men trade paperbacks. Impulsively, I checked all of them out, thinking I could read a huge chunk of the series in a very close and short setting. I guess we'll see how far I make it.
May 3, 2024
Mark Millar’s run on Ultimate X-men comes to a big conclusion. Magneto remains the major threat, and here, he gets his opportunity to attempt the big world ending plan. The build up from the previous volume, Ultimate War, helped set the stakes, and this pays them off in a pretty satisfying way. The art by Kubert is some of his best, and David Finch is about as good as a fill in artist as you can ask for. It’s hard not to compare this to Morrison’s New X-Men, and, while I love that run, the climactic battle with Magneto didn’t quite work, and I actually think it’s done better here in most ways.
April 27, 2021
Sulitnya membaca komik serial superhero di jagat Marvel ketika ada event atau cross-over adalah ceritanya jadi seperti melompat-lompat. Ada beberapa aspek cerita yang kemudian diceritakan tidak dalam serial superhero yang sedang diikuti, tapi diceritakan dalam serial superhero yang lain. Barangkali ini memang taktik Marvel agar orang-orang juga membeli serial superhero lainnya. Nah, dalam episode Return of the King yang merentang tujuh nomor dalam serial Ultimate X-Men ini juga terjadi seperti itu. Tahu-tahu, misalnya, diceritakan bahwa Profesor Xavier tertangkap, Cyclops dikabarkan mati, dan Quicksilver serta Wanda melepaskan diri dari Brotherhood of Mutants dan bergabung dengan the Ultimates. Agar tidak bingung, resepnya adalah ... ya sudah, terima saja dulu. Nanti kalau ada waktu, cari serial yang lain itu kalau memang ingin memperoleh gambaran besar sebuah event.
Kembali ke cerita dalam episode ini. Magneto yang telah terbebas dari pengaruh Xavier akhirnya kembali memimpin Brotherhood dan ia, dengan bantuan Forge, membuat alat yang bisa memusnahkan umat manusia. Brotherhood of Mutants, seperti biasanya, membuat kerusuhan menyerang manusia. Profesor Xavier dan X-Men kena getahnya, mereka dituding berkomplot dengan Magneto. Walhasil, X-Men terpaksa harus jadi buronan pemerintah dan kehilangan pemimpin mereka. Pertanyaannya, bisakah mereka membuktikan bahwa X-Men berbeda dari Brotherhood of Mutants? Persoalan lainnya adalah mengenai dinamika di dalam kelompok X-Men sendiri. Kematian Cyclops diselimuti misteri sebab ia mati ketika sedang menjalankan misi bersama Wolverine yang jelas-jelas punya hati terhadap Jean Grey, kekasih Cyclops. Benarkah Wolverine yang membunuh Cyclops agar ia bisa merebut Jean Grey? Apa peran Kitty Pryde sebagai anggota baru dalam X-Men? Lalu, apa yang terjadi dengan entitas Phoenix yang bersemayam dalam diri Jean Grey?
Kembali ke cerita dalam episode ini. Magneto yang telah terbebas dari pengaruh Xavier akhirnya kembali memimpin Brotherhood dan ia, dengan bantuan Forge, membuat alat yang bisa memusnahkan umat manusia. Brotherhood of Mutants, seperti biasanya, membuat kerusuhan menyerang manusia. Profesor Xavier dan X-Men kena getahnya, mereka dituding berkomplot dengan Magneto. Walhasil, X-Men terpaksa harus jadi buronan pemerintah dan kehilangan pemimpin mereka. Pertanyaannya, bisakah mereka membuktikan bahwa X-Men berbeda dari Brotherhood of Mutants? Persoalan lainnya adalah mengenai dinamika di dalam kelompok X-Men sendiri. Kematian Cyclops diselimuti misteri sebab ia mati ketika sedang menjalankan misi bersama Wolverine yang jelas-jelas punya hati terhadap Jean Grey, kekasih Cyclops. Benarkah Wolverine yang membunuh Cyclops agar ia bisa merebut Jean Grey? Apa peran Kitty Pryde sebagai anggota baru dalam X-Men? Lalu, apa yang terjadi dengan entitas Phoenix yang bersemayam dalam diri Jean Grey?
February 18, 2025
Spans 8 issues and showcases Magneto's return and his revenge !
(Sadly there is a full collection of ultimates series that crosses over into Ultimate Xmen showcasing battle between ultimates vs xmen vs brotherhood which I didn't read)
But anyway, it doesn't seem like we miss much seeing where we were left in the previous storyarc.
X-Men are hiding..
Prof X and others are captured under Shield..
Magneto constructs his new lair in the Arctic and builds his own version of cerebro that enhances his power to bring doom to homo sapiens, leaving only homo superior alive - he kind of builds a Noah's arc and takes pairs of every living animal..
Wolverine drops cyclops ( from previous arc) into a fall and leaves him to die to win Jean but doesn't succeed with her..
Everything culminates in how Magneto is stopped / and nuclear meltdown emergency and how Xmen prove once again that they are there to build homo sapiens - homo superior relationships!!
(Sadly there is a full collection of ultimates series that crosses over into Ultimate Xmen showcasing battle between ultimates vs xmen vs brotherhood which I didn't read)
But anyway, it doesn't seem like we miss much seeing where we were left in the previous storyarc.
X-Men are hiding..
Prof X and others are captured under Shield..
Magneto constructs his new lair in the Arctic and builds his own version of cerebro that enhances his power to bring doom to homo sapiens, leaving only homo superior alive - he kind of builds a Noah's arc and takes pairs of every living animal..
Wolverine drops cyclops ( from previous arc) into a fall and leaves him to die to win Jean but doesn't succeed with her..
Everything culminates in how Magneto is stopped / and nuclear meltdown emergency and how Xmen prove once again that they are there to build homo sapiens - homo superior relationships!!
December 4, 2022
Return of the King (26-33). After the setup of Ultimate War, this is a good final-Magneto story that presents him as a major threat and deals with him appropriately. It's also a great character piece for Scott & Logan, who have a rather shocking interaction, and it offers great arc movement for them and for Ultimate Jean Grey.
The last two issues are more coda to Millar's UXM than anything else, but they're pretty good coda, as we move characters and plot points into the next era. Though I don't remember anyone else presenting Xavier as manipulatively as Millar did, I'm eager to be reminded of how others continued this story [4/5].
The last two issues are more coda to Millar's UXM than anything else, but they're pretty good coda, as we move characters and plot points into the next era. Though I don't remember anyone else presenting Xavier as manipulatively as Millar did, I'm eager to be reminded of how others continued this story [4/5].
April 17, 2023
Full review / all my reviews available on my blog
Wherein we get this universe’s history. How the a Professor and Magneto started out to build a mutant utopia, how some minor* differences in option came between them, and how Xavier ended up in a wheelchair.
It’s a nice longer story and I really do dig the conflict between the Professor and Magneto. There are also some really interesting ideas buried within the action. Ends justifying the means. The cost(s) of rehabilitation or even imprisonment of a super powered prisoner. What it means to be human.
A solid story.
Onward.
Wherein we get this universe’s history. How the a Professor and Magneto started out to build a mutant utopia, how some minor* differences in option came between them, and how Xavier ended up in a wheelchair.
It’s a nice longer story and I really do dig the conflict between the Professor and Magneto. There are also some really interesting ideas buried within the action. Ends justifying the means. The cost(s) of rehabilitation or even imprisonment of a super powered prisoner. What it means to be human.
A solid story.
Onward.
July 12, 2018
Much better than the previous volume, in my opinion, as the writing and the art seemed clearer, sharper. I do wonder if readers get a little tired of the rehash of conflicts and such, but I guess it is the nature of the genre, as there are always new readers picking up volumes in midstream. Sometimes to I weary of characters being viciously struck down in melees, but only to spring up and rejoin the fight. Also, I guess, part of the deal.
November 15, 2019
I really enjoyed this one again. Great action, great art (most of the way through), and a significantly suspenseful and meaningful storyline to keep it all going well. Sorry to see that it's the end of the run for this author and artist. Hopefully the next guys will do as well (though I've already heard they don't really). Ah well, this has been one of the most consistently enjoyable X-Men reads (all 6 volumes up to this point) that I've ever read.
February 27, 2020
El retorno de Magneto como villano y el cierre de algunas heridas abiertas entre los miembros de la Patrulla. El final (creo que son 2 números) tras Magento, cierra de una gran manera todo el marco en el que se venían moviendo los mutantes desde el principio y da pie a un cambio de alineación de la Patrulla, podría decirse que es el final de la primera parte de los mutantes en el universo Ultimate.
September 18, 2021
La vuelta del villano definitivo (Magneto) barriendo todo en el final de la etapa de Mark Millar y Adam Kubert. Buen y explosivo final, la traición de Wolverine a Ciclope que aún sigue asombrando, como todo se va desmoronando para llegar a ese final.
Graficamente ya alterna David Finch y los lapices finales de Kubert son todo lo que esta bien.
Una buena etapa que cierra redonda y ponen las espectativas bien arriba.
Graficamente ya alterna David Finch y los lapices finales de Kubert son todo lo que esta bien.
Una buena etapa que cierra redonda y ponen las espectativas bien arriba.
November 3, 2018
Millar's final volume. There's nothing I can add that I didn't say about volume 5, aside from the reveal that Wolverine let Cyclops die so he would he have a shot at Jean Grey is a weird plot/character choice. As is the call back to Beast being catfished by Blob. I mean, it was a plot point that partially moved us into this final arc, but, was bizarre and weird to bring back up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2017
This volume really dragged along. The Magneto plot seemed unnecessarily complicated and lead to one of the longest "resolution after the slug fest" I've ever read. At the same time there isn't really much in the way of stage setting going forward.
July 15, 2019
What an intriguing volume of issues. The setup from Ultimate War paid off well with high stakes and decent action followed by quite a lot of dialogue-enriched character development. This section is quite solid and has reinvigorated my interest in the Ultimate X-Men storyline.
August 1, 2019
This focuses a lot on Magneto and the X-Men struggling with the Ultimates, so in a way this is a continuation of the Ultimate War... Since I love Magneto as a villian I obviously loved this a lot but I didn't really like the way Wolverine is depicted here.
June 5, 2020
This was good the first time I read it, I guess. But after reading Xmen vs Avengers then reading this volume again. Well, it is kinda boring. It is the same lets get heroes to fight each other crap. Nothing special is happening here.
June 20, 2023
They try so hard to redeem Wolverine but they write him like such an irredeemable asshole that it's fucking difficult to like him. Also, I still hate how everyone talks in this series. Other than that... it's stupidly fun.
January 21, 2024
192 pages of greatness (issues 26-33). This is prime Ultimate X-Men storytelling here. Magneto is absolutely savage in the Ultimate Universe and it’s a joy to see him so truly terrifying and sadistic. I highly recommend this volume!
April 11, 2025
An outstanding end to Mark Millar's run on UX-M. Prime Magneto vs the core X-Men, what more could a fanboy want?
Will likely try a couple of volumes of Bendis' run to see how the quality compares, but i'm already prepared for disappointment 😞
Will likely try a couple of volumes of Bendis' run to see how the quality compares, but i'm already prepared for disappointment 😞
November 5, 2017
Still don't like where this story headed now that X-men is under SHIELD.
March 23, 2019
Seems fine. The Wolverine/Cyclops story is probably the weirdest part of the whole thing.
September 15, 2019
Average at best. Average magneto story, average ending, nothing really spectacular or original just kind of an average middle ground between movie and comic magneto.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews