San Diego - A large young man with oversized feet watches the news in a bar. Taunted and then attacked with a pool cue, he vaults into the air and kicks the mutant-hater upon landing. The barkeep threatens him with a shotgun and Henry McCoy leaves, to be picked up outside the door by a short-haired redhead.

Athens, Texas - The redhead walks up to the deputy at the desk of the police station and asks about a car thief. She manipulates his mind to think that she's a federal agent. The deputy brings her to see a white-haired black girl who hurled lightning bolts when the cops chased down the car she stole. As she is released from jail, Ororo Munroe asks if the redhead is from Magneto's Brotherhood, whom Ororo already turned down. No, she is told, she's "now working for the competition."

New York - A Russian arms dealer delivers a suitcase nuke to an Arab client named Ahmed. Ahmed leaves before the Russian counts the money, and a helicopter flies in with Ahmed's henchmen, who open up on the Russians with machine guns. The Russians fall, except Peter Rasputin himself, who stands tall as a man of living metal. As he sheds a tear, he is told that he shouldn't worry that he's been outed as a mutant - he's now part of the X-Men.

The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester - Cyclops debriefs the new recruits: Storm, Colossus, Beast and the girl who gathered them all, red-haired Jean Grey, known as Marvel Girl. They are taken to meet with the man who located them all, Professor Charles Xavier, a middle aged bald man in a wheelchair. He explains to them why they use codenames, and that he once worked with Magneto, before Magneto embarked on a path of dominance and crippled Xavier. Xavier reveals Cerebro, the machine he used to locate his mutant students. He is in the process of finding another, a boy named Bobby Drake, who doesn't even know what his powers are yet.

Times Square - The X-Men search for Bobby. Beast finds him in a bus, just as the Sentinels land. Beast kicks in the window and hauls Bobby out of the bus, which a Sentinel is in the process of destroying. Cyclops forces Storm to use her power, though she's afraid she can't control it. A lightning bolt trashes three Sentinels, but Storm has passed out. Beast leaps from building to building with Bobby on his shoulder, and sets up two Sentinels to blast each other when he scoots out of their way. Colossus takes out the still-animated half of one of the Sentinels Storm blasted with a well placed empty bus. However, the last Sentinel blasts Colossus and is bearing down on Jean. Cyclops blasts the Sentinel and is grabbed by it, but a control stud in his glove allows him to activate his visor, blowing off the Sentinel's head. As he drops to safety, however, the robot begins to fall towards a crowd of people, and none of the X-Men have the ability to stop it before it crushes the innocents. Suddenly Bobby cries out and within seconds the entire Sentinel is encased in a block of ice, frozen in midair. Beast holds up Bobby's hand in triumph, but the crowd turns on the mutants and forces them to run away.

The Savage Land - Magneto watches the news and realizes that Charles has survived and is behind these X-Men. He meets with Ahmed and rips out the man's pacemaker as punishment for failing to deliver the nuclear bomb he was supposed to buy. Pietro offers to go kill Xavier, but Magneto decides to send a real assassin - Wolverine!

Review: Really, really good! Obviously, I can't take the perspective of a reader who's new to the X-Men, but I still enjoyed this book a lot. First off, the art was great! I'm only disappointed that there was only one shot of Wolvie, because I love the way Kubert does him. What was most interesting to me, though, was the way that Mark Millar has reconstructed the story and the characters' histories. They've been changed much more than in Ultimate Spider-Man, which is keeping pretty closely to the history of Peter Parker as we know him (bitten, wrestling, Ben's death, etc), though with much more detail added in. Here some of the core elements of each character are still there (Hank is a genius, Ororo's a thief, and Peter cares deeply for his parents), but their backstories are VERY different (with the possible exception of Cyclops, about whom we don't know much yet). But it works, which is the main thing. I especially liked seeing a Storm who wasn't the "nature goddess" she has become in our world. She was the most irreverant of them all, which is so refreshing. There were also some good questions answered in this issue, like why the black spandex and why the codenames. Though if the costumes are cloaking devices, why are there all those cutouts on the girls' suits? We know why, eh? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to see Colossus and Iceman. The previews showed neither of them, so that was nice. It was also great to see the bond already forming between Hank and Bobby. The character I have to adjust to most is Jean. Don't get me wrong, I like the new look and attitude (a far cry from the "Oh, Scott, why can't I tell you I love you" etc.), but it's SO different. Still, she's got a lot of potential in this book, moreso than we might realize, because of all people in the X-Men Universe, a fresh start for her has so many possibilities. She's not locked into any one idea or character trait (at least as long as they stay away from the Phoenix). Another thing I was very glad to see was that the Sentinels were the giant-sized robots we have come to know and fear, not the smaller size they were originally in our world. And they're brutal in their murders of mutants. Gives me the chills. That relates to another unrealistic piece of history that was dealt with here: Trask is a NASA engineer in this world, not a loopy anthropologist who should never have known how to build robots in the first place. Good fix. It's also interesting that this world starts off already fearing mutants, and with the attacks by Magneto already under way, with fatalites on the human side, unlike the first year of Uncanny X-Men, where they were actually heroes. It's obvious that the Ultimate line is taking a lot of cues from this summers AWESOME movie, so I'm not surprised. What did surprise me was the language - I wasn't sure the Comics Code would allow "dumbass," though obviously it did. That was a really funny scene. And do you think Xavier was kidding when he told Hank that he reads the minds of favorite authors as they type? I'm not sure... yet. Finally, I was a little disappointed that Wolvie doesn't make an appearance until the last page, especially since he's on the cover! Again, that's a small piece of marketing coming into play. Well, I'm excited! It's like the feeling of discovering a favorite toy or show for the first time, yet with lots of similarities to something else that you love. Stay tuned - as long as Kubert and Millar are on this job, I can guarantee it will be a great ride!

NEW! Well, I said I'd really love to get a review from a reader who has never read X-Men before this issue, and here it is. Thanks to Avery for this review!

I think Marvel is making a smart move with this line. They must realize, at the corporate level, that the body of mythos that the X-Men have amassed over the years has slipped by mainstream entertainment. This is most likely due to the fact that, other than maybe Wolverine, there are no standout characters from the franchise. Batman and Superman, for example, are free of being on teams of superheroes, and have a multitude of different incarnations. Now that the X-Men have succeeded on film, Marvel seems to feel it is necessary to remind the public of not only the X-Men themselves, but of all the good things that the concept relies on.

Before I rhapsodize about what those things are, I think it’s important to offer this idea: now that Marvel has an Ultimate book for the X-Men, they should not make any more moves to reset the continuity. Ever again. With the film’s sequel coming in a few years, and X-Men: Evolution playing each weekend (itself an attempt to re-tell the team’s origins, in it’s own way) I fear that the X-Men risk not only over exposure, but overstatement of what they’re all about. (For example, though I myself enjoy Wolverine as a character –for the most part- I’m not incredibly excited by the news that the next arc in Ultimate will cover the Weapon X project. I’m new to things X but I’ve already seen it done on the early 90’s X-Men cartoon, and just recently on Evolution, not to mention the flashbacks in The Movie. I’ve seen enough already.) Marvel needs to slow down on the expansion for now. (I'll be curious to see what happens during the May revamp.)

The good things about Ultimate X-Men: the pacing is fast. After rereading it several times, it amazes me that this story is told in only 20-something pages. We meet the characters, see them in action, get a description of this realities ‘severity of the anti-mutant sentiment’ and the set-up for some great character conflicts later on. The pacing succeeds because the artwork is so solid. It is packed with gesture and dynamic movement. One technique this book uses to great purpose is when an action is begun in one panel and crosses over into another with the perspective changing, but the move is fluid. An example of this is when Beast is made to leave the bar and he flips a quarter into the tip jar of the man holding the shotgun. Also, when Magneto uses his power to remove the arms merchant’s pacemaker. It is a very effective technique, and along with the vibrant colors and cinematic angles, the book is an aesthetically beautiful thing to look at. Comics have come very far in terms of refinement, since the days when I was an avid reader, back in the early 80’s. Another example of this refinement is the way in which each media within the comic has its own style of artwork: Xavier’s flashback to his time in The Savage Land is a rough, earth-toned sketch, and the news telecast that begins the book is a tight, colored charcoal drawing. Fantastic.

Character-wise, I like how everyone on the team is in a different stage in their acceptance of and ability to use their powers. On one end you have Colossus, who is saddened that his identity as a mutant is revealed, and on the other, you have Storm, who doesn’t know how to use her power, and when it is unleashed, she faints at the sight of it. There is also Cyclops, who has been more trained in the use of his power, and uses it confidently, and without any noticeable fear of being a mutant. They are all interesting people, and I look forward to more exposure to them and their respective personalities.

To mention Superman again, I think Stan Lee’s original idea of creating realistic characters with superpowers that are in some ways limited was sheer brilliance. It is much more appealing to see characters who have to work together to accomplish their goals; in this case, fighting the Sentinels. After reading this, my first X-book, I’m stupefied as to why I never picked them up before. It’s a great experience. I look forward to each new book as if it were a paycheck.

Other things about the book that are clever and enjoyable, including the excuse for creating codenames based on a mutant’s abilities idea. I think this concept is an excellent way to make this story more resemble a real-life issue. It is very much akin to the gay rights movement’s reclaiming of the term ‘Queer’ as a word of pride. X-Men, to my knowledge, has always relied on the idea of minority persecution, and it is great to see the idea touched upon in this logical and realistic way.

I also liked the ending of the book very much. I know that some people dislike the use of Wolverine on the cover, especially when he isn’t really ‘in’ the issue, but I think that’s forgivable because it keeps us wondering ‘how he relates to all of this’ as we read on. I thought that the image of one of his sets of claws skewering a crocodile was a bit over-the-top, but it was an effective closing panel, overall.

There is only one item concerning this issue that I didn’t completely enjoy. I appreciate the writers’ interest in wanting to make the world of the book seem rough and extremely anti-mutant. That way, their adventures have a certain poignancy, and all the teenage feelings of isolation that the X-Men have always tapped into are especially highlighted. Yet..I can’t help but think that the Sentinel’s ‘Judge, Jury, and Executioner’ actions are too extreme, especially if this X-book is the one that is supposed to follow the idea of the Movie, which itself tried to put the characters in a more realistic setting. I don’t completely buy the idea that they live in a world where human beings are so frightened of mutants that they are completely okay with the idea of murdering them on the streets. Of course, the Sentinel program will change shape over the course of the series, but for now, I think they went a little too extreme in their depiction. (If the Sentinel Program wasn’t an officially sanctioned thing but a secret initiative consciously overlooked by the government, then that would make more sense. Just an idea.)

All in all, though, I must admit that the Ultimate X-Men books, starting with this one, have proven to be a wholly enjoyable read. It confuses me to hear that the comic book industry is supposedly “not doing well at all.” The format is alive and well, as far as I’m concerned.