Ultimate Comics X-Men by Brian Wood vol. 3
If there’s one thing to take away from “Infinity,” it’s that if you’re going to tell the story of an epic war you really need the space in order to do it. Hickman had eighteen issues to work with, some of which were extra-sized, and the story benefitted immensely from having room to breathe. In the case of Brian Wood’s final “Ultimate Comics X-Men” story, he has five issues to tell us about “World War X.” This is the fight between Jean Grey’s floating city of Tian versus Kitty Pryde and the inhabitants of the Utopia community and it really needed an extra issue to make things feel genuinely satisfying. Fortunately the ideas behind Wood’s broad strokes-style of storytelling are solid enough that things wind up being a generally decent read.
The idea behind the conflict is that there can be only one. One mutant homeland, that is. Jean believes that humans and mutants can’t live together and that the city of Tian she “inherited” from Xorn and Zorn is the perfect place for everyone to live — under her leadership. Kitty favors an integrated, communal approach that doesn’t rely on a persistent show of force. Yet when the opening salvo is fired — in the form of a herbicidal attack on the Sentient Seed’s forest — Kitty has no qualms about meeting force with force. What ensues is a fight for the future of the mutant race fought on the ground, in the air, and on television as well.
“World War X” isn’t a story that’s big on moral complexity, at least in its core conflict. If you squint you may see that Jean has good intentions on her side, yet she’s the one who resorts to the most underhanded means to fight this war. Striking first with the herbicide, sending experimental warriors to Utopia, starting a smear campaign on the news. It’s clear that Wood wants us to side with Kitty and the rest of the Utopians with their self-made lifestyle. Though at least one of them is a genuine tree-hugger, the inhabitants of Utopia are more than willing to knock some heads in order to safeguard their way of life.
More interesting is seeing how Kitty realizes that her pacifistic ways aren’t going to be able to solve this conflict and that it’s time for a real hands-on approach. Seeing her willingness to fight, marshal her troops and even relinquish command of Utopia to confound Jean’s smear campaign makes me like the character even more. She’s been the focus of Wood’s entire run and he continues to make good use of her here.
Given that this arc is only five issues long, Wood doesn’t have the luxury of showing us this conflict in great detail. Most of the time he succeeds in getting across the key ideas of the story, such as the ideological conflict between Jean and Kitty as well as its general scope, with a minimum of fuss. Other things, such as the fate of the Sentient Seed and the Utopian “rail gun,” give the narrative some emotional depth and showcase some real cleverness in the mutants’ use of their powers.
Then you’ve got the stuff that would’ve likely worked if it had been given room to develop properly. Jimmy Hudson’s actions make a certain amount of sense from his perspective as a man of action, but it’s made immediately clear that he’s made a huge mistake and his decision to not leave only winds up making him look like an idiot. Having Kitty relinquish leadership of Utopia to Colossus was a canny move on the surface, yet it winds up being all surface as we never get an idea of what the latter’s ideas for the place are.
Even with these issues I wouldn’t have minded if the arc was twice as long to allow Wood to really dig into the conflict here. Yet the biggest drawback to “World War X” is that it winds up having to cram its climax and epilogue into the final issue. Most of the finale takes place on Tian with some appropriately explosive action. When it’s all done, Wood is left with three pages to wrap up his run. One of them is virtually wasted on a character whose new presence in Utopia would really need a fully issue to properly explain in order for the audience to have any hope of accepting it. The other two are focused on Kitty and while I liked her surprise at finding out who was ready to come after her in the wake of the conflict, her ending still felt way too rushed.
As for the rest of the cast? Well, you’ll just have to use your imagination. Or go buy the “Cataclysm: Ultimate X-Men” miniseries being serialized right now. It’s not written by Wood but I’ll be getting it regardless since it’s part of the whole “Cataclysm” hardcover that’ll be arriving in June. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it as I haven’t heard the X-Men’s role in the Ultimate Universe’s latest deck-clearing exercise talked up all that much. This leads me to expect that the miniseries will see the destruction/dismantling of the whole Utopia setup and that’s a shame.
I liked what Wood did with the characters and their direction during his run. If it suffers for anything, it’s the same issue that I have with this arc: that he didn’t have the room to do more. At least he and Alvaro Martinez, who provides some solid art and storytelling, wrap things up in a way that they can take some pride in.