Ultimate X-Men by Peach Momoko vol. 3: In the Realm of the Mind
As the volume opens, Hisako is still a prisoner of Kageyama who is still under the observation of The Maester. This character is still carrying out some secret plan to utilize the power of mutants at the behest of Viper called MY-X and he’s continuing to maintain the Children of the Atom cult in order to do this. Hisako’s friends haven’t given up as while Nico has managed to infiltrate the cult herself, the likes of Maystorm, Natsu, and Kanon are working on the outside trying to get their friend back. Whether or not this is something she actually wants is questionable as Hisako continues to struggle under the guilt of what she did to her friend Tsubasa and how she felt that contributed to his death.
Put like that, vol. 3 of this series sounds basically comprehensible. It still manages to be an installment where most of the opening two issues consist of an out-of-nowhere fight between the cast in the astral plane that, while it looks quite stylish, has no real bearing on the plot. And yet it winds up being one of the high points here as the storytelling either defaults to bog-standardness or frankly inexplicable plot developments. How does Hisako wind up in a tree at the end of the volume? We can only hope that a logical explanation will be provided next time.
This is all to say that vol. 3 of “Ultimate X-Men” won’t change anyone’s mind about the quality of the series so far, and it remains the worst title in the current “Ultimate” line by a wide margin. Vol. 1 of “Ultimate Wolverine” may just be frankensteining some well-known storylines together, but it at least manages to retain basic competence in doing so. It all leaves me wondering just how things went so badly wrong here.
To answer that, or at least begin to do so, we’ve got to take a look at “Inescapable,” her contribution to Darth Vader: Black, White, and Red. As you might have guessed, it’s a character-specific “Star Wars” anthology using the indicated color palette. I wouldn’t say that this is a must-read for fans of the franchise or character (I only picked it up to fulfill the Buy-Two-Get-One-Free requirement in an order from Amazon), but Jason Aaron’s four-part story was worth the extra space it took, and Daniel Warren Johnson’s short was every bit the visual showcase you’d expect from him.
With regards to Momoko’s story, it’s apparently about a woman who’s haunted by a past encounter with the Sith Lord. I couldn’t tell you any more than that because her eight-page effort is wordless and told only through visuals. Striking visuals, to be sure, with grains of sand revealing themselves as skulls, Vader incinerating the woman with a lightsaber in larger-than-life form, and the final shot of an organic eyeball Tie-Fighter.
If you’re being generous, then you’d say that this was meant to be about the feeling of trauma rather than whatever caused the incident itself. So it’s at least good that the visuals make an impression here. Does it work as an actual story? Not in the least and I doubt I’d be giving this short the consideration I am now if I wasn’t trying to find some explanation as to how Momoko’s “Ultimate X-Men” has turned out the way it has.
What it tells me is that she’s much more of a visual stylist than an actual storyteller. This tracks in that she came to fame by working as a cover artist for both DC and Marvel before the latter locked her down to an exclusive contract and gave her the freedom to reinterpret their characters in miniseries like “Demon Days.” It would also explain why the more memorable parts of her “Ultimate” title are its visual elements with the expressive characters and kinetic fight scenes.
Of course, there’s the question of whether this series is just an outlier as it’s Momoko’s longest sustained work as a creator. While I can’t say that I’m particularly eager to dig into her other miniseries work at Marvel, I’ve at least got a reason to do so now. If nothing else, it should make for a more entertaining podcast on this series than having me just say, “This series really sucked.”