Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 1: The Tomorrow People

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Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 1: The Tomorrow People (Ultimate X-Men trade paperbacks #1)

by Mark Millar, Andy Kubert, Adam Kubert

3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 · rating details · 1,675 ratings · 72 reviews

Star writer Mark Millar delivers Marvel's mutant heroes in a streamlined, character-rich adventure perfect for fans of their smash hit movie. Brought to life by the talented Kubert brothers, the X-Men fight for the future in this break-neck thrill-ride.Mutants, those born with strange powers, through genetic mutation, are not only hated and feared, but brutally murdered in...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published May 17th 2006 by Marvel (first published July 1st 2001)

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Apr 29, 2012 Nicolo Yu rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: collected-comics

Ultimate X-Men represented Mark Millar’s version of a franchise distilled from the cream of its rich history. The launch of the Ultimate line of Marvel Comics afforded the writer a unique opportunity to tell stories unencumbered by almost four decades of continuity. The result was a product still recognizable because of the iconic nature of the characters. This way, the older readers were not alienated and familiar enough that the new readers that were introduced to the mythos through Bryan Sing...more

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Jun 29, 2008 Travis rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: comic-books

Lord that was bad!
An attempt to re-imagine the X-men puts them in the costumes from the movie, adds a lot of teen angst and makes nearly all of them unlikable. The exceptions are Colossus and the Beast. Even then you have to cringe through the Beast making a joke about taking a dump.
Jean Gray has a belly button ring, Storm is a teen thief and Wolverine is basically a hired killer, but to make all those fanboys happy, Logan finally gets to bang Jean.

More of that grim, not much fun stuff that pass...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Paul Hamilton rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comic, graphic-novel

The interesting thing about the X-Men, as opposed to many other super heroes, is that their "origin" stories aren't really focused on how their powers came to be, since they all have the same story: born with a mutant gene that gives them special powers. Thus the traditional set-up stories are more along the lines of how the team comes together, usually with Professor X collecting the mutants at his school. The Ultimate line, which is kind of a partial reboot, thus pushes back the clock on serie...more The interesting thing about the X-Men, as opposed to many other super heroes, is that their "origin" stories aren't really focused on how their powers came to be, since they all have the same story: born with a mutant gene that gives them special powers. Thus the traditional set-up stories are more along the lines of how the team comes together, usually with Professor X collecting the mutants at his school. The Ultimate line, which is kind of a partial reboot, thus pushes back the clock on series so that the principals are all teenagers but sets it in the early 00s (when the series began). Mark Millar also does a few roster shuffles from the original 60s, replacing Angel with Storm and Colossus.

The biggest problem I have with Millar's telling of the X-Men is that he doesn't solve any of the problems introduced in previous X-Men incarnations. Notably, there are still too many secondary mutants running around without sufficient character development and many if not most of them are painfully prone to swapping sides between Professor X's "let's get along with humanity" track and Magneto's "death to homo sapiens" track. Millar even exacerbates this by making such an ideological shift subject to something as fleeting as teenage jealousy.

Additionally, I have to take a moment to make my usual gripe about Wolverine. Don't get me wrong, I think Wolverine is a great character, but he's a solo guy. His effectiveness as a foil for the other members of the team is, I think, heavily undermined by his presence from the get-go in this book. For case in point note that the second major storyline (featured in this volume) of the book is "Return To Weapon X" so six months in to the run and Wolverine has already commandeered the storyline. I presume he will continue to do so as he has in practically every other X-Men book I've ever read. As an occasional cameo character, I think he might work in the series, but while he does represent a decent analogy to government exploitation of the disaffected (mutants in this case), he's too tempting for writers to let take a back seat. The end result, Ultimate X-Men in a single volume has already become what every other X-Men book eventually becomes: Wolverine & The X-Men.

The art by Andy Kubert and Adam Kubert is pretty good, even if they are occasionally prone to dipping into Escher Girls territory. The key here in determining whether I continue to read more Ultimate X-Men collections is going to be if I think Millar can get out of the way enough to let the X-Men themselves shine through, to tell the story of reconciliation and evolution that the X-Men represents (at least long enough for them to become legitimate heroes against non-mutant threats). Given that within the first year he had already succumbed to so many of the problems inherent in the series, I don't think so. I had high hopes that this might be the chance for Marvel to go back and undo some of the baggage that has weighed down the whole suite of X- books since somewhere in the 80s which made X-Men (and assorted offshoots) sort of the poster child for super hero storytelling lunacy, but it looks like more of the same. I'm not sorry I bought or read this volume, but I don't think I'll be reading further.(less)

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Jun 07, 2012 Sam Quixote rated it 2 of 5 stars

Mark Millar reboots the X-Men for the Ultimates Universe with this new iteration of the popular franchise in "The Tomorrow People" and unlike recent reboots like Grant Morrison's "New X-Men" and Jason Aaron's more recent reboot, Millar's version is by far the weakest and least original.

He makes the X-Men teenagers so we get to see Cyclops, Storm, Jean Gray learning the ropes and having tantrums etc. Scott Summers especially when he sees Jean and Logan smooching. It's kinda lame. Also a mis-step...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Samantha rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans who don't mind their favorite characters being changed

Shelves: graphic-novel-manga, marvel, reviewed

Overall: In general, this was good, but I had a few problems with it. Teenage perspective was fine, but made things shaky as a whole.

What I Thought Was Wrong:

#1 Jean Grey I always imagined Jean as being a classy kind-a-gal. Here, she is borderline trashy. Despite her strength and style, her hair should not be short. Her wardrobe also seemed rather un-Jean-like. [Her hair takes away from the blown-away factor she carries in the future when she becomes Phoenix]
Also, the Jean I have grown-up wat...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Catherine rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had a lot of problems with this first volume of the Ultimate X-Men. First off, the art, while decent, does a terrible job at making these mutants look like teenagers. I don’t know if they were trying to attract both adult and teenage audiences by drawing these characters as adults and actually having them be teenagers but it is really distracting and it prohibited me from getting any sort of realistic physical sense of the characters. Second, the characters are barely even established. They ta...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Sandra Howard rated it 4 of 5 stars

A new twist to how X-men were joined together.

The Sentinels were loose and they were out on a killing spree. They were programmed to eliminate every mutant on Earth. Humans were threatened by the growing number of mutants which was why the Sentinels out there.

Magneto was busy planning as to how he could rid the humans so that the mutants would rule Earth. Xavier, on the other hand, assigned Jean Grey (also known as Marvel Girl) to locate fellow mutants Storm, Beast, Colossus and Iceman to join X...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Shane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, read-in-2009

So I went into this with no idea what the "Ultimate" titles were all about. If you're not aware these are basically the Marvel universe restarted for the teens of the 21st century. This is a good thing if you're new to Marvel because you're kind of "getting in on the ground floor" as opposed to trying to catch up on 45+ years of X-men/marvel comics. According to the afterword it worked well because the ultimates are huge sellers.

But...
If you're an old guy like me and have been reading Marvel com...more

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Jun 16, 2010 Brian Hodges rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

What a fun reboot of the X-Men franchise. The action and situations were completely ridiculous (one of the main plotlines involves giant humanoid robots sent by the government to destroy anyone with the mutant gene... with lasers) but wow, it makes for fun action.

As somebody whose only experience with X-Men is the movies, I really liked what they did with the characters. Pretty much all of them, even the "grownup" characters from the movie are presented as angsty teenagers whom Professor Xavier...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Charles rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: manga-graphic-novels, superheroes, reviewed

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Stuff I Read – Ultimate X-Men #1-6

So I have been an X-Men fan for a long time (really ever since the TV show on Fox back in the day, when I was but a youngin’). But there was a time (that I call High School) when I wasn’t reading the comics at all, and it really wasn’t until I got into college that I picked the comics back up and started collecting again. So, really, I missed almost the entire first half of Ultimate X-Men when it was coming out. The good news was that I got the trades for cheap...more Stuff I Read – Ultimate X-Men #1-6

So I have been an X-Men fan for a long time (really ever since the TV show on Fox back in the day, when I was but a youngin’). But there was a time (that I call High School) when I wasn’t reading the comics at all, and it really wasn’t until I got into college that I picked the comics back up and started collecting again. So, really, I missed almost the entire first half of Ultimate X-Men when it was coming out. The good news was that I got the trades for cheap and so caught up pretty quick. And, in truth, the opening arc does what it sets out to do, which is to introduce the X-Men as if they had started in, what 2000 or so. Because, unlike most comics which attempt to avoid mentioning what time period they are taking place in, Ultimate X-Men shows the president and mentions dates and all that. So really it is grounding itself that it is starting in the here and now; or, at least, in the here and now of ten years ago.

So it sets about gathering up the first generation of X-Men, which turn out to be Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Storm, Colossus, Iceman, and Wolverine. It should be mentioned right away that the series does fall victim to trying really hard to make the characters more edgy. Colossus is involved in the Russian Mafia, Wolverine is an assassin for the Brotherhood, and Storm is in jail for stealing cars. And the humans, too, are “updated” into already having made the sentinels and so the series opens on sentinels killing mutants. As a whole the edgier feel of the series attempts to up the stakes and make the urgency of Xavier’s dream pressing indeed. At the same time, Xavier is shown as perhaps not being the saint he was in the classic stories. Indeed, in the comics he talks all well and good, but it is evident that he does see humans as something lower, and takes it upon himself to wipe minds or convince people to help him when he sees it as necessary, and definitely thinks he is best suited to lead mutant kind and humanity into the future.

Magneto comes across as much more vicious, at least, and less noble, it being his accomplishment that Professor X was crippled. He is also more into terrorism in the real sense, including bombings and kidnapping, and goes as far as to reprogram the sentinels to attack humans. And really, what Ultimate X-Men accomplishes is showing that in today’s age, the only way to combat evil is to adopt their tactics. In these comics it becomes clear that the X-Men are more willing to adopt the tactics of the Brotherhood, balking only at killing, really. But the lying, the using their powers to gain the upper hand; the difference between the X-Men and Brotherhood becomes one more of ideals and less of tactics. Where in the original comics the X-Men tried to stand for something bigger, tried to show that everyone was human, in this updated version there is no concession that mutants are human. They are supposed to be superior, and to usher in a new age. And while the X-Men believe that this should be done peacefully, they still see themselves as above humanity in many ways.

So really this is a vision of the X-Men that is rife with the bitterness of the times. The faith in humans and, by extension, in mutants, is gone and what we have is a lesson that even with good mutants power corrupts. The heroism is a shadowed, at the very least, underneath the flaws of the characters and their methods. They still attempt to “save” a world that hates and fears them, but with the arrogance that they know they are right, that they are the inheritors of the world. While the visuals and writing of the issues is solid, I find it a bit jarring to find that in the “present” no one questions Xavier or his altered dream. In the mainstream comics universe there is at least questions raised about mutants role in the future, and as mutants have become more concerned with surviving and being left alone they have had to adapt their tactics. But even that is not without comment or criticism. In Ultimate X-Men it is like mutants have already decided that they will inherit, and so it is a battle over what form of government that will take in the new order, a democracy or aristocracy. And it makes a good read, no doubts there. But I dislike what it says, or tries to say, about what the present means. It lands with a 6.75/10.
(less)

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Apr 30, 2012 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really liked it. It's trying to be this blend of the future X-Men stories and the normal day. From the artwork to the violent, sobering reality of the stories, to the little changes they made that really make a difference. They're not just these little quirky moves that you HAD to make just to show you're different. And it doesn't waste time with origins we all know. My unique point of view, here in 2012, is that of someone who liked the first X-Men movie, loved the second, hated the wasted idea...more Really liked it. It's trying to be this blend of the future X-Men stories and the normal day. From the artwork to the violent, sobering reality of the stories, to the little changes they made that really make a difference. They're not just these little quirky moves that you HAD to make just to show you're different. And it doesn't waste time with origins we all know. My unique point of view, here in 2012, is that of someone who liked the first X-Men movie, loved the second, hated the wasted ideas of the third and didn't especially like anything outside of Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

Somehow 11 years ago, Mark Millar wrote a comic book for someone like me. That promise...those words spoken by Magneto in X1...'finally this Mutant War has begun' get reclaimed here. From the very first frame this story has the balls, the scope and the intensity X3 was supposed to have with Sentinels that work, a much more human beast to replace that Kelsey Grammar garbage from X-Men: The Last Stand, a Jean Grey with a fresh lease on life, the real Colossus, the Cyclops we deserved, the Storm that's not just Halle Berry in a wig and a dumb accent, Wolverine with a real agenda besides 'damn Jean is fine,' the real Brotherhood with real, individual personalities.

Even though I'm late...this is what I've been waiting for?

I'm not a real comic book reader. I've never read Age of Apocalypse or anything X-Men. All I got under my belt is Civil War, so the movies and the cartoon from forever ago are my foundation, and this builds on everything. So it gets a little preachy, so they bargained a lot of exposition explaining the origin for the right to start with a world at war. And they rushed the ending some with a couple last minute changes of heart that threw me off...I can't help but love this for what it does right. It costs nothing to be inspired and this is the most inspired (albeit a decade old) new X-Men thing I've seen in years. And I can't wait for more.

My only gripe...the live by the ____, die by the _____. Their willingness to hit the ground running sorta leaves the story out of breath. So much escalated in the one volume that it's almost like American Horror Story, the way they're mowing through plot.
Regardless...these are the X-Men we deserved...so far.

And I really liked the artwork.(less)

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Dec 31, 2010 Krystl Louwagie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I got this from a friend for Christmas (thank you, Jenn!) and was very happy I did! I asked for it because I remember years ago really liking how the comics in this series were done (I only started reading when Gambit comes on scene) so now I backed up to the beginning because I saw they were in graphic novel form-also, I wanted them because Mark Millar is a writer on them, and he's amazing (Kick-Ass, Wanted, etc.).

This series starts back at the beginning (before beast was blue, Storm's just bee...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, urban-fantasy, mississauga-public-library-books

The opportunity to re-launch the X-Universe with new origin stories that highlight a younger first class team in a modern world is opportunistic but still fun in its own right. Much of the first half of the story felt a little too much like a rehash; although the continuity is not exactly the same the essentials are mostly identical. I appreciated the reimagining of Marvel Girl as a punk spunky girl wonder. The emphasis on Wolverine is exhausting at this point but I liked the newly done Beast an...more

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May 23, 2013 Alicia Scully rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, gr-10-12, gr-8-10, graphic-novel-manga, science-fiction, young-adult-lit

I did a Readers Advisory guide on X-Men comics for one of my classes this past spring semester and this was one of the selections. I have high hopes to read everything on my list that I haven't read yet, but this is definitely a start. This book was just so good! It reboots the series and reimagines the characters in such a way that I was really impressed. The characters are a lot edgier and I can see how this would attract a new modern fanbase. My only major complaint was that there wasn't much...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Andrew Ives rated it 3 of 5 stars

A fairly decent stab at a 'Year One' which kind of brings the older X-Men comics and the films together, in a new 'gritty' look. For me, it seemed to be rather too military, all fighting, everything blowing up, while the talking parts were reasonably lame with some redundant panels. The artwork is coloured fantastically well, but the original pencil work is not quite as wonderful. Wolverine looks rather peculiar on the cover, and doesn't look the same inside, or in the films or the old comics. A...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Jolene Haack rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 100-2011

Since I'm in full-on obsession mode, I'm reading X-Men kind of a lot now. Chris and I had both just read Second Coming, which was marvelous, but too far in the future for me to really follow. I picked up Ultimate so that I could read a series start to finish.

Chris didn't like it much so far but I'm really enjoying a retelling of the series from the very beginning. I'll never be able to catch up on Uncanny from the very beginning since there's hundreds of issues. But with Ultimate, I feel like I'...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Joe Davidson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading a current-gen Marvel comic is like trying to sit down and start watching a soap-opera. Unless you know someone who can tell you who the characters are and a little bit about their history you're inevitably going to feel totally lost. Rebooting the Marvel Universe so that the situations and characters are all very "Now" was and is a fantastic idea. This introduction to the X-Men's niche of the world feels very natural and is a great place to start for anybody who is interested in a casual...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Madeleine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

Good, but not great. Like a lot of long running comic book series / characters, X-Men stories retell the same story over and over but even with a pretty diverse set of writers, some of whom I absolutely love, there never seems to be any feeling of freshness - as if the writers are being drowned by the weight of the core concept of the series.
If it isn't possible to stay true to the themes of the series and show the reader an aspect of the series they haven't seen before, then it may mean it's ti...more

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Mar 05, 2010 Federiken Masters rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Seguidores del autor o los personajes

Recommended to Federiken by: Varios comiqueros

Qué triste que, aunque tengo este libro en edición argentina, nunca lo leí hasta que tuve la española a mano, sabiendo que en la local me esperaba una traducción espantosa, sin acentos y que seguro me haría sangrar los ojos a las pocas páginas. Y lo bien que hice, porque el cómic en sí tampoco me pareció demasiado maravilloso que digamos, así que si tenía que quejarme de la edición, gracias si alcanzaba las dos estrellitas.
Yendo al libro en sí me gustó la premisa de unos X-Men más directos, con...more

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May 08, 2009 Rosalia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, superheroes, young-adult, boy-reads, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 06, 2010 Orrin Grey rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

My roommate roped me into reading these as some kind of experiment to see how far I'd go before giving up in disgust, since I mostly hated these characters as they appeared in Ultimate Galactus. I don't hate them quite as much here, and there's some occasional moments of coolness, but... mostly this just didn't do much for me.

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Dec 27, 2012 Nailmouth rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's been a long time since I've read any 'superhero' comic-books, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed reading this and the subsequent three volumes.

With interesting writing and good artwork, the 2001 reboot does an adequate job of providing an artful retelling of the X-Men origin saga, without tarnishing the memory of the original.

Recommended for old fans or newcomers to the story, definitely a fun read.

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Jan 28, 2010 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this. (However, successive storylines should not have been too eager to throw every character in the Marvel lot into the mix so quick. Should have been savored, not gulped. Should have reserved some of the better artists for this title. It's greatness was eventually dilluted, which is why this volume still stands out a bit).

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Dec 08, 2010 Lord rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, marvel

I think this is a very good reset of X-men done by Mark Millar with a fresh look, interesting relations and a little bit weak art. Most of long time Marvel fans are whining, of course, that explains the low rating here. But this is a good comic book with a lot of potential to show later on.

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Apr 10, 2011 Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Guess I'm not part of the "ultimate" audience, so don't really see the point of re-telling the same old stories in a slightly simpler format like this. Still, the artwork is good and, overall, the volume is fairly well-done. Will give Vol. 2 a try before moving on to other stuff...

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May 19, 2013 Jessica Robinson rated it 1 of 5 stars

Maybe it was Magneto calling Xavier a stupid cripple or maybe it was the Beast having bigoted, abusive parents instead of proud, loving ones but damn do I hate this comic book. Darker and edgier definitely doesn't mean better and Ultimate X-Men is a great example of that.

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May 02, 2013 Ms. Library rated it 3 of 5 stars

The girl versus boy costumes in this were SO RIDICULOUS. Oh, all the boys are covered up LIKE NORMAL for armor, but the girls, WOOOWEEE stomach and cleavage oh boy. Hope the sentinels can't figure out they are mutants from the stomach windows. That would sure be a lack of foresight.

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May 01, 2012 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Liked the artwork. Enjoyed the story. The re-interpretation of the characters were interesting. Xavier's "first opportunity to shut down his mind", Jean Grey/ Logan relationship, and Cyclop's doubt in the Charle's dream. Twist and turns are worth a look through.

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Jan 09, 2011 Douglas rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a reboot that works, and it is telling that when they made the movies, they borrowed heavily from the style (and plot lines).

Highly enjoyable, if derivative. As the series continues, it reaches occasional moments of real greatness. Millar is wonderful.

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Mar 24, 2012 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars

I basically only read this because an event from this arc was mentioned in the Spider-man series. Kind of a meh story and intro to characters that most comic readers already know. Not sure if I'll bother to read much more of the X-men line

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About Mark Millar

Mark Millar is an award-winning Scottish comic book writer born in Coatbridge. Now a resident of Glasgow, Millar has been the highest selling British comic-book writer working in America this decade. His best known works include: The Authority, Ultimates 1 and 2, adaptations of Jack Kirby's and Stan Lee's Avengers, Wanted, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, and Civil War. In Augus...more

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