The Tempest

***Hey this review covers Paperbacks Vol 9-11, including Cry Wolf and The Most Dangerous Game, collected in Hardcover Volume 5. All three are fantastic!*** I've posted reviews for hardcovers 1-3 in this series. Reviews that trashed the bloated, stupid mess that Mark Millar made of the first three years of Ultimate X-Men. In the issues contained in this volume, Brian Vaughn pulls off a work of genius: he manages to work with everything he's been given, and make it real, personal, exciting, fun, and actually resets the book on the path it should have been on all along: presenting the X-men as teenagers, who behave like teenagers, with all of their problems and flaws, plus the problems of learning about their mutant powers and roles. He makes the characters lovable. He writes plotlines that are taught and tense. He writes dialog that provides a particular voice to each character, and is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The artwork is exceptional throughout the whole book, with Brandon Peterson's typically serviceable pencils jacked up to ultimate levels by the incredible inking and coloring, and Stuart Immonen's typically genius work perfectly fitting the "teen" feel of the book. Let's get specific. The first arc, The Tempest, features a gleeful gutting of the Mr Sinister concept from the original series. This is a trademark of Vaughn's UXM-- take a familiar character or storyline, and recast it in a way that gives a wink and a nod to the old, but reinvents the concept in an unexpected way. Who cares if you loved the original Sinister? You can see him back in action in recent X-men titles like Messiah Complex, ok? He's scary AND ridiculous here, and it works. The second arc, Cry Wolf, once again ties some "legacy" concepts in new knots: Gambit is introduced, as well as the villains Fenris. The Gambit character works well here-- amazingly, Vaughn sets up the relationship between him and Rougue so well. Gambit's powers are used very effectively, as well--the fight between him and the X-Men, including an awesome throw-down with Wolverine, is perfectly choreographed! The third arc, The Most Dangerous Game, is another genius reinterpretation of a classic: Longshot/Spiral/Mojo!! It is brilliantly plotted with a kicker twist. The character of Longshot is very well done, including his powers, which are used in some really clever ways. Throughout each of these arcs, there is an excellent balance of character development and action. The fight scenes are are very well worked-out, with the character's powers feeling real, and playing off of each other in surprising ways. This is another monster improvement over Millar's UXM. In the earlier issues, the characters' powers were jacked up through the roof and they were always used in the bluntest manner possible. Vaughn takes the hard road and shows the X-Men regularly getting their butts kicked by resourceful villains. When they win battles, they win by working together and letting their powers play off

Amazing art almost throughout I like the Sinister reimaging, he's a killer and he's crazy. He never did it for me in the main universe Very nice characterization kinda uneventful, but not really worth it, to me

Out of all my Ultimate X-Men Novels this one rates as one of my favorites. Short of Vol. 6 and 8. I love a good read and solid story and though this may have little to do with future stories it takes a sorry, sad, goofy looking villian and turned him into a crazy and scary man with 45's. He looks better and his power of hypnosis works well with what he trying to do, kill mutants. The possibility of another major villian in this novel also leaves you with some high expectations for future novels. Thank God for Ultimate Universe

this was really good! It had every thing that makes a comic good. With a story so good you can,t miss. but too top it off with the great art work to! this is a realy good read1

Mr. Sinister is one of those characters who always seemed kind of silly and over-the-top in the regular Marvel Universe. In "The Tempest," Brian K. Vaughan has revamped the character, making him essentially a nutjob with a gun. While I'm sure that will tick off many of Sinister's longtime fans, I think the revamp works well for the Ultimate Universe. Sure, Vaughan could have given us a retread of the original Sinister, but let's face it--that story has already been told. One of the beautiful things about the Ultimate Universe is that we can get a new spin on familiar characters. Other familiar characters in this volume are Northstar and Sunspot, but save for their ages and backgrounds, little has changed about their characters. The introduction of Northstar (one of my favorite characters) was a little short for me, but hopefully, we'll see lots more of him in the future.