Ultimate Wolverine #9: Heavy Metal Mayhem

After barely surviving their encounter with Directorate X’s Archangel (whose design was totally not inspired by Femto from the manga “Berserk”) and losing two of their key members, the Opposition have to move forward. This time they move to dismantle Directorate X’s Sentinel construction facility. 

Chris Condon continues to tell the tale of this world’s version of the “classic” mutant heroes and their struggle against those that want to use them for their own ends. This issue is all action with little in the way of character exploration. This isn’t a huge knock on the book, but by the end it feels like not much happens when you reach the final page. The issue kind of just ends. Feeling more like a one-off then part of the larger story. 

As with every issue, Codon introduces more recognizable characters and concepts from the franchise, but twists them to fit this terrible world that the Maker has created. This time around, in addition to the Sentinels, we also get a look at this world’s version of Forge and Cyclops. However, its with this story’s revelation of the noted X-Leader that highlights what I feel is the book’s main flaw, its connection to the wider world it inhabits.

In isolation, Ultimate Wolverine is a perfectly fine book. It tells its story well and should keenly fit into this dystopian world that the Maker has crafted for himself. The problem comes when you try to compare it to its contemporary, Ultimate X-Men. 

The books should be two halves of the same whole that give an overall picture of what it’s like to be a mutant in this universe, but there is a noticeable friction in their world building when placed next to one another. While Ultimate Wolverine’s overall tone feels a bit more in step with what one would assume is this new Ultimate Universe’s interpretation of the X-Men, Ultimate X-Men better highlights the overall themes of the characters and mutants as we know them. The feelings of marginalized people and their struggles to survive and live in a world that hates and fears them. Ultimate Wolverine by extension feels like we have reached the end of that story, but the connective tissue is missing. 

In UXM, mutants seem to be a relatively new concept, but Wolverine shows that mutants have been around for as long as this world has existed and on the verge of extinction. The wires cross in a way that take away from the story more than add to it, and in turn creates a scenario where both books are at odds with one another. If only one existed in this universe, it would make more sense, but both create this obvious contrast. Perhaps the upcoming Ultimate Endgame will rough out the edges in this narrative. 

Alessandro Cappuccio’s art continues to serve the story’s bleak tone quite well, which are continuously heightened by Bryan Valenza’s dreary and moody colors.