Ultimate X-Men #21: Lift Yourself

In a way, I feel for Kageyama. I feel for most young men in his position. I was in that position at one time. A depressed young man no one liked them because they weren’t conventionally attractive (in both our cases overweight). That haunting feeling that every eye is judging you and every word hushed is negative towards you.

You isolate, wishing to be anywhere but where you currently are. Your world is gray, and you feel nothing can color it. Then someone pulls you out of that darkness. Someone sees you drowning and pulls you up from the deep water. You imprint onto that person. 

That is the story of Kageyama and Hisako. For Hisako, this is framed as a simple kind interaction towards a new classmate, but for Kageyama it’s everything. Hisako was the only person he could not read with his telepathy. She was a mystery, and that mystery turned to obsession. It’s the impetus for his entire character in the series.

To Kageyama, Hisako lifted him up, but then left to drown. It’s a process most young men and boys go through and there are only two roads out, you either learn to accept yourself and improve, or you lose yourself and become an incel. It’s not hard to see which road Kageyama took. 

While the issue opens and is bookended by Kageyama’s inner turmoil, the middle deals with a protest against the Mutant Registration Act. It feels a bit abrupt that we’ve hit this point already, but with the series nearing it’s climax there sadly isn’t much time to do a more in the time that’s left. We get a well illustrated fight scene between the X-Men and Sunfire’s MY-X soldiers, but there isn’t much here to make these science experiments stand out outside of their 616 references. Kanon gets a fun YuYu Hakusho reference as well. 

The scenes with Kageyama’s backstory are also very atmospheric and engaging. The use of red negative space was very striking to the eye.