Learn More About the X-Men in Ultimate X-Men
Written: May 21 '03 (Updated Jul 11 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Information about X-Men characters and important events involving the X-Men
Cons: Repetitive at times. Very little information on some characters
The Bottom Line: Ultimate X-Men is a guide to X-Men characters and events. Fans of the X-Men may enjoy the book and find it interesting.
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| dragonfire88's Full Review: |
I have enjoyed the X-Men for several years. I have a few of the comic books, I watched the cartoon that was on in the 1990s, and I’ve seen X-Men and X2: X-Men United. I’ve seen the first movie several times and I just saw the second movie for the second time. Since seeing X2: X-Men United for the first time, I’ve been obsessed with the X-Men - and Harry Potter, but that is for other reviews - and I’ve gotten a DVD collection of some of the cartoons called X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine and three books on the X-Men. One of those books was Ultimate X-Men.
Ultimate X-Men is an oversize hard back book. The book was original published in 2000 and was updated in 2003 to include information about the two X-Men movies. There was more information about the first movie. The book was written by Peter Sanderson.
Ultimate X-Men didn’t have an actual plot. The book contained information about some of the X-Men characters and touched on a few story lines.
Ultimate X-Men began with a forward written by Stan Lee. He explained how he created the X-Men and came up with them being called mutants. He also explained how he came up with the name of X-Men for the comic. Most of what Stan Lee said in the forward sounded very much like what he said in one of the extras on the DVD of X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine. There was a short introduction to the book after the forward that briefly explained some background on the X-Men.
The X-Men comic debuted in 1963. There were only a few characters at first. Over the years, many more characters, some good, some villains, and some normal humans, have been added to the X-Men world. There have been some spin-off comics, cartoons, and two movies. Ultimate X-Men covered important events in the X-Men history and the more important X-Men characters. There were no actual chapters in the book. The things discussed in it seemed to be arranged in chronological order. There were some divisions of the information based on which decade they occurred in.
There were four sections in Ultimate X-Men, one for the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. Information about the X-Men in 2000 was included after the 1990 section, but there was no separate section for 2000. Both of the movies were discussed at the end of the book. There was some information on the making of X-Men and some pictures from scenes in the movie. There was a little bit of the plot of the movie mentioned. There was less information about X2: X-Men United. The major characters were shown along with a brief discussion. It was mentioned that the character of General Stryker was partially based on the character of Reverend Stryker from an X-Men graphic novel.
After reading Ultimate X-Men and The Marvel Encyclopedia: X-Men, I think that General Stryker was a combination of Reverend Stryker and two men involved in what happened to Wolverine in the comics and cartoon series - The Professor and Dr. Cornelius. When I did some checking on the cast of X2: X-Men United when I was working on a review of that movie, the character of Stryker was listed as General, like he was in this book. I was sure I heard him called Colonel during the movie, but maybe I was wrong. I knew that some things had been changed from the comics for the movies, but I know I missed some things. This book helped me to discover what other things had been changed here and there.
Each section of Ultimate X-Men began with a two-page spread showing drawings of the X-Men from that decade. For each new decade, there were new characters introduced as well as new looks for the returning characters. It was really interesting to see how the looks of the characters and their outfits have changed over the years. The next two pages in every section were titled X-Men in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, depending on which section of the book you were in. There was some brief discussion about events that happened in the comics for each decade. Across the bottom of the two pages was a time line that showed what year some things happened, like the first appearance of a character, events, or when spin off comics were started. There were some pictures of comic book covers on the pages as well. The next two pages in each section were called Changing Faces in each decade. There were drawings of different characters, including rejected costume ideas for some characters. The section for the 1970s mentioned that Logan was originally planned to be a teenager. Some of the different characters were briefly mentioned.
After the first six pages of each section in Ultimate X-Men, the character information started. Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, was the first X-Man to be discussed in the book. For each section, X-Men, and villains, who were introduced in that particular decade were discussed. There were drawings of the characters pulled from different comics. For the characters who appeared in the first X-Men movie, there was a small section discussing the character in the movie and the actor who played the character. When a character was introduced in the movie in a different way than in the comics, like Wolverine, the book mentioned that fact. There was also a picture showing the actors in costume as the characters. Bobby, Iceman, was in the first movie, but there wasn’t any information about his character in the movie on his pages. I think that may be because Bobby wasn’t in too many scenes in the first movie. For Professor X, there was also some information about Cerebro and a diagram of it. On the pages about Cyclops, there was a diagram of the special visor he wore. There were two pages devoted to the Sentinels, the giant mutant hunting robots. There was a large drawing of a Sentinel. Half of the robot was cut away to show the inner workings.
Most of Ultimate X-Men was devoted to discussing the various characters, but the book contained a few other things. There was a map of Xavier’s estate and blue prints of the mansion that served as the school. The danger room, a special room in the mansion where the X-Men trained, was described, as well as a diagram of the room. There were diagrams of different air and space craft that turned up in the X-Men. A few locations that were important to the history of the X-Men were also discussed. Near the end of the book, there was a world map that showed the important locations, as well as where some of the X-Men came from.
One page of Ultimate X-Men contained a Summers family tree. Scott Summers was also known as Cyclops, and his family is very important in the X-Men world. In the X-Men world, there are several alternate and parallel worlds. In the different worlds, different things happen to the characters. The family tree of Scott’s family varies for the different time lines, but they remain important in each one.
Ultimate X-Men covered a few of the story lines from the comics. In Days of Future Past, Senator Kelly was killed by mutants. After that, many mutants were killed and others were imprisoned in camps. The Sentinels took control of the country. The surviving X-Men were in the camps. One of them, Kitty Pride, sent her spirt back in time with the help of Rachel Summers to try to stop Senator Kelly from being killed so the future would be different. In Age of Apocalypse, a time traveler went back in time to kill Magneto, only Charles was killed instead. No one was able to stop Apocalypse, and he took over North America with the evil mutants he lead. In that time line, Magneto created the X-Men to fight Apocalypse. Magneto and Rogue got married and had a child named Charles. Gambit lead a group called the X-Ternals who stole from Apocalypse’s elite. Beast was known as Dark Beast. He was an evil genius who enjoyed performing experiments on humans. When that time line was ended, he and a few other villains escaped to the normal X-Men time line. The book also covered the Weapon X experiments that had been done to Logan, as well as exploring his past before those events.
Each character that was covered in Ultimate X-Men did not receive equal coverage. The more popular and important characters, like Cyclops and Wolverine, had two pages covering them. Other characters, like Dazzler, only had one page. There were characters, like Changeling that only had part of a page devoted to them. Other characters, like Lady Deathstrike, only had a few sentences. I would have liked for there to be more information about some characters. For the characters that did have more coverage, the same bit of information about them was more than once in the two pages. For Cyclops, it said twice that he was the first X-Man. It also repeated how he had to leap from his father’s burning plan when he was young. Cyclops and Jean Grey had an ongoing relationship, so a few things were repeated in Jean’s section. There were a few other X-Men who became involved, like Rogue and Gambit, and there was also repeated information in the sections about each character. For Banshee, it said twice how he was forced to work with Factor Three and Xavier freed him. The repetitive nature of the book did get a bit old. I would have preferred to have less of that and more other information on the characters. Only major events in the lives of the characters were discussed.
I did enjoy reading Ultimate X-Men. I liked learning more about my favorite characters and learning about others I knew little about or hadn’t heard of before. I thought that the information in the book was very interesting. I liked seeing the drawings of the characters, showing how their looks and costumes changed over the years. When the X-Men comic first started, the original X-Men wore simple blue and yellow costumes. Everyone’s outfit looked the same, except for Iceman since he was covered with ice. In the early comics, Iceman looked like he was made of snow instead of ice and he wore blue shoes. As the comic continued, the characters outfits changed, and they started to wear things that didn’t look identical.
I learned things that I hadn’t know about some characters after reading Ultimate X-Men. Thanks to this book, I know that Hank McCoy, Beast, was one of the original X-Men and then later changed into his blue, furry form. I also found out how that happened. I discovered that Wolverine first appeared in an Incredible Hulk comic before showing up in the X-Men. I learned more about Logan’s past. According to what I read in this book, he had claws of bone before the adamantium was added to his skeleton. I had thought before that he got the claws for the first time because of the experiments and his mutant ability was just his ability to heal quickly. In one of the X-Men cartoons when Logan remembered his past, he seemed surprised when the claws came out. There were a few things in X2: X-Men United that made me continue to think that way. Near the beginning of the movie, Charles and Logan were talking. Charles said that Logan’s amnesia, adamantium skeleton, and claws were all related. Later in the movie there was a short flashback scene that showed Logan as he was escaping after the experiments. He also seemed surprised by the claws then too. Near the end of the movie, someone told Logan that he had always been an animal and the experiment just gave him claws. Mystique and Sabertooth had an affair that resulted in a baby, Graydon Creed, who grew up to hate mutants. Some mutants, like Rogue, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler, became members of the X-Men in different ways then were shown in the movie. When Wolverine and Rogue arrived at the school, Jubilee was already there. According to this book, Jubilee was rescued from mutant hunters from four female X-Men, including Rogue. Jubilee then helped Wolverine and he sponsored her admission to the X-Men. In the comics and cartoon, Wolverine and Sabertooth shared a past and were enemies. In the first X-Men movie, it wasn’t shown that the two shared a past. The history between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike was left out of the second movie.
The information that was in Ultimate X-Men was well written, but it wasn’t as detailed as I would have liked. There wasn’t a lot of depth to what was written in the book. This was not a complete guide to all the X-Men characters. Many were left out of this book. I also have the Marvel Encyclopedia: X-Men, and it covered many more characters. The information on some of the characters was sketchy at best, and that was disappointing to me. I also would have liked for there to be more on the various story lines of the comics. I did learn that there were several characters who had similar powers. Changeling was also a shape shifter like Mystique. There was at least one other character mentioned in the book who also had that power, but I can’t remember who it was now. Nightcrawler was not the only one who could teleport, but I can’t remember who else could do that now. I would have liked it if there had been something in the book, maybe before the index, that listed powers, like teleportation or telekinesis, and then told which character had that power. There was very little information about any of the characters before they joined the X-Men, or first encountered them. I have a similar book about the characters in the Star Wars movies, Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters, that had a lot more detail and information about the characters. That book covered things in the entire life of the characters. I would have loved for there to have been that level of depth to the discussion of the X-Men characters.
The company that published Ultimate X-Men, DK Publishing, also published books for Batman, the Incredible Hulk, the Justice League, Spider-Man and Superman. I quickly flipped through a few of those books in my local bookstore, and those books seem to be arranged in a similar fashion. I think I will be adding the other books to my collection as well. My love of super hero characters has been reignited and I’m finding myself wanting to get everything I can about the characters. I have also seen books about Disney and James Bond by this company. The website for the company, www.dk.com, shows all of the books that company has available.
I really enjoyed Ultimate X-Men. I found it interesting to read about the X-Men characters. The book was helpful to me when I wrote my review of X2: X-Men United because I was able to double check a few things, like how to spell adamantium. I think fans of the X-Men would enjoy this book.
Ultimate X-Men
Peter Sanderson
www.dk.com
www.marvel.com
Other X-Men reviews
X-Men ~ X2: X-Men United ~ X-Men: The Last Stand ~ X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine ~
Other Superhero Reviews
Batman ~ Batman Returns ~ Batman Forever ~ Batman Begins ~ Batman: The Ultimate Guide to The Dark Knight ~ Elektra ~ Fantastic Four ~ The Incredibles ~ Lois & Clark: The Complete First Season ~ Sky High ~ Spider-Man ~ Spider-Man 2 ~ Superman Returns ~ Superman: The Ultimate Guide to the Man of Steel ~
Recommended:
Yes
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