Story-wise, Ultimate Comics X-Men is heading in a very intriguing direction. It would be hard to think that many readers would be displeased with where Wood is taking these young mutants. Once the series gets a dose of action the woes about the artwork will probably wane, but for this single issue it wasn't the best work we've seen from this team. Read Full Review

Carlo Barberi returns to pencilling the entire issue by himself and the title is better for it. There are a few problems with how he details wide shots, but the consistency he otherwise brings to his character work is much appreciated. Colorist Jesus Aburtov does a great job making the backgrounds into night skies with a nice navy blue to black gradient and adding pop to the huge, huge explosions. Read Full Review

It looks like the X-Men are finally going to have to put their abilities to use, not just to start a home but to protect it too. Hopefully we even get some real X-Villains soon! Either way this was a good issue with quite a few twists, even if not all of them were surprising. Read Full Review

All in all, with rumours circulating this week of the Ultimate line's possible cancellation within the next 12 months, I'm finding it hard to produce a case against such a decision. There's been flashes of brilliance among the books since the Ultimate Comics rebranding (in Bendis' Spider-Man, a constant stream of brilliance, actually) but few that I can recall on the X-Men side of things. There's still time for all that to change, but maybe not as much as Wood's plot requires. Doing only just enough to keep its head above water, Ultimate Comics X-Men really needs to start splashing its arms and kicking its feet before it gets pulled under by the sullen currents of its oppressively dense concepts. Read Full Review