They don't do crossovers in the Ultimate books (thank god).  Instead, they do books like Ultimate Nightmare - miniseries starring the heroes from two ongoing titles.  This one stars the X-Men and the Ultimates (or at least, some of them), which I guess qualifies it as an X-book of sorts.

Warren Ellis writes the book, continuing his recent return to superheroes.  This'll be the first time he's done the X-Men, come to think of it, aside from a couple of brief appearances when he was working on Excalibur.  However, if you're one of the last-ditch hold-outs hoping he'd just make fun of the concept, you'll be disappointed.  It's a straight version of the X-Men and the Ultimates (who are slightly screwy to start with), filtered through the usual sensibilities we've come to expect from Ellis' superhero books.

What does that mean in practice?  Well, in a nutshell, it's the decompressed big explosions from Authority, crossed with a disaster from the Global Frequency slush pile.  Reading it back, that's actually a little harsh - but it gives you the idea of what we're dealing with here.  The plot takes as its starting point the mysterious Tunguska event of 1908.  In the real world, that was an inexplicable explosion, possibly something to do with a meteor, that devastated a couple of thousand square kilometres of Siberia.  Since the actual cause remains unexplained (and the whole event is satisfyingly esoteric), it's ideal plot fodder.

So we have a story about, apparently, aliens who crashlanded on Earth in the Tunguska meteor.  After all these years, they've started to make contact with the rest of the world, hijacking global communications and broadcasting surreal but deeply depressing cries for help that have sparked a worrying number of suicides.  The heroes must investigate.  And there's the plot.

Now, granted, that means that the heroes' role in this issue is pretty limited.  (They turn up near the end and go, gosh, we ought to do something about this.)  Mind you, giving the book a title like Ultimate Nightmare allows a little more leeway for that sort of thing.  Besides, this is an issue built around the sort of decompression techniques that worked well for Ellis in The Authority.  The plot was often a bit of a sideline in that book, while the real selling point was Bryan Hitch's art on the set-piece action sequences.

Trevor Hairsine and Simon Coleby provide the art on this one, and while the style is a little rougher around the edges, the thrust remains similar.  So we get four dialogue-free pages of the meteor landing, to open the book.  Lovely pages.  Great sense of impact, lots of gaze at.  But it's still four pages of a meteor crash-landing, and the cryptic message sequence is a bit drawn out as well.  If you're looking for rapid plot advancement you may be disappointed.  But you're meant to be gazing at the art.  Admittedly, it might be argued that this is the equivalent of Hollywood movies that are sold exclusively on the special effects - but if the art's good enough to carry it, and it is, then it can work from time to time on a mainstream title.

There's nothing particularly unexpected to be found here - it's Warren Ellis, writing an Ultimates and X-Men story, and applying his usual style and themes to it.  Hairsine and Coleby make good use of the opportunities to show off, and if it's a little po-faced, it's still pretty much successful on its own terms.

[PS: Since writing this, I've been reminded that it isn't the first X-Men story Ellis has written - that would be X-Men/WildCATS #4.]

Rating: A-

back | continue