So, the first week under the new, cut-back formula.  That means only two X-books get a full review - Ultimate X-Men Annual #1, because it's self-contained, and Wolverine #31, because it's the end of a storyline.  You'll find the other two - Nightcrawler and New X-Men - in the capsules.

We'll start with Ultimate X-Men Annual #1, an odd little book for a number of reasons.  Marvel haven't published any annuals since the Bill Jemas era, for perfectly understandable reasons.  Jemas' logic was that the annuals always sold far worse than the parent title, so it would make more sense just to spend the money on producing some extra issues of the parent title instead.  After all, they were bound to sell at the usual level.

Solid enough reasoning.  And it's not as though anyone was going to miss the dreary fill-in stories and pointless crossovers which had been used to pad out the annuals for most of the nineties.  On the other hand, you might argue that the very reason the annuals were selling so badly was because readers could rely on them to be either meaningless or awful, and probably both.

In bringing them back for the Ultimate imprint, Marvel seem to be trying to address that problem.  For the most part, they're trying to go back to what worked with annuals many years in the past - self-contained stories with an obvious impact for the ongoing stories.  So Ultimate Spider-Man sets up a new relationship, Ultimate X-Men has major developments for Rogue and Gambit (as well as trying to make some sense of Ultimate Juggernaut), and Ultimates... well, really, they just did a fill-in issue, let's be honest.  But do it right, and the readers think they're getting a special event, rather than a two-part story with a fill-in artist.  It's all in the presentation.

The last time we saw Rogue and Gambit, they'd gone on the run from the X-Men.  Rogue's big plan now is to bring down Fenris' empire with a string of heists.  Gambit thinks the whole idea is rather silly, but hell, it's a string of heists, so he's along for the ride anyway.  But rather than bring back Fenris (who, let's face it, were a bit of a misfire), this time Brian Vaughan brings in the Juggernaut, who was previously used as a throwaway character by Mark Millar.  This was a bad call on Millar's part, wasting the debut of a potentially major character, as well as connecting him to the horribly unsuitable Weapon X project. 

So Vaughan has a bit of surgery to do here, and sets about simultaneously explaining what the hell Juggernaut was doing in Weapon X, and trying to give him some actual motivation (since the original concept just doesn't work when he isn't Xavier's brother).  Oh, and he's got to work in the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak as well.  It's a curious exercise in bringing in the salvageable elements from the original Juggernaut concept, and patching up the rest with substitute material.  It's a vast improvement on what Millar did with the character (ie, nothing), but it still leaves him as a generic thug.  There's just not much point to the guy if he doesn't have his relationship with Xavier, but obviously it's way too late to try and retrofit one at this stage.

A large chunk of the issue is really just a fight scene, albeit a good one, but the surprise comes at the end.  Vaughan's developed a nice line in playing with the expectations of his audience, recognising that the vast majority of them are wholly familiar with the original characters and stories and can easily be led in completely the wrong direction.  This is one of the occasional stories that leaves you thinking "Hold on, they can't do that, he's a major character."  Except of course he isn't, because this is Ultimate X-Men, and if the Beast wasn't safe, a supporting character like Gambit certainly qualifies as cannon fodder.  It wouldn't work so well if we didn't have the built-in assumption that Gambit is an A-list character and guaranteed to be safe, but it's a very effective manipulation of those assumptions.

Tom Raney supplies the guest art, and while his Rogue is a little bit cutesy for my taste, he's always a great storyteller.  He struggles a bit with the awful, inexpressive Juggernaut costume designed by Kubert, which makes the character look like a gay torpedo, but then anyone would.  It's probably no coincidence that Vaughan obligingly destroys the thing in the course of the story, that we may never lay eyes on it again.

A pretty good issue, given the remit.  It's a solid fight scene with an unexpected ending, and at least it manages to rehabilitate the Juggernaut to the point where he's a usable character, even though he still falls far short of the original.

 Rating: B+

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