Ultimate X-Men #58 was originally solicited as having art by Stuart Immonen.  For some reason, Immonen is otherwise occupied, so we have fill-in art instead.  The good news is, it's fill-in art by Steve Dillon.  There is no such thing as a bad Steve Dillon comic.  Even that Bullseye miniseries was worth reading, simply because he's such a good character artist.

And this is an ideal issue for Dillon to fill-in.  It's a standalone issue starring Professor X - the other X-Men are off in a two-page subplot fighting Warlock.  The Professor pops down to the bank to complain that his account's been frozen (in a subplot which we'll evidently be getting back to later).  By the power of plot convenience, a mutant criminal called Syndicate tries to rob the bank.  Xavier gets to deal with it.

In the mainstream Marvel Universe, this story would last two panels and would consist of Xavier zapping Syndicate and going home.  This would be boring.  In fact, this is a major problem with the use of telepaths in the mainstream X-books; they've been made too damn powerful.  Their standard range of powers allows them to beat virtually every other character just by thinking about it, so in order for any stories to happen, there either has to be a contrived explanation of why their powers don't work, or they just have to act like idiots and not defeat the villain in the simplest available manner.  Or they can just zap the villain in two panels, in which case it's really dull.

This version of Xavier can't just zap his way out of the situation, so he has to deal with things in a rather more indirect manner.  This is much, much better.  Aside from the fact that it makes for a more interesting story, it's also much more unsettling.  This version of Xavier doesn't just zap people with glorified energy beams; he happily manipulates people's minds for what seems suspiciously like convenience rather than necessity.  He's got a justification, to be fair, but it's obvious that his ethical standards for interference are set rather lower than the saintly level established by his mainstream counterpart.  Telepathy on this level ought to be slightly unsettling, and one of the interesting things about Ultimate X-Men is that it doesn't gloss over that, unlike the core books (which can hardly start raising it as a fundamental question now).

A strong story, great art.  One of the best issues of the series.

 Rating: A+

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