"Magnetic North" continues in Ultimate X-Men, and from the looks of things, Brian Vaughan is determined to make this the big finale which brings together everything he's done so far.  .

As I've come to expect from this book, this is a quality superhero story, solidly plotted with strong characters.  As usual at this stage in the story, it's all about moving the pieces into place while building the tension, and Vaughan seems to have nailed that.

The big idea here is that with Polaris framed, she ends up in the Ultimates' custody.  Unfortunately for her, there's only one cell capable of holding people with her powers, and it's already occupied.  So she's just going to have to share.

The strength of Magneto as a character lies not simply in the fact that he's the X-Men's opposite number, but in the fact that he's arguably right.  Unlike the vast majority of supervillains, Magneto has a clear and coherent ideology, and is more than capable of backing it up with evidence.  The thought that he might be right is utterly depressing, but can't simply be dismissed.

Millar played Magneto as a nutcase, which wasn't very interesting.  The mainstream version has become frankly a bit cuddly over the years, reduced to wearing nice cardigans and playing chess with Professor X while they have polite debates about sociological theory.  Vaughan's version, on the other hand, is Magneto as old school supervillain, but done right.  He's sinister, he's creepy, but he's got tons of charisma and you can't quite shake the feeling that he might have a point.  This Magneto sees himself as a black-and-white moral purist in contrast to Xavier's shades of grey, and given the questionably lax ethics of this world's Xavier, he may not be too far from the truth.

Oh, and Ultimate Longshot is back, even though he'd seem to have nothing to do with the story.  His role in this issue is to be transported to the right continent so that he can participate later on, presumably so that Vaughan can use the character one more time before wrapping up.

A good superhero story, and a great take on Magneto.

 Rating: A

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