Brian Vaughan was a bold choice to write Ultimate X-Men when he took over the book with last May's issue #46.  Back then, aside from his Vertigo work, he was writing Mystique and Runaways - both well-received books, but largely untroubled by high sales.  It was a big leap up the ladder to put him on a top ten title.

To be honest, sales haven't been entirely spectacular on this title over the last year either, but then you could say that about all of the Ultimate books.  There does seem to be a sense that, Ultimates aside, the line is being taken for granted and could do with a bit of shaking up.  Marvel's solution, as best as I can see, is to start calling the imprint Ultimate Marvel - The Gold Standard.  In practice, this means making the covers 15% uglier, and little else.

Anyhow, Vaughan's run comes to an end this week after 20 thoroughly enjoyable issues.  Is it an all-time classic?  Perhaps not, but it does offer something very different from the core titles - a straightforward, well-written, solidly constructed superhero team book.  With a thousand characters floating between books, the core X-Men titles have largely lost sight of the idea of the X-Men as an actual team.  The appeal of Ultimate X-Men is more direct, and perhaps more traditional in some ways, but it provides the buzz of a good team book better than any other title Marvel is currently publishing.  Where other writers are trying to reinvent the wheel, Vaughan (and latterly artist Stuart Immonen) are just making sure that their wheel is damned good.

There's been a gradual but undeniable shift in tone from the early issues of this book written by Mark Millar.  Try as he might, Millar's stories tend to drown in chic cynicism.  Rather than updating the traditional appeal of a team book for the current decade, it really comes across as more of an apology for writing (and indeed reading) them in the first place.  This incarnation of the book was unashamed of what it is, and just plain fun to read.  I'm going to miss it a lot.

The final arc, "Magnetic North" draws together all of the strands from Vaughan's previous arcs, and the Brian Bendis stories that preceded him.  Everyone gets brought back for at least a cameo, as Mystique and Forge try to break Magneto out of prison.  It's one of those crazily complicated schemes that somehow seems just about plausible in this sort of story, and the final issue deserves credit for a nice little twist that will have you kicking yourself for not seeing it earlier.  Especially because, on a second reading, it's right there in plain sight throughout the story.

To keep up the traditional feel, Vaughan resolves all his stories without making it feel like the book has finished and we can all go home (which is what most outgoing writers seem compelled to do these days).  The door is clearly left open for a few further storylines, and I find myself looking forward to reading them.  Well, up until I remember that Robert Kirkman's up next, and he's yet to write anything particularly memorable in a prolific Marvel career.

The back-up strip is part two of "Visions", an Ultimate Vision story by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr which is being serialised in four-page instalments across the whole Ultimate line. Millar has slightly missed the mark with the pacing here - he seems to be writing a series of scenes which, together, will add up to a decent 24 page story.  But it's not a single 24-page story, it's a six four-page stories.  And they need to move much, much faster if we're going to see this as a story rather than a glorified house ad.  In part 1, Reed Richards and Sam Wilson talked for four pages.  In part 2, the Vision gives us the build-up to Ultimate Galactus eating another world. 

Mark, really - we know.  It's Galactus.  He's been around for decades.  We all know the schtick.  There's no tension in "What is Galactus?"  There might be surprise in him turning out to be something other than we expect, but there's no tension in making us wait to see him.

But the back-up strip is a bonus, and it isn't increasing the price.  So I feel justified in simply ignoring it and rating a great team book accordingly.

 Rating: A+

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