New X-Men Ultimate Collection Vol 1 (31)

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"Don't turn around. Keep going." - The Whitest Boy Alive, Dead End

New X-Men Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 by Grant Morrison (2008, Marvel). Once again, I picked this up on the strength of a Comics Should Be Good recommendation. It's obvious, however, how much I'm growing to appreciate the collaboration of scribe and artist, Morrison and Frank Quitely. The last graphic novel I read also featured the pairing.

Outside of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and the current X-Factor series, I haven't read Marvel's mutant books since I was a kid. I've missed out on just about everything that people seem to have complaints about but it also means I have very little understanding of the current landscape of the X-men. Like, for example, when I began reading Astonishing X-Men, I had no idea how Emma Frost had become a member of the team nor how she and Scott became an item or that Jean Grey had died. When I picked this up at House of Secrets, though, the sales clerk and I had this exchange:

Clerk: Have you ever read this before?

Me: Nope.

Clerk: Well, pop a beer and saddle up.

Me: Really?

Clerk: Yeah, it's Morrison--

Me: Right. Sometimes he's too heady for me but I like him paired with Quitely.

Clerk: And, truly, he's given room to essentially "un-fuck up" the X-Men and does a good job. Just about everything that's followed starts from this.

Me: Cool.

Random patron: Every time I read it, I find something new.

High praise. I'm happy to report that this first volume more than lives up to the hype. While Astonishing X-Men presented the team in Whedon's episodic TV style with serious Big Bads and signature witty banter and exciting cliff hanger reveals in nearly every issue, Morrison's story reads like a dense cinematic thriller with world changing consequences. These are mature characters, weary of battling the world, of being different, sometimes, of each other, and are faced with a villain worthy of their ample power and knowledge.

Morrison does a great job of leaving hints about what's to come throughout the story but it wasn't until I'd finished the story that I realized what he'd done. The villain explains exactly what she'll do and, still, I'm as caught unaware as this gang of heroes. Quitely's art is a little hit or miss for me here. The layouts are spectacular, as always, but his character drawings don't do it for me here (except for his outstanding Wolverine) like his work in JLA: New Earth did or his more recent work on Batman & Robin.

I'll be picking up Volume 2 tomorrow.