Story Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils David Finch
Inks Art Thibert
Colors Dave Stewart
Letters Chris Eliopoulos
Cover Dated December 2003
Blockbuster, Part Five of Six
Here is the website :
I wonder how embarrassing it is that the cover shows Part 4 when it should be Part 5? Who does that fall on?
Speaking of the covers, I wish they took more time to do story covers and not just iconic covers. Ultimate Spider-Man was the worst at that, as much as I love Mark Bagley, but it was either a cover of him standing on something or swinging by something – for the longest time. At least on Ultimate X-Men, the characters match, for the most part.
This cover isn’t the best example of that as it is essentially a Jean / Wolverine issue.
This issue opens with Wolverine, reliving his ‘first’ memory – which is him waking up right after the Weapon X procedure. He is reliving this moment, thanks to Xavier. Xavier knew Wolverine wouldn’t ask for help, so he started without him.
Wolverine is punishing himself for his recent actions involving Scott. Xavier has a gut feeling that eventually, these mercenaries are going to come for the X-Men, or involve them somehow.
The reason they are revisiting this is due to how the mercenaries know about his Weapon X days. Logan is impress that Xavier has been able to pull these memories up as he thought Xavier couldn’t do that. Xavier tells him that he has been working at it for 12 hours and has quite the headache.
Wolverine recognizes the female leader, as she was present at the procedure.
They now know that the mercenaries are recent decommissioned Weapon X soldiers.
Next, they talk about why Wolverine left. The team forgave him and all are willing to work with him again. Cyclops was eve the guy to extend the invitation. Wolverine could hear the whispers and smell the tension. The X-Men forgave them with their heads but their hearts are not there. Xavier calls him a fool, that of course he will have to rebuild relationships and trust – no one is going to want to be on a two person team with them. Heck, Cyclops was on a three person team and was still left for dead!
Xavier has a nice moment, when he reminds Wolverine that the X-Men are still children. Teenagers with all sorts of emotions. They deal with highly adult themes and content but they shouldn’t forget that only Wolverine and Xavier are the adults in the mansion.
Xavier’s next step is to call Fury. For some reason, the two of them are communication through a screen. But not just any screen, but multiple screens. Which must be very confusing as the audio must be coming from all twenty of those as well. They should try to transfer it so that their image takes up all twenty screens. Or just communicate via the middle one. It doesn’t look cool either.
Fury straight tells Xavier that he is going to handle it and dismisses him. Xavier had follow up concerns and questions but those don’t matter.
Wolverine enters the dining area.
Is it just me or is that table way to small and impractical for the team? It needs to be longer.
The death glare from Jean to Wolverine, will come back!
Next, we see him eating outside. Did he make his sandwich is complete silence and found a spot to sit? That must have been super awkward.
Jean goes outside to harass him. If he even thinks about her, she will rewire his brain. Jean will never forgive Wolverine for what he did to her and Scott. She even let him into her sacred spot.
She has more to say but becomes distracted.
We see two pilots on their way to the school. They are mercenaries and their leader tells them to retreat as clearly they have been spotted. They don’t listen as they are dumb men. They want to kill some mutant filth.
That expression sets off Jean and she straight up destroys the helicopters, most likely killing the scum pilots.
When she does this, the Phoenix bird can be seen in the sky.
Issue ends with Logan in shock and Xavier saying, oh no.
If only he said, oh boy, that would have been pretty cool.
One last issue for us with Ultimate X-Men’s Blockbuster conclusion!
Apple Jacks is really owning these back covers. This time, they are asking us to choose what the next shape should be. So silly but it works, I bet.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 