If Ultimate X-Men was a good stand-alone series within the new Ultimate Universe which felt free of some of the larger baggage of the meta-series, Ultimate Wolverine isn’t outright fettered by that baggage, but does have it hanging about it. It’s neither quite a clean break from the core continuity, nor entirely its own thing.

To start with what it does right, Ultimate Wolverine has the idea of combining the Weapon X and Winter Soldier Programs in keeping with the part of the world where this series is centered on being Russia. However, it then sets up that this region’s Darklord, or rather Darklords, are Colossus and Magik. Further there is a resistance movement made up of various other X-Men who aren’t appearing in Ultimate X-Men, and they also all have their past histories with Logan from the 616 – he’s still former teammates with Nightcrawler and Gambit. When Jean shows up, they still have a romantic history – and Jean still has ties to Phoenix, except Cyclops is over in Ultimate X-Men and is a Japanese High Schooler.

Adding some additional weirdness is the resistance is led by Mikhail Rasputin, a character that in the 616 in the Krakoa era, had been manipulating Colossus, and had historically been a villain. With Sunfire in Ultimate X-Men, he’s had a few villainous runs – not as much as the Silver Samurai, but still some. So, Mikhail’s place in the story is a little weird. I don’t have a problem with Illyana taking a villainous turn – that’s part of what makes the Darkchilde interesting – she has the chance of going on those turns, but having heroic friends like Kitty and Dani has helped keep that from happening in the past. Colossus, on the other hand, when he’s joined other Villain groups, has done so through manipulation or after becoming disillusioned because of some form of emotional trauma (and even there he’s not really committed to villainy).

In total, it makes for a narrative that I was able to follow, but I also find it hard to recommend. I’ve been reading X-Men comics for a while, and listened to Jay and Miles X-plain The X-Men to the conclusion of the show. So, a lot of building blocks have been laid for me. Ultimately, Ultimate X-Men was will to do some extremely interesting things with the setting – doing unique spins on past concepts that had been done before, to ultimately go in new directions. Ultimate Wolverine feels a bit like “What if Days of Future Past” was Russian?

I’m probably not going to pick up the trade of this comic.

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