2 weeks Ago By David Harth
Ultimate X-Men has been taking a unique road for an X-Men book. Ultimate X-Men is a fantastic book, but there’s no doubt that it isn’t a standard mutant book. Over the last fourteen issues, writer/artist Peach Momoko has been more concerned with building the world and the emotional stakes for the characters rather than giving readers bombastic action.
However, all of that has changed over the last two issues. Shadow King is one of the main villains of Ultimate X-Men, and has pulled the X-Men into the Astral Plane for a battle that is more of fiendish test than anything else. Ultimate X-Men #14 continues the battle on the Astral Plane, as the X-Men and their foes in the Children of the Atom start to get serious about destroying the other side.
Ultimate X-Men has been structured more like a horror manga or anime than a traditional American superhero comic. For some readers, this is one of the book’s strong points, taking the X-Men into new directions. For other readers, this has been one of the problems with the book.
However, Momoko understands how to tell a great manga/anime story, and Ultimate X-Men #14 is a perfect example of this. Momoko gives readers an epic anime fight, one that definitely follows the example of the greatest anime battles.Ultimate X-Men #14 Throws In Some Great Anime TropesFight scenes in American comics and manga/anime are pretty different.
Comics use of sequential storytelling means that the stories are able to give readers the illusion of movement, but there’s something that feels so much more fluid in manga than those in American comics. This has often come down to how each type of comic uses background and motion lines, which allows the artist to make a character look like they’re moving. Momoko is definitely a student of manga and anime fight scenes, which comes through in her fight scenes, especially in Ultimate X-Men #14.
The fight in this issue gets even better once Surge, a member of the Children of the Atom, attacks Maystorm, who had entered the fight against the Shadow King and Dark Armor, and the two of them square off against each other, using multiple little manga/anime tropes.RELATED: Storm Is Earth’s Mightiest Mutant, But Can She Beat Marvel’s Oddest Super-Soldier?One thing that stands out about manga and anime fights are the yelling out of attack names. Classic animes like Dragonball/Dragonball Z, One Piece, Naruto, and more all have the characters doing certain named attacks and Momoko incorporates this into Ultimate X-Men #14.
Maystorm decides to use her Hanafubuki attack, and readers learn its name when it was called out by the other X-Men watching the fight. One on one fights are also a huge part of manga/anime fights, with the other characters often commenting on the action, which also happens in the book. As Surge and Maystorm battle it out, Nico and Kanan watch the action, calling out the name of attacks, and identifying the weaknesses of each fighter.
It’s a trope that allows the creators to help the imagination of the readers link all of the actions in the fight, a way of giving a blow by blow of the fight that sets it up in the minds of the readers. The fight between Surge and Maystorm is a perfect example of the difference in action scenes between American comics and manga, using the tropes of manga to give readers a different kind of fight scene.The Battle ContinuesUltimate X-Men #13 had fight scenes, mostly between the X-Men and Dark Armor, but the fight was more about the team trying slow down their former friend and get her to see reason.
Ultimate X-Men #14 gives readers a great one on one battle between Maystorm and Surge, one that is informed by their history with each other throughout the book. Ultimate X-Men has always used the tropes of manga/anime to tell its story, and it’s no surprise hat Momoko went full manga/anime with the battle between the two mutants.The fight ends when Dark Armor tries to attack her friends, but that attack is ended when the ghost of Tsubasa, whose suicide has been a major part of the story, appears, trying to talk Armor out of her Dark persona.
This is the first major clash between the X-Men and the Children of the Atom, and hopefully we’ll get to see Surge and Maystorm fight again, as this battle showed that each of them are formidable opponents. Ultimate X-Men is definitely in a league all its own, and its approach to fights is yet another fun deviation from the norm.Ultimate X-Men #14 is on sale now.
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