Collects Ultimate X-Men #89-93 ( )

Man, I used to love Ultimate X-Men, but it just hasn't been the same since Mark Millar stopped writing the title. I'm not saying that he's perfect, but he wrote some great arcs.

This, on the other hand, is not a great arc. Apocalypse is an intriguing character, but he barely "rises" before "falling" in this. There's no depth to the character at all, and the whole thing just feels incredibly rushed, like Kirkman was talked into writing this but didn't really want to do it. I don't know, maybe that's the case.

The one high point is Larocca's art, which is very good. Another artist helps him out with the pencils in the last issue, but that artist's style isn't as engaging as Larocca's, and it shows.

Altogether, I'm glad that the Ultimate X-Men series is almost over. I never thought that I would say that when Millar (and even Bendis and Vaughan) was writing the series, but this series is going nowhere fast. There is no direction, and the X-Men is now mostly composed of characters that I don't care about one way or the other (ex: Bishop, Dazzler, Angel, Psylocke, etc). ( )

I have been an avid fan of the Ultimate X-Men series and in general have loved the direction they have taken the characters. However this issue has pretty much every problem that I have come to associate with a series that has either run out of ideas, or has no idea to handle the ideas already introduced. The story is about as rushed as you can make it, one of the major bad guys of the Marvel universe is rolled into the story and then rolled right back out in as quick a time as I can remember any character being involved in this series. As mentioned by another reviewer the ending puts the DEUS into Deus Ex Machina. Overall a real let down - hopefully the series gets back on track. ( )