How long is Ultimate X-Men worth reading till?

[The Kid]

Ultimate Spider-Man is probably my favorite comic book run of all time but I've never really read much of the rest of the universe. I've heard the Ultimate X-Men books are pretty good although I know the quality drops off a cliff at some point. Is at Ultimatum where it tanks or does quality decline before that?

I'm honestly open to different interpretations of these characters as long as the stories are good. I'm not too familiar with the Ultimate X-Men characters with the exception of Kitty and Logan who appeared in Spider-Man, Kitty being a support character for a while. I enjoyed both a lot since it seemed like they managed to properly re-tell the young student story with Kitty and Ultimate Wolverine being significantly more sociopathic than his 616 version was pretty funny.

[Frontier]

I'm not the biggest Ultimate X-Men fan but I'd probably leave after Brian K. Vaughn's run and before Robert Kirkman.

[Maestroneto]

Until the end of Brian K. Vaughan's run.

Nick Spencer and Brian Wood's runs are good too.

[yogaflame]

I liked Millar's original run best. Then Kirkman's towards the end of the first book. In between is highly uneven. The second book was very different, which was at least interesting, but not as fulfilling.

[Kurolegacy]

Until the end of Brian K. Vaughan's run.

Nick Spencer and Brian Wood's runs are good too.

It’s honestly a shame that Spencer never got to tell his Apocalypse story. The whole run was building towards a mystery that just kept you coming back every issue and then the whole storyline is just dropped and never mentioned again after Wood took over. On top of that, he just instantly booted Johnny out of the team despite Johnny having been perfectly willing to fight for mutantkind under Spencer’s pen.

[Snoop Dogg]

Ultimate X-Men is weeeeeeeeeird

The first like 33 issues by Millar and Kubert and whatnot + Ultimate War? Pretty good to great, read 'em.

The next 12 by Bendis and uh, Finch? Petty good to great, read 'em. One issue in particular is super hot fire incredible.

Vaughn and Immonen's run? Pretty good to great, read 'em.

The Kirkman run? This is where things start getting sus as hell. It feels like it's going somewhere for a while, but then where it goes is just, bleh. Just weird, you can skip it.

Then there's a filler arc.

Here's where things get tricky.

Ultimatum happens, and as much as people talk about Ultimatum like it ate their dog, it was actually really good for the Ultimate X-Line by establishing a radical new status quo the main books couldn't do.

The Loeb/Arthur Adams stories are great, whatever that book was called. I believe it was Ultimate Comics: X.

Then the Spencer/Medina run starts, and it's awesome. It's like all these cool pieces are being laid out on a chessboard with a really ambitious plan.

Then, for whatever reason, Spencer leaves, and like Hickman with Ultimates, the book tanks. Wanna know why? Every single thing Spencer set up is ignored in Wood's run like it never happened, and you're getting a worse story about like, plants. And with worse scripts. The saving grace is Mach II, but she will never appear again and didn't live up to her potential in the book anyway. It's not an awful run. But like, damn it. Check it out if you want to watch a bunch of robots instead of people talking about plants and personal politics as the scale of the story shrinks from the whole world to two negligible camps.

No no no no but Ultimatum killed the Ultimate Universe and there was nothing Paniccia could've done guys : (((((((

[Havok83]

Until the end of Brian K. Vaughan's run.

Nick Spencer and Brian Wood's runs are good too.

IA. The Kirkman stuff is absolutely dreadful

[Bl00dwerK]

I'm at #68 and I'm still enjoying it.

[K7P5V]

My personal favorite is the Brian Wood run.

[nandes]

Well, unpopular opinion time! The run I enjoyed the most was actually Kirkman's. He's the only writer, in my vision, who actually tried to do fun things with the AU concept and I loved his version of the Outback X-Men. The conclusion was a bit of a let down but he was the one who got me to care about the Ultimate line.

Millar's run is an alright version of the movieverse.
Bendis's run is very... bendis-y.
Vaughn brings a lot of fun and teen drama but it kinda feels insubstantial at the end of the day.
Spencer's run is a lot of set-up that Brian Wood throws straight into the trash like Snoop Dogg said.
The Wood stuff is okay if you're interested in reading about a mutant utopia made of like 20 teenagers and a lot of unexplored concepts (I still don't get the spoilers:

fake Psylocke

end of spoilers thing).

[Triniking1234]

I don't keep track of the numbers but the initial fight with Magneto is pretty good and I re-read it when I have the time. There are some points where the story stagnates like with the Academy of Tomorrow students showing up.

As for post-Ultimatum, I only picked the book when Wood came on so I can't vouch for Spencer's part of UC: X-Men. I honestly wasn't expecting Ultimates and X-Men to recover from that.

[Triniking1234]

Well, unpopular opinion time! The run I enjoyed the most was actually Kirkman's. He's the only writer, in my vision, who actually tried to do fun things with the AU concept and I loved his version of the Outback X-Men. The conclusion was a bit of a let down but he was the one who got me to care about the Ultimate line.

Millar's run is an alright version of the movieverse.
Bendis's run is very... bendis-y.
Vaughn brings a lot of fun and teen drama but it kinda feels insubstantial at the end of the day.
Spencer's run is a lot of set-up that Brian Wood throws straight into the trash like Snoop Dogg said.
The Wood stuff is okay if you're interested in reading about a mutant utopia made of like 20 teenagers and a lot of unexplored concepts (I still don't get the spoilers:

fake Psylocke

end of spoilers thing).

Now I'm interested. I know the start of UC: X-Men didn't follow up on X at first and Johnny Storm was on the team but what did Spencer's run cover?

[jpmst17]

i liked the whole run until ultimatum. there were some rough spots, but ultimately i liked the series and the characters enough to over look them

[nandes]

Now I'm interested. I know the start of UC: X-Men didn't follow up on X at first and Johnny Storm was on the team but what did Spencer's run cover?

Well it's been a while since I read it so I'm not 100% on this but there was some stuff about spoilers:

Xavier and Magneto still being alive, being in contact with Rogue/Quicksilver and running things off behind the scenes that was was never really mentioned again (esp since Quicksilver was zapped off the book). Or maybe it was just explained it away due to Rogue and Quicksilver not being mentally well at the time. IDK. IIRC Jean's story also seemed very disjointed between the two different runs.

end of spoilers

[Kurolegacy]

Well it's been a while since I read it so I'm not 100% on this but there was some stuff about spoilers:

Xavier and Magneto still being alive, being in contact with Rogue/Quicksilver and running things off behind the scenes that was was never really mentioned again (esp since Quicksilver was zapped off the book). Or maybe it was just explained it away due to Rogue and Quicksilver not being mentally well at the time. IDK. IIRC Jean's story also seemed very disjointed between the two different runs.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I think that by the end of Spencer’s run that it was revealed that those who were dead but appeared alive to a select few were either illusions or somehow tied to Apocalypse. We had Xavier, Magneto, Cyclops and Scarlet Witch. There was an entire mystery tied to that that just ended up being dropped.

end of spoilers