Are Ultimate FF and X-Men any good?

[Mr. Mastermind]

What parts of Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men are actually good?

For context, I like most of Ultimate Spider-Man and the Millar and Hickman Ultimate run. I'm also a fan of the X-Men and kinda like the Fantastic Four, and the sci-finess of both franchises.

[Plawsky]

Yeah, they both have some really, really great stuff. They both have weak parts too. Here's what I'd recommend (and it'll fall in line with the general consensus around here):

Ultimate X-Men
#1-33, Ultimate War (War is before #26) - Millar's Run. It's pretty much classic-style X-Men stories updated and retold for a new era. Most of the big characters, villains, and ideas show up. Thematically fits with his Ultimates run, which would probably be a plus for you.
#34-45 - Bendis's Run. The second half, in my opinion, is the real winner, while the first is a decent Wolverine story that relies too much on the presence of Spidey and Daredevil. The second arc introduces a lot of new characters and makes the book feel more Ultimate than ever, as it continues to depart from the traditional X-Books.
#46-65 - Brian K Vaughan's run. Absolutely fantastic. By far my favorite run on the book. It uses a lot of B-list characters, but the stories are really great.

#66-93 - Kirkman's run. It has it's moments, but it's never particularly great. It all builds towards Apocalypse in the finale, and a lot of the building blocks along the way are cool, but it never really blew me away.

#94-100 - Coleite's run. The first arc, Absolute Power, is no good… I just really, really don't like it. The second arc is an Ultimatum tie-in which is actually pretty good, but it's part of that event, so it's hard to really recommend it.

Volume 2
#1-12 - Nick Spencer's run. Really solid, but hard to recommend because it doesn't really have an ending.
#13-33 - Brian Wood's run. Awesome. The ending fizzled a bit, but it's a great - albeit untraditional - X-book.

Ultimate Fantastic Four
#1-6 - Bendis/Millar origin story. One of my favorite comics of all time. A great update for the Fantastic Four; probably the best new origin in the UU.
#12-18 - Warren Ellis. Really, really great. Probably the best sci-fi on the whole book.
#19-20 - Mike Carrey 2-parter. It's a cool, creepy story, though not your traditional FF fare.
#21-32 - Mark Millar again. The highlight is the introduction of Marvel Zombies, and it's a pretty cool run, though I've got some issues with it overall.

#33-57 - Mike Carey's run. This is even more hit and miss than Kirkman's UXM. His first arc - God War - is outstanding, largely due to Pasqual Ferry's art. Silver Surfer (also with Ferry) is also great. However, some of the other arcs - Devils, Ghosts, and Salem's Seven - are really weak. The bulk of the run is a Cosmic Cube meta-arc, which is pretty cool overall, but the ending wasn't nearly as good as the original arcs.

#58-60 - Joe Pokaski's Ultimatum arc. It's not bad, but not worth reading if you're not reading the event.

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Overall, I'd recommend the whole run of both books. But if you're not looking to read 160 issues, the first 66 of Ultimate X-Men and first 32 of Ultimate Fantastic Four are the best.

[Chet Manley]

What parts of Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men are actually good?

For context, I like most of Ultimate Spider-Man and the Millar and Hickman Ultimate run. I'm also a fan of the X-Men and kinda like the Fantastic Four, and the sci-finess of both franchises.

UF4 is great until Ellis leaves, after that it is pretty hit-or-miss (though there are some pretty good stuff in there, e.g the Carey/Ferry arcs), and of course Fialkov is currently killing it on UFF.
UXM has changed a lot, each writer having his take. I particularly enjoyed Wood's recent run, and BKV's earlier. There's stuff to like in most runs though, the only ones I'd recommend to avoid are Kirkman's, Coleite's, and Spencer's.

[tbrown90]

Personally, I feel like each is the opposite when it comes to quality. This is what I mean:

UXM starts off strong and different, but eventually just retreads 616 stories in a slightly new fashion.

UF4 is okay at the beginning, but begins to shine later on in the run.

[MykeHavoc]

FF is good for the first six trades or so.

[Flash Gordon]

Millar's ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR was quite good. Anything after ULTIMATUM was shit.

I never found the ULTIMATE X-MEN to be any good, but oddly I did enjoy the more recent series. I picked it up on a whim because I'm a huge Kitty Pryde fan (yay jewish superheroes!) and I loved her shouting at Captain America. That was mostly all scrapped though when the next dumb event came.

[Kid A]

The only good Ultimate X-Men run is Brian K Vaughan's. The rest isn't really worth reading. Which is a shame, because it wasted a perfect opportunity to tell classic X-Men stories away from the 616's convoluted history.

For Fantastic Four, the first volume from Bendis/Millar is OK, basically just a standard origin story. Then Warren Ellis takes over, and he does a cool run with heavy emphasis on science fiction. Millar takes the book after that, and it's decent, but not as good. Mike Carey comes along later to do a New Gods pastiche, and it's also just decent.

[Flash Gordon]

The only good Ultimate X-Men run is Brian K Vaughan's. The rest isn't really worth reading. Which is a shame, because it wasted a perfect opportunity to tell classic X-Men stories away from the 616's convoluted history.

For Fantastic Four, the first volume from Bendis/Millar is OK, basically just a standard origin story. Then Warren Ellis takes over, and he does a cool run with heavy emphasis on science fiction. Millar takes the book after that, and it's decent, but not as good. Mike Carey comes along later to do a New Gods pastiche, and it's also just decent.

Dude I completely forgot Warren Ellis was on the title.

That's the good stuff, read that.

[norm3]

I just read the full six volume Hardcover set of Ultimate Fantastic 4. It was one of the better reads. Why was this canceled?

[Mr. Mastermind]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll definitely check out the Ellis and BKV runs, and maybe check out the early Millar work.

[LoneNecromancer]

I've only read Millar's Ultimate X-Men, which I thought was pretty fun comics, even though occasionally delving into typical Millar "omg this would be so cool" kind of stuff.

[MykeHavoc]

I just read the full six volume Hardcover set of Ultimate Fantastic 4. It was one of the better reads. Why was this canceled?

Every title was canceled after ultimatum. Not everything got relaunched. The characters still appeared in plenty of stories.