Editor's Note: Ultimate Comics X #1 arrives in stores tomorrow, February 3.

"Chapter One: His Father's Son"

"The world was on the brink of destruction. Countless heroes died. The Fantastic Four have disbanded. The X-Men are gone. Mutants are hunted as criminals. But there is hope. This is that story."

So begins Ultimate Comics X, the newest Ultimate project from writer Jeph Loeb. I make no secret of the fact that I haven't been a fan of Loeb's recent Marvel work, finding it difficult to believe that the poorly-written, juvenile superhero antics of Ultimatum, Ultimates 3 and Hulk were produced by the same creator who brought us the Marvel "colour" books and the excellent Batman stories The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. However, I was determined to go into this new project with an open mind--and upon reading that prologue text, I was heartened by the tacit acknowledgement that a change in tone was needed after the over-the-top violence and darkness of Ultimatum.

Happily, the book lives up to its opening promise of a more hopeful and optimistic story, providing a very human character portrait of a new Ultimate character who has strong links to one of the most popular casualties of Loeb's disastrous crossover. Without giving too much away, it's the story of a teenage boy who discovers that his origins are more complex than he suspected, and that he has mutant powers as a result. It's hardly the most original setup for a superhero story, but Loeb approaches the issue more as a character portrait than as a superhero origin, infusing his exploration of Jimmy Hudson and his family with a certain sense of nostalgia and tenderness that recalls his quieter work on books like Superman For All Seasons.

That's not to say that the book is completely boring and sedate, however. There are occasional shocking moments of violence that punctuate the story, but Loeb seems to be embracing the school of thought that less is more, contrasting the occasional bloody and brutal splash pages against the otherwise calm and peaceful suburban life of his central character. It's a far more arresting approach than laying on the shocks and gore with a trowel in the manner that we saw in Ultimatum, and one that suggests that Loeb may be learning from his recent mistakes and becoming a better writer as a result.

Then again, perhaps I'm attributing too much credit for the quality of the story to Loeb and too little to his artist collaborator, Arthur Adams. Although Adams has quite a substantial fanbase, I personally have never consciously noticed his art before. On the strength of his work here, however, I'll look out for it in future. Adams captures the tone that Loeb seems to be aiming for very well, with a high level of authentic-feeling detail that effectively conveys the everyday nature of the book's environments, particular when it comes to textures (such as the denim of Jimmy's jeans, or the aged wood and metal his family's old wooden boat).

When the more overtly superheroic elements intrude on Jimmy's life, they feel suitably out-of-place and alien, thanks largely to the colour choices of Peter Steigerwald, who gives the hologram of Jimmy's father an eerie and unnatural blue hue, and lends a vivid red to the magazine cover that makes reference to old Ultimate X-Men continuity. Adams even does a good job of establishing one of the issue's more problematic plot points (involving the method in which Jimmy can so precisely emulate one of his father's most distinctive metallic attributes) with his artwork, making Jimmy's surprising ability look good even if it doesn't make a huge amount of sense at this point.

Finally, Adams does a good job with the issue's characters (even if there's a slight tendency to make all of the female characters look a little too similar in terms of the shape of their face and the length of their hair). There's one particularly beautiful panel in which a backlit Jimmy looks like the spitting image of his biological father, and it's followed up with a subtle moment in which Adams perfectly captures his animalistic movements and youthful verve and vigour.

On the strength of this first issue, it's difficult to know where the story will lead next, and whether the tone of the series will continue to be unusually considered and reserved or whether we'll see a return to the Loeb of old. The cover of the next issue suggests that the focus of the book might shift onto a different character in issue #2, making me wonder whether Ultimate Comics X is going to be a coherent, linked story, or simply a series of character-based one-shots. Either way, I'll be interested enough to check out the next issue.

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