WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: Even Mythical Birds Lay Eggs (PHOENIX RESSURECTION)

Phoenix Ressurection was the first post-reboot Ultraverse line-wide crossover.  And it's a miserable mess.

The Phoenix is dragged into the Ultraverse by an ancient alien starship, which is looking for something to power its engines.  The Phoenix, being the Phoenix, seeks out a host body and gravitates toward some of the more powerful Ultras.  Prompted and aided by Gateway, the X-Men (with Banshee and Jubilee who are taking a break from Generation X) travel to the Ultraverse to do...something? with the Phoenix and ends up teaming with Ultraforce to prevent the starship from getting a Phoenix-powered jumpstart and blasting itself free from--and shattering--the Earth.

Now, the event itself only covers two issues of the four issues that are branded as belonging to Phoenix Ressurection, Genesis and Revelations (three of the four issues don't have numbers, only subtitles...thanks, Ultraverse!).  And of the two other issues, one is composed of reprints of back-up strips that appeared in various titles teasing the event along with a new back-up where Jubilee sits and reflects on the whole event a whole week before the event actually happens.  The other, Aftermath, has nothing to do with the story proper, choosing to follow the incidental character Rose Autumn into the future to collaborate with future version of the Ultra characters to take down an invasion force.  Keep in mind that this last issue features Wolverine and The Beast on the cover, implying there's still some X-Man content in there.

Let's get to the main story here before I discuss Aftermath.  It's pretty incoherent, to be honest, and it's made even more confounding by making the guest stars...the stars.  These two issues are done almost exclusively from the point of view of the X-Men as soon as they're introduced, whereas there are a number of Ultra-characters, specifically the Lauren Mantra and Night Man, who don't do much except show up at fight scenes and stand around in the background.  Hell, I don't think Mantra's presence is even acknowledged.  We do get a couple of panels a piece of Rose and her dad having their apartment wrecked during the fight so she can transform into Foxfire to scare Amber Hunt.  And writer Ian Edginton does try to tie up some loose ends from Hardcase by bringing in Rex Mundi and The Alternate.  But it is very clear right from the start that this is an Ultraverse crossover about a Marvel concept that achieves its crossover by involving Marvel characters as protaganists, and anything else but the Marvel stuffage is irrelevant.

I wish I could say more about these two issues...but there's nothing to talk about.  This is the first time I've encountered something that feels like product published under the Ultraverse banner.  I don't blame Edginton, but at no point did I feel like this was a story he wanted to tell.  Instead, it's a story that editorial--that, to be more precise, marketing--wanted to be told under the guise of drawing more Marvel fans to Ultraverse comics  when it seemed more like an excuse to milk money out of X-Men fans.  I may not have written yet about the disastrous Eliminator series (yet!), but even that mess was something someone wanted to tell badly.  There's nothing here to excite you; it's just enough confusing fight scenes to entice you to buy it.

sigh...I'm going to move on to Aftermath, because there's something to talk about there.  This is a...pilot?...for the Foxfire character, which is confusing because it has nothing much to do with the series we ended up with.  Rose is thrown into a future where humanity is under attack by an alien race called The Progeny.  She is told by resistance leader Hawke that she was developed out of ultra and progeny DNA to become a living weapon in this ongoing war, sent back in time as an infant to hide her and provided with two robots to act as her parents/guardian.  Her exposure to the Phoenix triggered her powers, prompting her to be returned to this future.  She reconciles with her robot father and joins up with versions of the Ultra-heroes to implant the Progeny with the Theta Virus from the original Exiles title, leaving her to wonder what he place is in this Strange New World.

If you've read my discussion of the series that spun out from this issue, you'll probably see a bit of a disconnect between what's set up here and what it resulted.   What makes it even more puzzling for me is that, some rather obvious bits of X-Envy aside, the series that's set up here is more interesting than what we got.  Considering how the Ultraverse seemed to play out primarily in the present day even though there is a sense of a much more expansive history, the idea of a series set in the future has its appeal.  And quite frankly, I think I preferred what Edginton and co-writer Dan Abnett hinted at concerning Rose's mother than what we ended up with.

The art is handled jam style, with the two books that encompass the actual crossover being done by a number of pencilers who were working on Ultraverse titles at the time.  They're not doing there best work, most likely because there was an awful amount of pressure to get this project out on a biweekly schedule.  But the artwork from Aftermath....yowch.    As is the risk with any jam issues, the style from page to page is wildly inconsistent, with competent work by Leonard Kirk giving way to some truly hideous art that I think was inspired by graffiti and street art.  While the art on the previous issues end up more generic than anything else, the art on this issue truly draws attention away from the story in a negative way.  A very, very negative way.

This may be the worst thing that ever came out of the Marvel purchase--if not the entire line as a whole.  The sheer lack of passion in this project save for the last issue is overwhelming--and that last issue is hamstrung by how it was ignored when Foxfire got her own title.  I would in no way recommend it.

Thankfully, next time we travel to the other side of the purchase with a story that James D. Hundall wanted to tell prior to the official start of the Ultraverse and its...bizarre framing sequence.  It's time for me to experience....deep breath...Ultraverse Year Zero: Death of The Squad, covering the time leading up to Hardcase #1!

Until then....why be meta when you can be ultra?