Summary With ten years of experience working with college students — and even more experience reading and writing about comics — I'm absolutely certain Marvel's new Ultimate X-Men title is the publisher's next big chance at attracting new readers from younger generations. Despite the X-Men's upcoming post-Krakoa reboot, Peach Momoko's alternate take on the X-Men could be a genuine hit, but only if Marvel plays its cards right.
2:40 Related After 49 Years, X-Men Says a Permanent Goodbye to an Era-Defining Character The Krakoan Age has finally ended, but not before the sentient mutant island was reunited with it's lost sibling, joining it in the White Hot Room. Even with a true X-Men reboot on the horizon, I still feel that history looming over me. And no wonder, when the rebooted X-Men titles aesthetically and narratively evoke an X-Men era from before even my time as a comics reader.
For me, though — a long-time superhero reader who only started reading manga in 2023 — experiencing a quasi-traditional X-Men story in Momoko's manga-influenced art and writing style is genuinely thrilling. Ultimate X-Men makes a familiar Marvel property completely unfamiliar to me while still evoking the most popular graphic storytelling style in the world today: manga.
My Experience Teaching Gen Z Tells Me Ultimate X-Men Could Be a Genuine Hit Marvel's Longevity Depends on Reaching These Readers Since that class, I myself have started reading and "bonding" with my students over manga, and I've come to learn just how much anime they're watching and manga they're reading. This isn't the niche interest of my 2000s youth anymore.