Ultimate X-Men Writer Teases “Something Completely New and Different”

Peach Momoko is creating the next class of all-new, all-different X-Men. The Eisner Award-winning “Momoko-verse” writer and artist behind Marvel’s Demon Days and Demon Wars next launches Ultimate X-Men in March, joining Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checcheto’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Bryan Edward Hill and Stefano Caselli’s Ultimate Black Panther in the publisher’s lineup of new Ultimate Comics. Momoko’s X-Men introduces Ultimate Hisako Ichiki, the Japanese mutant known as Armor, and Maystorm, the Storm protégé who debuted on Momoko’s X-Men #27 New Champions variant cover in October. 

“My Ultimate X-Men isn’t directlyinfluenced by classic X-Men stories. I like to believe [Editor-in-Chief] C.B. [Beluski] and JonathanHickman chose me because they wanted something completely new anddifferent, so I think sometimes no influences is a good thing,” Momoko told AIPT Comics.

Readers got a glimpse of Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men in a two-page prelude included in Hickman and Caselli’s Ultimate Invasion #1, the foundational one-shot that set up the new Ultimate Universe reshaped by The Maker: Earth-6160.

In Ultimate X-Men, “Hisako Ichiki is a teenage girl who just wants to live a normallife — go to school, hang out with her friends, ignore the politicalstrife broiling over after the events of Ultimate Invasion,” the official synopsis reads. “But life hasother plans for her. In Japan, urban legends have sprung to life andbrought some unusual new powers with them… Meet Armor, Maystorm, and agroup of new Ultimate X-Men the likes of which you’ve never seenbefore!”

Along with Armor, whose mainstream counterpart was introduced in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men run in 2004, readers will meet Maystorm, the first New Champion to appear in a Marvel comic.

“The inspiration for Maystorm was that theNew Champions variant cover program that asked me to design a Japaneseschool girl that idolizes Storm,” Momoko explained. “So I wanted to make sure I keep the keyvisuals of the Japanese school girl school uniform… and fuse it withthe iconic Storm (especially took influence from her mohawk punk look). Ifelt this combination made the fusion fresh, fun, young, and a verynatural combination.”

ULTIMATE X-MEN #1
Written by PEACH MOMOKO
Art and Cover by PEACH MOMOKO
On Sale 3/6

Visionary creator Peach Momoko reinvents mutantkind for the Ultimateage! In Japan, when a young student named Hisako Ichiki develops armorpowers, she discovers she’s a mutant—and she’s not the only one! Meet anew generation of mutants, filled with original and familiar X-Mencharacters. Together, they’ll learn what it means to be mutant in theUltimate Universe as they explore their emerging powers and thestartling ways they connect to folklore, legend, and magic!