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 directly influenced by classic X-Men stories. I like to believe [Editor-in-Chief] C.B. [Beluski] and Jonathan Hickman chose me because they wanted something completely new and different, 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 normal life — go to school, hang out with her friends, ignore the political strife broiling over after the events of Ultimate Invasion," the official synopsis reads. "But life has other plans for her. In Japan, urban legends have sprung to life and brought some unusual new powers with them… Meet Armor, Maystorm, and a group of new Ultimate X-Men the likes of which you've never seen before!"

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 the New Champions variant cover program that asked me to design a Japanese school girl that idolizes Storm," Momoko explained. "So I wanted to make sure I keep the key visuals of the Japanese school girl school uniform… and fuse it with the iconic Storm (especially took influence from her mohawk punk look). I felt this combination made the fusion fresh, fun, young, and a very natural 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 Ultimate age! In Japan, when a young student named Hisako Ichiki develops armor powers, she discovers she's a mutant—and she's not the only one! Meet a new generation of mutants, filled with original and familiar X-Men characters. Together, they'll learn what it means to be mutant in the Ultimate Universe as they explore their emerging powers and the startling ways they connect to folklore, legend, and magic!