Peach Momoko, who is primarily known as a variant cover artist, provided new details about her upcoming Ultimate X-Men series that is part of Marvel Comics new Ultimate Universe.
Ultimate X-Men #1 (2024), Marvel Comics
Back in November, as reported by Fandom Pulse, Marvel Comics revealed Momoko had been tapped to pen Ultimate X-Men after a two-page Ultimate X-Men story was included in the company’s Ultimate Universe #1.
The company revealed Momoko would be telling a story about Hisako Ichiki, “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—but life has other plans for her.”
Marvel added, “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!”
Ultimate Universe #1 (2023), Marvel Comics
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In an interview with AIPT Comics, Momoko provided more details about the series and revealed she was inserting herself into the story, “I am writing many of the stories looking back at my own experiences (and what I saw) during my own time as a student in junior high and high school. But also keeping in mind and comparing the similarities and differences of the environments that young children find themselves in today.”
She would later tell the outlet, “My Ultimate X-Men isn’t directly influenced by classic X-Men stories. I like to believe [Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief] C.B. [Cebulski] and Jonathan Hickman chose me because they wanted something completely new and different, so I think sometimes no influences is a good thing!”
Ultimate Universe #1 (2023), Marvel Comics
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She elaborated on this in an interview with ScreenRant, “Jonathan and C.B. kind of just let me do whatever, they just gave me… “What if X-Men… but in Japan?” but with a whole new roster of X-Men, not Wolverine, not Cyclops, not the popular ones, that’s why its Hisako (Armor) and more centrally Japanese.”
“Although it is shared, but because there is not too much that overlaps between Hickman’s story and my story, I kind of believe that Jonathan Hickman chose me to just go wild with how I wanted to tell the story,” she said.
In fact, Momoko seemed to imply she’s telling a story in the Momoko-verse, “But also, I have always enjoyed – even though Demon Days and Demon Wars is completely Momoko-verse – but there are those rules that it has to be like ‘Marvel wants Psylocke in Momoko-verse’ or ‘Marvel wants Wolverine in Momoko-verse,’ even though it is Wolverine as an actual wolf in Demon Days. There are still those small rules that I still have to go through so it still represents Marvel.”
Character design for Armor for Ultimate X-Men
What do you make of Peach Momoko’s comments about Ultimate X-Men #1?
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