Review by Karl Verhoven

It’s strange to have a second successive cover prioritising Colossus and Wolverine when they feature no more than other team members. If anything the star of this volume is Rogue, here meeting Gambit for the first time, in this universe at least. A while back the X-Men tracked down Gambit, but he wasn’t interested in signing up. The parting was on reasonable enough terms, but you’d not know that from his fairground attack as the X-Men take some time off.

The Ultimate X-Men paperbacks are becoming ever thinner, Cry Wolf clocking in at four chapters as opposed to the five of The Tempest, with which it’s combined in hardcover as Ultimate X-Men Ultimate Collection Vol. 5. Quality doesn’t always equate with page quantity, though, and although this begins in a relatively standard way, by the end Brian K. Vaughan has pulled the X-Men apart. It’s well achieved in unpredictable ways, all bar one method entirely consistent with the team as they’ve been shown. The single wrong note concerns Storm and Wolverine briefly coming together, which is a clumsy attempt at a cliffhanger chapter ending, not natural character development.

However, in every other respect Vaughan’s progressing the cast very nicely from Angel and Nightcrawler playing pirates in the Danger Room to Dazzler proving more valuable as a snarky presence than as a superhero, which is fine. “Wanna go make out behind Nathan’s Hot Dogs” is a funny line in context, but what did the kids of 2007 make of Mott the Hoople references in her dialogue?

Andy Kubert is the artist, bringing his polish to the action and reactions. It’s all very professional, but also curiously anonymous. Is there anything about his art that’s definitively him? That said, his illustration of a neat character moment on the sample art is great, if dependent on Justin Ponsor’s colour.

In passing Vaughan shows a bunch of other Marvel mutants as yet unseen in this universe, providing a nice little cameo, but it’s Rogue who’s central to Cry Wolf, the title a somewhat strained reference to the villains owning the Fenris Corporation. She’s placed in a position where she’s forced to consider her options and her future, and her conclusions are logical and eventually surprising, avoiding an obvious accusation of forced conformity with the mainstream Marvel universe.

The Most Dangerous Game continues Vaughan’s run.