There is no Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in this world. “Ultimate X-Men” by Peach Momoko is set in Japan, following teen girls who discover they’re mutants and are targeted by a cult called the Children of the Atom. Some of the familiar “X-Men” characters have been showing up, though.
Evil versions of Colossus and Magik rule Russia, with Logan brainwashed into their Winter Soldier. Roberto DaCosta, who in classic Marvel Comics is the hero Sunspot, is also part of the Maker’s Council and the Black King of the Hellfire Club for global oligarchs. “The Ultimates” #14 reveals the Club’s White Queen: Emma Frost. The classic Earth-616 Emma has long shed her evil ways and joined the X-Men, but this one appears to still be a conniving Hellfire Club member. She runs Frost’s School for Wayward Youngsters, where young mutants are trained into corporate assassins.
The issue follows Cap and Hawkeye attacking a plant owned by energy conglomerate Roxxon as five CEOs sit in a board room, discussing how the Ultimates are slowly ripping their power out from under them. Emma deploys two of her star pupils, Pietro and Wanda. (“I found them in a Eurasian weapons lab. Bred like dogs and living like them,” Emma explains.)
Quicksilver, who takes on Cap, still has his usual powers of super-speed. Wanda, who fights Hawkeye, has her original hex” powers of manipulating probably so things go bad. She does, though, boost herself off the ground with red energy blasts like Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch.
The final page of the issue is the defeated Maximoffs lying unconscious as Cap and Hawkeye wonder what to do with them. If I had to guess, they’re going to try and deprogram and recruit them.
The Maximoffs always begin as villains, including in the MCU, where they first helped out Ultron (James Spader) in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Pietro and Wanda were introduced in “X-Men” #4 as members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Magneto was later retconned into the twins’ birth father about 20 years later, a connection so obvious it’s bizarre it took that long (and that Marvel retconned it again in 2015). They joined the Avengers in “Avengers” #16, forming “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” with, you guessed it, Captain America and Hawkeye. There’s been no sign of Magneto on Earth-6160 yet, and more details of the Maximoffs’ past remain to be seen. Their future, though, almost certainly lies with the Ultimates.
