The finale of the "Proteus" story arc is a little weaker than the rest of the arc has been, in large part due to some rather ugly artwork from Chris Bachalo. Millar explores some interesting ideas here, however, including the notion that Xavier is mind-controlling his X-Men and a nifty little parallel to the demise of Proteus in mainstream continuity. Though I couldn't always really see what was supposed to be happening in the climactic battle due to Bachalo's strange art style, I got a pretty good sense of what Millar was trying to accomplish, and I liked it. Here's hoping that in the next arc, the artwork will match up to the writing considerably better.
The morally compromised ideals that Millar tends to write into his super-heroes are what makes his book interesting to me, and this issue contained a few notions that played with that style. The opening conversation about Xavier and his mind manipulation was very interesting, not just because of the implications but because I can see the Ultimate version of Xavier doing that kind of thing. I also enjoyed David's prodding of Xavier about the leather jumpsuits or his torment of Hank McCoy. Perhaps most interesting to me, however, was the ultimate resolution of David's fate, which is a nice nod to the end he met in the mainstream X-books as well as an important moment for the character who carries out the action.
There is a certain repetitive feeling to this issue, as the grand climax feels not unlike the battle that the X-Men had with the Brotherhood or with the agents of Weapon X, and the "he's not breathing" trick is only going to work so many times. I'd be a little more convinced that the X-Men were actually in danger if one or the other of them actually died, but so far they've all made complete recoveries, and so the tension involved in the battles is diminished to some extent.
However, proving that even in these writer-driven titles, artwork can make or break a book, I found that my disappointment with this issue stemmed less from the writing and much more from the artwork. There are some wild ideas here, including a mutant who can reshape reality in the body of a sexy British telepath, and the artwork doesn't carry that madness through at all. In fact, Bachalo's backgrounds are mostly pretty sparse, and his storytelling is so cramped and crowded that I often can't really tell what is going on. It doesn't help much that Stewart's colors are so dark that much of the book is a blur of blackness, but the biggest problem is that Bachalo's lackadaisical approach to anatomy and consistency makes for artwork that is more suited to a surreal title than an action-oriented and relatively straightforward one like Ultimate X-Men.
I checked into the "Proteus" story with less interest than usual, as I found the character fairly uninteresting in the original X-Men run, but Millar ignited my interest with his first couple issues of the story. However, a somewhat scattered main plot, an unconvincingly dangerous bad guy and some truly mismatched artwork made this chapter one of the weakest Ultimate X-Men issues so far. Hopefully this is a mere bump in the road, because the teaser on the last page promises some interesting stories for the future.
