Ultimate X-Men #23
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeUltimate X-Men #23 is the penultimate chapter of Peach Momoko and Zack Davisson's landmark 24-issue run — the first Marvel superhero series plotted, drawn, and designed entirely by a Japanese creator working in a manga-inflected idiom for an American publisher. The issue's structural audacity — a single issue composed almost entirely of retroactive 'deleted scenes' woven across nearly two years of story — demonstrates how completely the creative team rejected conventional Western comic pacing in favor of something closer to literary serialized fiction. Its revelation of Makoto Amano as the unseen hand threading the series' central mysteries together represents the payoff of a long-form character study unlike anything previously published under the X-Men banner. As the last substantive storytelling beat before the finale, #23 is the issue where Momoko's unconventional narrative architecture either clicks into focus or leaves readers behind — and for most, it clicked.
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The series grew directly out of the Ultimate Universe relaunch engineered by Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch in Ultimate Invasion (2023), which established Earth-6160, an alternate timeline in which the Maker had suppressed the emergence of classic Marvel heroes. Momoko was granted unusual creative latitude by editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski and Hickman to build an entirely original cast rooted in Japanese folklore and horror manga rather than classic X-Men iconography, with Davisson — an author and translator specializing in Japanese folklore — serving as English scripter. The series launched in March 2024 and ran a planned 24-issue arc, with #23 arriving on January 7, 2026, as the penultimate chapter; the final issue followed on February 11, 2026.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Written and illustrated by Peach Momoko, with script adaptation by Zack Davisson and lettering by Travis Lanham; cover date March 2026, on-sale January 7, 2026.
- Issue #23 is the penultimate installment of the 24-issue Ultimate X-Men (2024) series, the third title launched in Marvel's revived Ultimate Universe line alongside Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Black Panther.
- The entire issue operates as a retroactive flashback structure — a collection of 'deleted scenes' set across earlier issues — revealing that Makoto Amano (Number #256), first introduced in issue #4, has been an unseen manipulator steering Mei Igarashi (Maystorm) toward saving Hisako Ichiki (Armor) throughout the series.
- Amano's backstory clarifies that he was subjected to experiments by the Children of the Atom cult and was also connected to the bullying death of Tsubasa, a tragedy that has haunted the series since its opening pages.
- The series, of which this is a near-final chapter, is set entirely in Hi no Kuni (Land of the Sun), the fictional Japanese nation of Earth-6160, and deliberately omits classic X-Men trappings such as the Xavier School, Sentinels, and most mainline X-Men characters in favor of an original ensemble.
- Momoko drew on influences including the work of Shigeru Mizuki and Hideshi Hino in her inking and watercolor technique, giving the series — and this issue — a visual identity closer to Japanese horror manga than to standard American superhero comics.
- Three variant covers were published: a standard Peach Momoko cover, a 1:25 Francesco Mobili incentive variant, a Federico Vicentini variant, and a Peach Momoko two-part connecting variant.
- The issue's story arc (issues #19–24) was later collected alongside the Ultimate Universe: Finale (2026) #1 X-Men story in Ultimate X-Men by Peach Momoko Vol. 4.
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