This month, we’re back in the present, with the FF at Project Pegasus, with their weird eye machine. They can’t tell what it is, and hypothesize that it might even be alive. Wendell Vaughan helpfully tells them it’s been down there since “World Ward II-ish,” and Reed tells them they all need to get out of there right now, because it could be a weapon.
Those eye machines are suddenly popping up in places all over the world. Tony Stark’s mansion, the FF’s home, Xavier’s school, the Daily Bugle, even Peter Parker’s basement. You might think this is the story kicking into gear, but instead of following it, we flash back 27 years to more of Wolverine in the Weapon X tank… which he is suddenly raised out of by a young man with powers who is very upset about this project.
Magneto. It’s so weird and pointless to me that they re-changed his name. He was “Magnus” for decades. Then he suddenly became “Erik ‘Magnus’ Lehnsherr” in 1993, and then, at some point when I wasn’t looking, suddenly his name became “Max Eisenhardt.” Why? I don’t know. But it hadn’t happened yet, so he’s still “Erik” here. We then jump to 18 years ago, with the future Magneto meeting Professor X as he lectures about, I guess literature, at a regular college. Magneto somehow knows Xavier is telepathic on their first meeting, and thinks at him that he’d like to buy him lunch.
Well, Erik shows off his powers, and says he truly doesn’t know why Xavier can’t read his mind. They talk some more, and Erik reveals he “and his friends” want to make Xavier’s dream of a place for mutant to train and learn together a reality. 2 years later, they’re in the Savage Land, not for the first time. Magneto is forming his Brotherhood there, and has brought Xavier to teach them. Then he reveals his parents worked at Weapon X, and when his power manifested, his dad tried to kill him.
We learn in short order that Magneto has known Wolverine the whole time, and he’s always welcome in the Savage Land, but doesn’t live there. This sort of works with how Wolverine joined the Ultimate X-Men as a spy for Magneto at first. Then he has Xavier show him a mental image of his dream school, and…
So, the history of the Ultimate U is sort of 2 parallel tracks, Captain America-related activities, and mutant-related activities. With these eyestalks in the mix. What’s it all amount to? I don’t actually remember…