10 Comics You Loved As A Teen (But Should Never Return To)

3. Ultimate X-Men

The X-Men movies were occasionally brilliant, but no one was under any illusions as to what they thought of the comics. An active dig from Cyclops about 'yellow spandex' in the first film made that clear and more, but Marvel still saw an opportunity for their comics to hopefully benefit from Fox's movies. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's New X-Men comic gave the team black suits, but so too did Ultimate X-Men, a reimagining of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's creations designed to modernise the group in line with how The Ultimates did with the Avengers a year earlier.

The Ultimate Universe was an exciting prospect at the beginning of the 2000s, but its success was limited in retrospect. The legacy of Brian Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man goes without saying, while Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates would later form the visual template for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in later years. Both those comics were brilliant, but later efforts weren't so fortunate - particularly Ultimate X-Men.

Although Millar had succeeded in reimagining the Avengers in a post-9/11 era, his approach towards the X-Men was less compelling. Adorned in black suits, this new team didn't have an issue with killing, and the 'modernisation' really amounts to little more other than the fact they're more lethal and more cynical than their mainstream counterparts.

The end result is something really quite ugly, but back when it was cool to hate on colourful costumes and superheroes using non-lethal methods, Ultimate X-Men found a following when it probably shouldn't have.