I thought that this first issue seemed to be trying to make Stepahnie be unsympathetic and dim

Well, it failed miserably, cause I found her very sympathetic. That may be a function of seeing from her perspective, but still. You say you changed your opinion of the intent at the end, but I was with her the whole time, pretty much.

BoP's timeline has seemed, at least over the last couple of months, to be slightly ahead of where the related books are, such as Dinah having dumped Ollie before we'd seen the actual dumping happen. Which leads me to determine for myself, to unbreak my brain that War Games is starting sometime around or just after the next issue of BoP.

For Ult. X-Men, I'm also with the Gambit hair hate. And what's with that blue leopard print shirt? Add a big, feathered hat and he could be a 70's pimp.

For Ult. Spidey, Aunt May's "Not again" made me wonder if she was referring to Ben's death or did this draining thing happen before with Peter's father's research.

I did pick up Ult. Nightmare. Very much a setup issue and kind of confusing.

I'm in the corner for Hating Gambit's hair. It's soo....godawful isn't the right word. It looks like he should be in a bad 80's hair bad. It looked a little bit like the leader singer of Whitesnake's hair. Only much worse.

I have a question for Ultimate X-Men readers familiar with the Storm of old:

I was understandably excited to see Storm hack her hair off and change her wardrobe due to a crisis that caused her to question why she did what she did. I'm having a niggling suspicion that in this go-round of her persona, the crisis turns her into more of a pacifist, instead of loosing her from her vows like it did the first time.

Think so?

Oh! In 12-Cent, did anyone else immediately think "ita!" when we saw Onyx?

You're gonna make me go look this person up, aren't you?

I'm trying to find her in Google, ita. (For the record, it's Onyx II, I'm pretty sure.)

Interview with Teen Titans' Geoff Johns (VERY spoilery).

This bit made me squee: "a crossover with Outsiders focusing on Superboy and his genetic parents...." So much goodness there, my head may explode.

And this! Meep: "Do I want to lose Tim Drake? No. I love his friendship with Superboy -- and Robin is a central part of the team. But because of this development, it actually allowed us to shine a light on this friendship and ask the question -- would they be still be friends if one of them stopped playing super-hero?" The ficcers say YES.

The Titans are so pretty. I can't wait to see what this shot is all about.