Awesome / Ultimate X-Men (2001)

• Does no one think the opening issue was totally Badass? The massive fight with the Sentinels? Cyclops was a super badass here. He reveals his Visor isn't solely a press button to use, he can activate it by clicking his fingers and takes out a full Sentinel with it. Ultimate Cyclops has a lot of Badassery, moments later too.
• Kitty, during the war and battle against the nimrods, takes command and proves herself to be the The Leader of Mutantkind.
• The X-Men and the Brotherhood join forces for the first time to destroy Weapon X and free the enslaved mutants during "Return to Weapon X"
• Wolverine, in a bid to remove his rival for Jean's affections, stabs Cyclops and leaves him to bleed out and die. BUT, Cyclops is Not Quite Dead, comes back, and blasts Wolverine with a very strong optic blast, and says: "You're off the team." A very nice Take That, Scrappy! moment.
• Colossus is pinned to the ground by Magneto in the Return of the King story arc, emphasizing his Logical Weakness to Erik's Extra-ore-dinary abilities. However, when Magneto begins to torture Wolverine (himself also absurdly vulnerable to magnetic powers) Colossus begins to drag himself to his feet. Magneto notices this and turns up the juice, giving a Hannibal Lecture to the metallic Russian about how useless it is to try and fight him... but it proves fruitless when Colossus stomps over and proceeds to give him the beating of his life whilst screaming in pain the whole time.
  • Colossus gets another moment when he temporarily quits the X-Men. Fed up Professor Xavier's brainwashing of Magneto to keep him alive, Xavier's ideals, and his overall role as the thankless muscle of the team the others avoid on the battlefield and in leisure, Colossus heads back to Russia to hide his powers and live a normal life with his family despite Cyclops and Marvel Girl begging for his return and to help with a trapped submarine containing Russian sailors. Angered, he bashes the heroic lifestyle and sulks, until he sees the news about the submarine again. Colossus then proceeds to head to the multi-thousand submarine himself, diving underwater, and pulling the thing to the surface by his lonesome, saving the crew and reigniting his desire for heroism.
  Reporter: Well, how does it feel to suddenly find yourself the most famous superhero on the face of the planet, Colossus?
  Colossus: In all honesty? Absolutely fabulous.
• Dazzler. Just plain Dazzler. Take a character oft-considered one of the handful of scrappy X-Characters, give her an update that still kept her grounded in music, and then add her to the X-Men as the oft-unwilling member of the team, and give her plenty of quips? Amazing. She arguably contributed to a push to start using the 616 version again.
• During Gambit's fight with the team, he's attacked by Logan. So what does Remy do? Grab hold of one of Logan's claws, and threaten to blow him up from the inside. Wolverine wisely backs off.
• Kitty Pryde's evolution from a meek mutant teenage girl to a badass leader among men is nothing short of impressive, especially when she destroys her world's version of Master Mold, manages to fight and defeat a power-mad Phoenix-powered Jean Grey by herself, and eventually throw hands with Galactus to save her universe.

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