Ultimate X-Men #68 pg 17 (Raney art, Hanna inks, Kirkman story) - Kitty and Colossus

Coming from the story of DATE NIGHT part three, comes this page from Ultimate X-Men #68.

I really enjoy Kirkman’s work in general, and really liked how he handled the Ultimate X-Men. The entire series still has a freshness of something twisted and new, even though this series came out over 20 years ago (2001).
It had a good run for the first volume doing 100 issues, especially with how current series start and stop almost every year now. Something currently missing in today’s X books, staying with a series for years and building on top of existing storylines without having to restart the series or dump entire created societies. Change is expected, just happens far too often in the books to connect deeper. So this was something I really appreciate during the 8 year run of this initial volume.

In this alternate Earth (#1610), we see the relationship between Kitty and Colossus in a very different light. Kitty is dating Spider-Man (Peter Parker, she has a thing for Peters: Rasputin, Quill - in the 616; and now Parker - in the 1610) and Colossus is gay. This page featuring him wanting to be alone to deal with the effect of coming out of the closet and the strain on his friendship with Nightcrawler because of it. There is something really fun in Raney’s art, that we see just the tips of Kitty’s fingers phase through the front door, it’s subtle but love that the artists play with their toys when appropriate and don’t call too much attention to it as it’s normal for this character to do (not when exiting the cab but when going in the front door to her residence).

Colossus and Kitty’s on again off again relationship for nearly 50 years in the original 616 universe is wrapped up and nodded to in this single page. It’s clear, in this reality, there isn’t anything between them, which is so different from the relationship I really enjoy. I have a bunch of pages from their almost wedding in X-Men Gold #30, so getting this page goes well with my collection as a comparison page.