Upon its debut in February 2001, "Ultimate X-Men" was the second comic of the Ultimate Marvel line, preceded a few months by its sister title "Ultimate Spider-Man". The heads of the Ultimate Universe line, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada, originally tried to hire Brian Michael Bendis to write the title, but he declined. Marvel hired Scottish writer Mark Millar, who was best known at the time for his run on "The Authority" and was largely ignorant of the X-Men franchise. With the 2000 "X-Men" film as his only reference, Millar reinvented the X-Men. As a result, Millar's original X-Men consisted of telepath Professor X, Cyclops, whose eyes shoot concussive beams, telepathic and telekinetic Jean Grey, weather-manipulating Storm, simian genius Beast, metal-skinned Colossus, and cryokinetic Iceman. Millar's roster soon expanded to include teleporting Nightcrawler, intangible Kitty Pryde and power absorbing Rogue.