REVIEW: X-MEN - MESSIAH COMPLEX
January 24th 2008 10:20
I love crossovers.
It's not really a fashionable opinion to have, but there it is. I love them, fully aware that they are usually not at all good. But it's at crossover time that various disparate characters are drawn together into one situation, and that's when the concept of the Marvel Universe (or the DC Universe, or whatever else you prefer) comes into its own.
Even more unfashionably, I absolutely adore X-Men crossovers. Inferno. X-Tinction Agenda. My all-time favourite (complete with cheesy name) X-Cutioner's Song. I've enjoyed every single one of them. It's been a long time since there's been a genuine X-Men crossover. The core titles have intersected a few times, but the last time we got a full-fledged storyline that drew in the satellite books as well was probably Apocalypse: The Twelve, all the way back in 1999.
Which brings us to X-Men: Messiah CompleX, the X-Men crossover that just concluded this week. (Yes, the red X is in the title, but as you can see above, it's not the first time an X-Men storyline has had an absurd name.) It ran for 13 weeks across four titles - Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor and New X-Men, and was hyped as an earth-shattering series of events. The usual deal.
The backtory for Messiah Complex is that about a year ago, the Scarlet Witch (for reasons too complicated and badly written to mention) wiped out the existence of all but a few hundred mutants. Millions of them lost their powers, and many died, but the real kicker was that no more would be born. Ever. The mutant race was effectively extinct, and the X-Men were now left without a purpose.
This was the status quo for a while, but in the first part of the crossover something important happens: a mutant baby is born. The X-Men want it. The Purifiers, a militant mutant hate-group, want it. Mr Sinister, an evil geneticist, wants it as well, and he's got a whole lot of flunkies to boss around to achieve his ends.
What this leads to is 13 issues of various factions fighting over the baby. On that level it's highly entertaining, and the various combinations and match-ups are strong enough to survive the lengthy run. With a huge group of X-Men, their trainee group, two factions of Marauders working for Sinister, Exodus and his Acolytes, the Purifiers and Lady Deathstrike, Cable, Predator X, the new X-Force, and a mystery X-Man with his own agenda, there's always a lot of things going on. And that's not even mentioning the gratuitous battle with the O.N.E. Sentinels, which will hopefully signal the last we see of those bozos.
Often the biggest problem with crossovers is when characters end up sidelined in their own books. Take X-Cutioner's Song, for instance. There's an issue of X-Factor right in the middle of that story that mostly involves Wolverine and Bishop fighting Cable, with very little seen of the title characters. Messiah Complex avoids that problem. It gives Madrox an important role, by having him explore two futures for the mutant race that have just been made possible by the baby's birth. This ensures that when it rolls around to X-Factor's turn, the cast of that book get the spotlight. The same is mostly true for the New X-Men, and of course the regular X-Men are all over the place. Messiah Complex scores a win in this category.
The art is mostly good throughout, but that depends a lot on how much you enjoy the over-the-top action and histrionics of Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos. Each chapter works artistically on its own merits, but taken as a whole it gets a bit schizophrenic. Ramos's and Bachalo's styles mesh well with each other, and Billy Tan and Scot Eaton mesh well with each other, but put any other combination of the artists against each other and there's a huge style clash. It's going to look weird in the trade paperback, that's for sure.
The major weakness of Messiah Complex is that it leaves a lot of loose ends, and not every plot thread is relevant to the conclusion. The Purifiers are superflous to the plot, though at least their involvement makes sense. Predator X is also not that important, aside from featuring heavily in the final battle. One of the futures that Madrox explores is left undisclosed, and the significance of the baby remains a mystery at the conclusion. It's the opening act of a larger story, and some readers could be unsatisfied by that.
Where it does succeed in what it promised is delivering a shakeup for the X-Men. Quite a few characters get killed off, and one of them is important enough that's it's going to shape the direction of the line for a while. And while the end-point is not an ending by any means, the journey to get there was a lot of fun.
I'm giving Messiah Complex a tentative thumbs up. If you're already an X-Men fan, it's a must, but I'd recommend reading most of Mike Carey's run before tackling it - it draws on a lot of backstory. For those not already immersed in X-Men lore, I would say to give it a miss. There is so much going on in this story that requires prior knowledge that I can't honestly recommend it to the uninitiated. But for you X-fans out there, it's pure distilled awesome.
It's not really a fashionable opinion to have, but there it is. I love them, fully aware that they are usually not at all good. But it's at crossover time that various disparate characters are drawn together into one situation, and that's when the concept of the Marvel Universe (or the DC Universe, or whatever else you prefer) comes into its own.
Even more unfashionably, I absolutely adore X-Men crossovers. Inferno. X-Tinction Agenda. My all-time favourite (complete with cheesy name) X-Cutioner's Song. I've enjoyed every single one of them. It's been a long time since there's been a genuine X-Men crossover. The core titles have intersected a few times, but the last time we got a full-fledged storyline that drew in the satellite books as well was probably Apocalypse: The Twelve, all the way back in 1999.
Which brings us to X-Men: Messiah CompleX, the X-Men crossover that just concluded this week. (Yes, the red X is in the title, but as you can see above, it's not the first time an X-Men storyline has had an absurd name.) It ran for 13 weeks across four titles - Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor and New X-Men, and was hyped as an earth-shattering series of events. The usual deal.
The backtory for Messiah Complex is that about a year ago, the Scarlet Witch (for reasons too complicated and badly written to mention) wiped out the existence of all but a few hundred mutants. Millions of them lost their powers, and many died, but the real kicker was that no more would be born. Ever. The mutant race was effectively extinct, and the X-Men were now left without a purpose.
This was the status quo for a while, but in the first part of the crossover something important happens: a mutant baby is born. The X-Men want it. The Purifiers, a militant mutant hate-group, want it. Mr Sinister, an evil geneticist, wants it as well, and he's got a whole lot of flunkies to boss around to achieve his ends.
What this leads to is 13 issues of various factions fighting over the baby. On that level it's highly entertaining, and the various combinations and match-ups are strong enough to survive the lengthy run. With a huge group of X-Men, their trainee group, two factions of Marauders working for Sinister, Exodus and his Acolytes, the Purifiers and Lady Deathstrike, Cable, Predator X, the new X-Force, and a mystery X-Man with his own agenda, there's always a lot of things going on. And that's not even mentioning the gratuitous battle with the O.N.E. Sentinels, which will hopefully signal the last we see of those bozos.
Often the biggest problem with crossovers is when characters end up sidelined in their own books. Take X-Cutioner's Song, for instance. There's an issue of X-Factor right in the middle of that story that mostly involves Wolverine and Bishop fighting Cable, with very little seen of the title characters. Messiah Complex avoids that problem. It gives Madrox an important role, by having him explore two futures for the mutant race that have just been made possible by the baby's birth. This ensures that when it rolls around to X-Factor's turn, the cast of that book get the spotlight. The same is mostly true for the New X-Men, and of course the regular X-Men are all over the place. Messiah Complex scores a win in this category.
The art is mostly good throughout, but that depends a lot on how much you enjoy the over-the-top action and histrionics of Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos. Each chapter works artistically on its own merits, but taken as a whole it gets a bit schizophrenic. Ramos's and Bachalo's styles mesh well with each other, and Billy Tan and Scot Eaton mesh well with each other, but put any other combination of the artists against each other and there's a huge style clash. It's going to look weird in the trade paperback, that's for sure.
The major weakness of Messiah Complex is that it leaves a lot of loose ends, and not every plot thread is relevant to the conclusion. The Purifiers are superflous to the plot, though at least their involvement makes sense. Predator X is also not that important, aside from featuring heavily in the final battle. One of the futures that Madrox explores is left undisclosed, and the significance of the baby remains a mystery at the conclusion. It's the opening act of a larger story, and some readers could be unsatisfied by that.
Where it does succeed in what it promised is delivering a shakeup for the X-Men. Quite a few characters get killed off, and one of them is important enough that's it's going to shape the direction of the line for a while. And while the end-point is not an ending by any means, the journey to get there was a lot of fun.
I'm giving Messiah Complex a tentative thumbs up. If you're already an X-Men fan, it's a must, but I'd recommend reading most of Mike Carey's run before tackling it - it draws on a lot of backstory. For those not already immersed in X-Men lore, I would say to give it a miss. There is so much going on in this story that requires prior knowledge that I can't honestly recommend it to the uninitiated. But for you X-fans out there, it's pure distilled awesome.
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Comment by Anonymous
I've read Whedon's "Astonishing" and really like what Bendis has going on with "Avengers," and wanted to give X-Men a try. This may be over my head for now.