So I have to say that I'm quite happy with the new "Messiah Complex" crossover event that's currently taking over the major x-books. The one-shot that launched it did a good job of establishing the scene and actually getting some things to happen right off the bat, and this week's 2nd chapter in Uncanny X-Men was a good continuation, and also used the crossover format to good effect by highlighting some team tensions between characters who haven't recently been in the same book (Cyclops and Professor X). The whole thing is also finally doing something reasonable with the Decimation mess left over from two years ago.

But even more than the event itself, I'm really happy with what it's done to the line as a whole over the past several months- namely, force some coherence and direction on a universe that had largely lost it. Brubaker (on Uncanny and especially Carey (on X-Men) had started to do this already, but their lead-ins to Messiah Complex were both good stories that felt like they were actually part of the same world. And even New X-Men has been forced to take a break from slaughtering and torturing its cast so that the characters can react and be around the mansion long enough to get pulled into the crossover.

Brubaker's first year on Uncanny was devoted to a space opera storyline that's been shunted off into a mini-series (a better place for it, as it's connection to the X-Men is increasingly tenuous). But even that story did a great deal to rehabilitate the characters of Havok, Polaris and Marvel Girl, all of whom had become charicatures under their previous writers. They're now off in the mini, acting more like normal human (or mutant) beings and have a clear purpose for a change. Havok is once again a capable leader who has doubts but can overcome them. Polaris is no longer careening from one type of insanity to the next. And Marvel Girl's reactions to the crap in her life are starting to make sense rather than read as cryptic cliff notes to 1980's material Claremont had left over in his head.

With those three taken care of, Brubaker used his Messiah Complex lead-in to both deal with the repercussions of the split that left half the old team in space and show how a particular corner of the mutant world has been reacting to hints of upcoming change. And position a potential major player for a role in the crossover. And gave Skids a part reasonably consistent with her history and more interesting than standing around in the background or being mindlessly influenced by Apocalypse. It's the most anyone's done with her in many years, and quite welcome. I hope we see more of her in the crossover.

Carey's been covering some strange territory since he took over X-Men, but as odd as some of his choices have been, he's been steadily working through dangling continuity plots and damaged characters. Like some of Brubaker's cast, Iceman and Rogue had been badly handled by their previous writers, and while Cannonball was not as actively damaged, he'd been sorely underused. Now Iceman's believable as the 2nd-longest serving X-Man instead of seeming like a whiny brat. He's younger than the other originals, but he's been an adult for some time and it's nice to see someone write him as such. Cannonball's finally reverted to the personality that made him such an effective leader of X-Force. The idea that the guy who has, at various times, told off Professor X, Magneto and Cable would just quietly hang out in the background of a team never really sat well with me. Carey's got him back to having the attitude and self-confidence he developed years ago. And Rogue finally got to do something that was truly her own. She'd been reduced to "Gambit's love interest" for far too long. Granted, her latest actions didn't work out too well, but at least they were of her own initiative and not soap opera angst.

In Carey's Messiah Complex lead-in, his bizarre lineup for the rest of the team proved to be a set-up to establish the new expanded Marauders line-up, and once that reveal unfolded a lot of strange things made more sense. In the epilogue issue to his lead-in storyline, we also see that the issue of putting so many dubious people on such a team is not being forgotten. So many people blasted this book for its strange path, but I've loved it because not only has it been well and consistently written (the morally dubious people did not suddenly become true heroes), it's shown evidence of planning throughout. Carey's clearly had a purpose with these decisions, and it's exciting to see that emerge. I'm betting we haven't seen the last of Mystique changing sides- she's always on her own side, really. And I'm still waiting for the full story on Lady Mastermind's loyalties. She's a new enough character that it's hard to tell what's really going on there. And I'm really curious to see what ultimately happens with Gambit and Sunfire.

The book on which Messiah Complex has had the most dramatic change has been Kyle and Yost's New X-Men. This book has been non-stop pain, death and misery for over a year, without the writers bothering to explore the impact that any of it has on their characters. No matter how many interesting possibilities they set up, the book has been completely failing to achieve its potential because of the horrible pacing and lack of follow-up. The crossover has forced the writers to take a breath and establish the current attitudes and reactions of their cast. And they've done a good job, using the horrors that the students have gone through to reveal them as a tight-knit group who don't think much of the adult X-Men who have failed to even pay much attention to them, much less protect them. I really hope they get a better role in the crossover than cannon fodder, which is practically what they've been in their own book for far too long.

Finally, a comment on X-Factor, as it's the other book in the crossover. This is the only book that didn't need a course correction. Not coincidentally, it's the only ongoing book that ever tried to do anything serious with the results of Decimation. So it already fit the direction of the crossover. I just hope that in the post-Messiah Complex lineup there's still an X-Factor that's this interesting.

Tags: comics, marvel, messiah complex, new x-men, reviews, uncanny x-men, x-factor, x-men