X-men Crossover: Messiah Complex

by Ed Brubaker, Mike Cary, Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Peter David, Marc Silvestri, Billy Tan, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, and Scott Eaton

Collects X-Men: Messiah CompleX One-Shot, Uncanny X-Men #492-494, X-Men #205-207, New X-Men #44-46, X-Factor #25-27, and X-Men: Messiah CompleX - Mutant Files.

The LowDown: Just when it seems like M-day was going to stick, a new mutant manifestation is discovered and the X-men, Mr. Sinister's Marauders, the Purifiers, among others race to get the new mutant.

Review: Yes, I'm taking a bit of a detour from X-factor, because this crossover book deals directly with that title and there are a ton of consequences to that team and future books that occur here.

Have you ever played a King of the Hill type game? It's very common in First Person Shooters, one team has to get to an area and hold that area first for a certain amount of time while fending off all the other teams. This book is a lot like that. Except substitute an area or piece of land for a baby.


There are multiple teams (one of them being the X-men), each with their own agenda, and each with their own viewpoint of the world fighting over this new mutant manifestation, that happened at birth. I have a couple of issues with this, mutant manifestations aren't supposed to happen at birth, Peter David's X-factor book went over this a little bit by introducing a third species, the changeling, that manifests powers at birth. So technically this new "mutant" shouldn't even be a mutant, per se. Another thing that I had an issue with is that these multiple groups with multiple interests makes for an exciting and easy conflict, but balloons the amount of characters involved. There's a lot of characters in this book, few get actual development, and little more than a few lines, and it's not very accessible to a new reader of the X-franchise. Another issue is that, yes, I understand that there's a lot of competing and conflicting interests at work but sometimes these interests aren't ever brought up, we never find out why Mr. Sinister and the Marauders want the baby for (just from previous knowledge of Mr. Sinister, I assumed genetic experiments). But everything happens in such a rush that it's glossed over. There are also many deaths or near-deaths, that aren't very clear or memorable because the character gets very little build up to the death. They happen, out of nowhere, and yes I understand that their friends and teammates are upset, but because I don't typically follow the books that they feature in, it's hard for me to really care and get emotionally involved.

It may sound like I'm harping on the crossover, but there's a lot of good that came out of this. It provides a REAL sequel to House of M. Although Peter David's X-factor has been dealing with the consequences of that event for a while and has done a great job exploring the possible storylines from that book, this brings back the larger scale of the X-universe. It's also an action packed booked and really the equivalent of a blockbuster movie, the pacing is rarely slow and it just keeps moving from one action set-piece to the next. The plot moves at a brisk pace and there's very little noticeable diversions from author to author, they all seem to come together as one cohesive unit to tell this story. The artists though, are more divisive, as while most of the artwork is serviceable, the artist on New X-men uses a very cartoony, manga style that doesn't mesh well at all with the other art styles.

Although emulating the style of a summer movie blockbuster, there are significant, interesting developments. Cyclops really takes hold of the reigns of mutantkind and triumphs in his power struggle with Xavier. Seeing Cyclops forcefully move into the role he was trained for all his life is honestly a sight to behold, and seeing the clean-cut poster boy make some controversial decisions is also a lot of fun to see.

One of these controversial decisions is the reinstatement of X-force as a mutant black-ops team led by Wolverine and full of trackers and potential killers. While I like the idea of the move, I don't like that the team is taking X-factor mainstay Rahne "Wolfsbane" Sinclair. Rahne has always acted as a morality and conscience to the X-factor team and David was going somewhere unique with her giving in to her more animalistic side in order to live a clearer life.

Also this book sees Madrox (and Layla) take a trip to the future, where the world isn't all that bright (when has it ever been). It's cool to see the relationship between the two come a little bit closer to fruition to Layla's predictions. Peter David really turned Layla Miller from a plot device in House of M to a increasingly intriguing, if not likable character. So when Layla goes through what she goes through here it has an instant impact on me as a reader and follower of X-factor and on Jamie Madrox. We still have two competing futures, and if you've been following X-factor, you've seen the one where the mutants destroy the humans (as Future Tryp divulged) and now, you've seen the one where humans attempt to control the mutants after a genocidal disaster caused by a mutant. It still plays into the larger picture of X-factor's meta story, and it serves its purpose here in the Messiah Complex to show us the purpose of this new mutant baby and the consequences of it's upbringing, and provide the info for a twist near the end of the story.

There are some other huge status quo changes, but I don't want to spoil too much. Overall the book delivers as a fun action blockbuster but doesn't really come together in terms of plot, character development, and final destination. It's still a chapter in a saga of the X-verse, so there's no real conclusion. Hopefully we'll get somewhere that's worthwhile.

Finale: Like I said, it's a fun book. It's not necessarily good, just fun. It'll help fill in the holes from X-factor Vol. 4 to X-factor vol. 5 and it plays a huge role in the X-universe that will be referenced for at least a while. So it's probably important to read it at least once, but be prepared to be lost at times as it's not the most new-reader friendly and the art isn't the best especially in New X-men issues, and near the end.