Anyone heard of the X-Men story arc Messiah Complex warning may have spoilers

Riddle101

I thought anyone who's a fan of X-Men might want to know about the story arc Messiah Complex if they haven't already heard. It's sometime away after Civil War but it looks like a great read.

Here's a link to on youtube but it's not much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoMY-CnLMJU

ztoical

I have to say I didn't enjoy Messiah Complex as much as I was hoping I would. It was billed as a climax to the house of M/Civil War storylines and while I really enjoyed House of M, I found Civil War to be a little eh. I hoped Messiah Complex might be able to bring it back up but I disliked the way some of the characters were written esp Mystique and I felt it got very muddy and confusing in the middle. I've never liked Rouge as a character so didn't really care what happened to her or with her powers. I did like the way the New X-Men sections were written for it and the development of those characters I felt worked.

Cadeaus

I thought it was good. Not great. One of the better X-men events. I agree about New X-men. That was definitely the best thing about it. I loved those kids.

Then Quesada canceled it only to replace it with one of the most underwhelming Marvel titles of all time: Young X-men.

ztoical

Cadeaus wrote: »

Then Quesada canceled it only to replace it with one of the most underwhelming Marvel titles of all time: Young X-men.

yeah I actually wrote a big rant about how awful young x-men was but thought it was wandering to far off topic so left it out

I was thinking about Messiah Complex tonight and I think my biggest issue with it is that its kinda forgettable. I remember the big plot points but I had to go dig out some of the issues to remember any actual details where as with House of M both the big and small details stuck in my head [hell I still remember most of AOA and Onslaught]

shenanigans1982

ztoical wrote: »

[hell I still remember most of AOA and Onslaught]

Yeah despite all the people complaining about it being the low point of comics in recent years a lot of people still have a certain fondness for those stories. Hell I even somewhat enjoyed Operation Zero Tolerence but that may be because it was aound then that I really got into comics.

As for Messiah Complex it was as everyone said enjoyable but not memorable, I did like the format however meaning that a new issue came out every week although a lot of people would complain that it is trying to get you to buy too many titles.

As for new X-men I begrudged its existence for the first while because it was filling the Generation X gap but the writing was top notch and it became one of my favourite titles.

ztoical

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

As for new X-men I begrudged its existence for the first while because it was filling the Generation X gap but the writing was top notch and it became one of my favourite titles.

I know what you mean, I saw it first as some poor attempt to combine new mutants with Gen X back when it was the new mutant academy and only really started picking it up cus I liked the Josh Middleton covers but slowly I started to really warm to a few of the characters and the writing got stronger, they've been pretty consistent with the art and then they killed off most of the characters I didn't like in one big swoop and the book became my fav X-title

It hasn't been as great since the latest name change so I'm waiting to see if they've lost it or not

shenanigans1982

As well as good writing a lot of New X-mens appeal came from Skottie Young's art. Once you got over it not being as polished as the normal stuff it was really simple and amazing to look at.

BlaasForRafa

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

Yeah despite all the people complaining about it being the low point of comics in recent years a lot of people still have a certain fondness for those stories. Hell I even somewhat enjoyed Operation Zero Tolerence but that may be because it was aound then that I really got into comics.

As for Messiah Complex it was as everyone said enjoyable but not memorable, I did like the format however meaning that a new issue came out every week although a lot of people would complain that it is trying to get you to buy too many titles.

I'm one of those people. I buy Uncanny and X-men legacy and I don't want to buy X-factor and New X-men or whatever it was called....so I got half the story and to be honest it scanned well enough so I can only surmise that the story was pretty liberally padded out with unnecessary fights.

Onslaught pretty much was the last thing I read in comics in the mid nineties and I didn't come back to comics for nearly 5 years. There was a spate of shoddy crossovers in the early/mid ninites....X-Tinction Agenda, X-ecutioners Song...with only AOA being the only honorouble mention.

Also Messiah complex followed from another crossover "Endangered Species" and from whats being solicited in Previews theres another bunch of crossovers coming up and I've just had enough so I've cancelled Uncanny and Legacy this month, just hanging on to Astonishing to see how Ellis does.

Brubaker was doing well on Uncanny until the crossovers, they were good self contained stories and the Carey/bachalo stuff in Legacy was pretty good too and I guess the X-editors figured they needed to screw people out of more money instead of telling good stories.

I'm probably going to hang on and see if the trades are any good and what the reviews are like until marvel get things back on track.

shenanigans1982

I think the next " event " ( I hate that term) is a sequel to the Inferno storyline from the late 80's/early 90's. Which sounds like its going to be a load of sh*t.

I much preferred when comics were not so stuck to the six issue format. I miss single issue stories or even two part stories. For me a lot of the six issue stories seem to be filled out just so they can be nicely collected in a trade.

ComicCast

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

I think the next " event " ( I hate that term) is a sequel to the Inferno storyline from the late 80's/early 90's. Which sounds like its going to be a load of sh*t.

I much preferred when comics were not so stuck to the six issue format. I miss single issue stories or even two part stories. For me a lot of the six issue stories seem to be filled out just so they can be nicely collected in a trade.

I think the Inferno thing is just going to be a mini or something. So that's fine. I just won't buy it. No skin off my nose.

I enjoyed Messiah Complex up until the point it became clear that the story had no purpose other than to reconfigure the X-Men line. Also in the last couple of issues there must have been at least 4 characters killed off only to be brought back immediately after. Sometimes on the next page.