THE CREATORS: Gail Simone and Udon on issue #7, followed by a string of fill-in issues until they return for issues #13-15.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Five, but that was because the book didn't have a regular creative team at all for several months.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2003: The "Shameful William" story; fill-ins by Buddy Scalera, Evan Dorkin and Daniel Way; and "Deadpool Walkin'", the wrap-up arc where Deadpool came back.  And then the book got cancelled.

Remember back in the good old days, when the X-books consisted of Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor - and that was it?

Well, that was over fifteen years ago, and this is now.  In 2003, Marvel produced a grand total of sixteen ongoing series under the X-banner.  Okay, three of them had been cancelled by the end of the year - but they're all coming back in 2004 in slightly revised guises.  Plus, we're getting a new Alpha Flight series, which Marvel appear to consider an X-book this time round.  Whatever happened to that idea of not deluging the market? 

Anyway, thanks to the miracle of alphabetisation, we'll kick off with Agent X, a title that had a less an illustrious year.  In 2002, I predicted that the title would be cancelled by June.  I was right on the money - issue #12 did ship in June.  Only Marvel brought the book back for another three issues, so it didn't actually end until October.  I'll still take it as a correct prediction, I think.

Gail Simone and Udon had been getting good reviews for Agent X and its predecessor title Deadpool, and while sales weren't spectacular, they could certainly have been a lot worse.  However, thanks to what appeared to be irreconcilable differences of approach between Simone and editor Andrew Lis (the man who brought you the blatantly doomed revamp of Thunderbolts), Simone left.  Ridiculously, Lis also left almost immediately after, but Agent X had already been condemned to a run-out period of fill-in issues before being condemned to cancellation.

The fill-ins were a mixed bag.  Surprisingly enough, two of them were actually very good.  Evan Dorkin and artist Juan Bobillo came aboard to provide a sequel to Dorkin's insane Fight-Man one-shot from ten years ago, which was genuinely funny and would have been worth publishing in any circumstances.  On the other hand, Buddy Scalera and Daniel Way's stories were thoroughly unimpressive.

Fortunately, in due course wiser heads prevailed, and Simone and Udon were brought back to do a three-issue storyline tying up the series.  Those three issues aren't perhaps the best material Simone and Udon had done on the series - personally, I still prefer some of the earlier Deadpool issues with the Rhino as a key ring - but they allowed the book to go out with a sense of closure instead of spluttering to an uncontrolled halt.

In 2004, Marvel are having another stab at Deadpool.  He'll be appearing in a Cable & Deadpool title, to be illustrated by Udon.  Simone, on the other hand, is lost to the X-books for the foreseeable future.  She's signed an exclusive deal with DC, and has been getting gratifying sales increases on Birds of Prey, despite Ed Benes' grating artwork. 

Considering the circumstances, there was some worthwhile material in Agent X this year.  Fabian Nicieza is writing the new series, which suggests a different approach.  Of course, while he didn't create Deadpool (or Cable, for that matter), he was probably the writer most influential in shaping both characters.  It might well be a decent book, but it'll be a very different one.

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