THE CREATORS: Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir writing, with a whole range of artists - Michael Ryan, Paco Medina and Aaron Lopresti.  That's up to issue #19.  Starting with issue #20, it's Craig Kyle and Chris Yost writing, and Mark Brooks on art.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2005: The final two parts of "Haunted"; Prodigy dreams about yet another depressing alternate future; Josh and Rahne's relationship comes out; a funeral for Northstar; the end of term ball; a House of M crossover; and Decimation.

Of all the X-books, New X-Men underwent the biggest overhaul in 2005.  After over two years on this book and its predecessor New Mutants, Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir were unceremoniously kicked off in order to let the book take a drastically different turn.  Bring on X-23!

Such an obvious change of direction was never going to go down well with the fans of the book's existing format.  DeFilippis and Weir's book was essentially a complex teen soap opera.  Kyle and Yost seem to be writing a much more conventional superhero comic.  To all intents and purposes it's an entirely new book.

So what was wrong with the previous version?  Well, to be fair to Marvel, New X-Men was a title that never quite seemed to click.  For one thing, a vast number of characters were battling for space.  Storylines often seemed to advance in shorthand, leaving the impression of something that would have made a good outline for a series with more space to breathe.  In the 22-page monthly format, though, it often felt very rushed.

On top of that, there was something almost prosaic about New X-Men.  In keeping with the period in which it was launched, the book seemed to shy away from the more fantastic elements of the Marvel Universe in favour of focussing on straight teen drama angles that could often have been pursued in any boarding school setting.  A school full of mutants ought to be something exotic or wonderful, but that feeling never quite came across.

It's not that New X-Men was a bad comic - far from it - but it always fell frustrating short of the levels it was clearly aspiring to.  Kyle and Yost are yanking the book into much more straightforward territory, but if nothing else, it re-establishes the school as a place where fantastic things occur.

Adding X-23 to the cast has been a slightly controversial move among purists, many of whom see Wolverette as a third-rate knock-off character one step up from Beppo the Super Monkey.  Despite my preconceptions, though, she's growing on me.  She's been set up as a profoundly damaged character where a real question exists as to whether she even has a proper personality underneath all her brainwashing.  As an ensemble character, she could be interesting.

And like her or not, there's no doubt that X-23 sells.  Her miniseries did great numbers compared to most X-Men minis, and even her Captain Universe one-shot sold above the others.  People want to read about her - by all means, let's give her to them.

It remains to be seen how New X-Men's current incarnation will settle down once the immediate chaos of Decimation is out of the way.  Mark Brooks' art is also a concern - it's been horribly cluttered so far, and not remotely attractive to the eye.  But the new direction may yet help the book find the audience it's been searching for all this time.

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