THE CREATORS: Written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost.  Paco Medina starts the year as regular artist, and then hands over to Skottie Young with issue #36.  Humberto Ramos takes over with issue #44 for the book's final storyline.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2007: "Mercury Falling", a relatively restrained story promoting the X-23: Target X miniseries; "The Quest for Magik", another of the book's trademark slaughterfests; two issues of the kids sitting around the mansion looking traumatised and miserable; and two "Messiah Complex" crossover issues.

New X-Men is another title on the verge of cancellation.  It ends with January's issue #46, as part of the general reshuffle coming out of "Messiah Complex."

Writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost are moving on to the new series X-Force, but that book has a different premise and an almost completely different cast.  Instead, the replacement title is apparently something called Young X-Men, about which very little has so far been announced.  Presumably this is supposed to draw some sort of parallel with the non-existent Young Avengers title, along the lines of Marvel's widely and rightly mocked overuse of the New prefix.

It's a frustrating book, New X-Men.  It has so many good characters, and so much potential.  Hellion, Rockslide, X-23, Surge, Prodigy, Mercury - they could all quite easily become mainstays of the line.  Decent characters don't come along every day.  There's a lot of promise in this book, which just needs to be tapped.

But ever since M-Day, New X-Men has been trapped on a tiresome treadmill of slaughter, misery and desperation.  It's not much fun any more, and it's been overdone to the point where it no longer registers as shocking.  I realise that Kyle and Yost are trying to crank up the tension, but it isn't working.  The one-note ritual slaughter of minor characters is too repetitive and tiresome.  It's just a rather miserable and depressing read, in which the characters' potential is largely smothered by a downbeat fog.  There's "angst-ridden" and then there's "wrist-slitting", and this book is on the wrong side of the line.

On the bright side, Skottie Young has been doing some very interesting artwork.  In the course of his brief run, he's switched from his familiar animation-style art to a much looser and more expressive line.  Hopefully he'll stick with that direction, because it really does bring the page to life.

Still, Kyle and Yost are capable of much better than New X-Men, as they've proved with their X-23 miniseries.  Hopefully the new X-Force title will prove a better vehicle for them, and we'll see what they're really capable of.

As for the kids, the best one will presumably be re-used in Young X-Men.  And hopefully they'll finally get a chance to breathe, and to realise their potential as some of the most engaging new X-characters of recent years.

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