Uncanny X-Men #491, the concluding chapter of "The Extremists", is also the final issue before the "Messiah Complex" crossover gets underway next month.  I'm not entirely sure it needed all five issues to get there, but the book does seem to be on the right road.

The basic plot involves the surviving members of the Morlocks, who have split into two factions in a dispute over how to interpret a rambling book of prophecies.  The book is the work of a precognitive mutant who lost her powers on M-Day, and Masque has convinced his group that the prophecies point the way towards a bright mutant future, just as long as they start a completely pointless war with humanity.  He's not entirely clear as to why - but that's not going to stop him.

The Morlocks have always been a fairly low level threat, which is one of the main reasons why I'm sceptical about the need for the team to spend five issues plodding around looking for them.  This is another of the awkward side effects of M-Day: most of the X-Men's villains have been removed, and it's become difficult to create new ones.  So writers are left to make the best they can out of Z-list dregs like Erg and Litterbug.  It's just another in the long list of reasons why this ill-conceived storyline desperately needs to be undone, and should never have happened in the first place.

That said, Ed Brubaker writes a good Storm, and he does a decent job of building his central metaphor.  The story has the Morlocks as religious extremists, stuck in a world that, as they say it, inexplicably fails to conform to scripture.  Clearly something drastic must be done about it.  The terrorism parallels are fairly blatant, but superhero comics are generally better off dealing with these subjects at one remove.

Admittedly, there's a lot of suspension of disbelief involved in the notion that the Morlocks, who have never previously shown any signs of religious extremism, have all suddenly gone nuts over a book.  But it's just about within the realms of credibility, so I'll let it slide.

More to the point, it seems to suggest a rare piece of co-ordination between the books as they head into "Messiah Complex."  The recent X-Men storyline was all about Mr Sinister trying to wipe out other sources of prophecy, meticulously working his way through all the time travellers and psychics from previous stories.  But the Morlocks' book wasn't on his list, and this apparently invaluable artefact ends up in the hands of Magneto by the end of the story.  It's a good example of how to make the books complement one another without compromising accessibility.  You don't need to get the connection to enjoy either story, but if you do see it, it makes both plots stronger.

A good lead-in to the big crossover.

Rating: B+

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