Somewhat against my better judgment, I'm rather enjoying "Messiah Complex" so far.

I mean, yes, technically I can see all sorts of flaws in it.  And I'll get to some of them in a bit.  But it works at the most fundamental level - it convinces me that the birth of a new mutant is indeed a hugely significant event of dramatic importance. 

Admittedly, it doesn't face an uphill task to persuade me there.  As I've discussed at some length in recent months, I'm now quite convinced that the M-Day storyline was disastrously misconceived, and needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency.  Without doing that, there's really no book.  So anything that seems, on the face of it, to be reversing M-Day even in part, is clearly a very good thing indeed (and a very important thing, because if they don't get this right, it's hard to see what sort of series they'll be left with).

Perhaps my enthusiasm for the general concept is making me unduly forgiving.  I certainly find it difficult to rationalise the fact that I'm more interested in this storyline than in Astonishing, except on the grounds that the stakes seem higher.  After all, "Messiah Complex" drifts in second when it comes to technique.

Since "Messiah Complex" is a weekly storyline, it can get away with the sort of pacing that would be egregiously relaxed in a monthly title.  So most of this chapter consists of the X-Men sitting around in their base, deciding what to do next.  There's a rather gratuitous fight with some obscure Acolytes at the end of the issue, which looks decidedly as though it's been included to get some action into the book.  But mainly, it's an issue of talking.

Fortunately, this does allow Ed Brubaker to follow up on the storyline he began in Deadly Genesis, with Professor X marginalised from his own team now that Cyclops no longer trusts him.  This is handled quite well, although it really does beg the question of why Brubaker has waited so many months to show us that Scott blames the Professor for the loss of his family as well.  If he was going to use that as a major plot point, it should have been covered earlier than now.  Still, now that we're getting to it, it's done well.  A page of Xavier listlessly wandering the halls while the other X-Men make plans without inviting him is a nice moment.

Billy Tan is the artist for this chapter.  He's an action artist, and the fight scenes work fine.  But the rest of the issue, with people standing around talking at the Mansion, is more of a challenge for him.  He falls back on a lot of oddball camera angles to spice things up, but they don't really communicate much. 

Although he can convey emotion at the key moments (that page with the Professor comes across very well), Tan is less good at giving his background characters things to do during exposition scenes.  So we get a lot of people with blank expressions and generic body language.  When Madrox and Rictor show up, the script tells us that they're angry about how they were brought there, but nothing in the art brings that out.  And for some reason, Tan seems to have inordinate difficulties in drawing Cyclops, who seems to have developed a squint visor.

So there's plenty wrong with this issue, and I'd be the first to admit that.  But it's made me care about the storyline, and that's enough to forgive a multitude of sins.

Rating: B

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