THE CREATORS: Written by Frank Tieri, with George Jeanty on art up until issue #22, and Tom Mandrake taking over for the remainder.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Four, all during the Jeanty run.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2004: "Defection", where Chamber joins the team; "Countdown to Zero", with the return of Gene Nation and the resolution of the Maverick/Agent Zero storyline; the Director goes nuts; "War of the Programs" attempts to incorporate Weapon Plus into the book; and Sabretooth goes hunting for Mr Sinister.

And here's another book that didn't make it to the end of 2004.  However, following plenty of public agitating by writer Frank Tieri, it's getting a miniseries next year.

Regular readers will be well aware that I'm no fan of this title - although in fairness, it's been steadily improving, and there were some good moments in 2004, notably the issue catching up on the Director going mad.  Nonetheless, the book's never really worked for me, largely because the characters never quite seemed to behave in a believable way.  Often, the title seemed to aim for complexity in its characters, but never managed to convey more than one dimension at a time, instead giving the impression that the characters underwent rapid and arbitrary personality shifts.

Consequently, I have no problem with Marvel cancelling the book, as such.  It wasn't a particularly strong seller, either.  But on the other hand, it wasn't performing disastrously, and its sales were relatively consistent.  It appeared that the book had been done in by a general decision to raise the cancellation point across the board, rather than because it was plummeting downwards.

Again, this would have been all well and good if Marvel had simply decided to bring the title to a close.  But, for some bizarre reason, they just pulled the plug in mid-storyline.  Readers who had followed the book for two years were given no resolution, and major characters were left trapped in subplots.  (Judging from Fantomex's return in Mystique, Marvel seem to have decided just to ignore them.)

It's difficult to fathom quite why anyone thought that would be a good idea.  Readers are entitled to expect some degree of resolution, no matter how rushed.  And it's scarcely in the interests of any publisher to get a reputation for publishing unfinished stories.  Sometimes a book might be bombing so atrociously that there's little choice, but Weapon X was not such a book.  Next year's miniseries seems to be intended to resolve the book's storylines; at least the point seems to have been taken, however belatedly.

In the meantime, Weapon X limped through 2004 as something of a lame duck title.  After Reload, the core characters were completely sidelined in favour of stories starring Wolverine, Fantomex and Sabretooth, presumably calculated to try and boost sales.  It didn't work (guest stars do little for sales these days), and the title ended up spending its final few months careering up a blind alley.

For its faults, though, the book deserves a proper ending.  And I'm genuinely pleased that it's going to get one, even if I'm not expecting to enjoy it.

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