THE CREATORS: Written by Mike Carey.  Humberto Ramos and Chris Bachalo split the art between them, with Ramos on "Primary Infection" and "Blinded by the Light", Bachalo on "Condition Critical" and "Messiah Complex", and both of them splitting isuse #200.  Oh, and issue #204 has fill-in art by Mike Choi.  The annual has art by Mark Brooks.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2007: The end of the Pandemic storyline; the Hecatomb attacks Providence; the Marauders attack; and "Messiah Complex" takes over the book for the last two months.

Of all the X-writers, Mike Carey seems to have the greatest interest in tying everything together and making it fit.  His stories recapture the sense of a coherent bigger picture, which has been largely missing in recent years.  (Not just the sense, but the picture itself.)  While most writers try to make the X-Men their own, Carey is looking after the characters first.

There may be a degree of illusion here.  If you look back over Carey's run, it's a strange beast.  His first ac was to introduce a weird, unstable team with characters like Omega Sentinel, Sabretooth, Mystique and Lady Mastermind - and then, within only a few months, he's torn them apart.  Was this planned from the outset?  Was there a drastic shift of direction as "Messiah Complex" took shape?

Whatever the background, Carey seems to have found the right formula for this series.  Some of his early stories weren't quite there - Pandemic was a bit too gimmicky to be a really successful villain.  But as we've moved on to the Marauders and the big crossover, Carey provides the feeling of direction and purpose which makes a story feel meaningful.

He's done a similar job with the "Endangered Species" back-up strips, a mini-crossover which spent three months building up "Messiah Complex."  This story didn't really achieve a great deal in terms of plot progression, but it served a vital purpose: it re-established M-Day as something to be addressed rather than something to be ignored.  After the X-books had delayed for so long in following it up, a firm re-statement of its importance was a necessary evil.

The art on this series hasn't always been to my taste.  Chris Bachalo is still often difficult to follow, and he's never been an especially good action artist.  Humberto Ramos is clearer, but his weird exaggerations and distortions don't always fit the story, and he's not good with mood.  But both artists have their strengths, and can produce striking images when they're on form.

After "Messiah Complex", this book is being relaunched as X-Men: Legacy.  According to Carey, it's not a team book, so unless it's a temporary storyline, this is effectively the end of the road for X-Men in its present format.  That's fine by me; we certainly don't need three X-Men team books.  But if Carey keeps at the heart of the franchise, that's got to be for the best.

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