X-Men: Messiah Complex is a highly uneven mess with four writers, a dozen artists between pencillers and inkers, and four or five issues of plot spread over thirteen different comics in four different titles (plus a special), but I found myself enjoying it anyway, mostly because it has extreme amounts of the dunderheaded sturm und drang that I like in my X-Men comics. There’s time-travel, a child with a mysterious destiny, the fate of mutantkind in peril, and Cable sporting a set of shoulderpads that make his costumes in the 90s look positively restrained. It’s not worth the $30 cover price, but Amazon’s got it for $19.79, making it a much more appealing slice of modern junk culture.
Spider-Man: A New Goblin collects five issues of what many fans consider to be “prime” Len Wein/Ross Andru material. The mystery’s about as obvious as they come and it’s positively drenched in melodrama, but it’s hard to deny the appeal if you have any fondness for the character. It’s archetypical Spider-Man, complete with Aunt May in the hospital and Mary Jane serving as a calculated combination of harridan and super-hot lust object for the fans.
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Comments ( 1 Comment )
Rich commented on Nov 07 08 at 1:26 pmI haven’t read Messiah Complex again since it was collected, but I really enjoyed it as it came out. There were some misses and detours, but I thought it was rather cohesive given the potpourri of creative teams. Agree it’s worth the Amazon asking price.
Unfortunately, I haven’t really enjoyed the X-books since the event ended. Even my favorite among them, X-Factor, has declined (imho) and got hijacked by terrible art.
