Brian Reed seems like a writer destined for big things. From a fairly slow start as Bendis’ collaborator on Spider-Woman: Origin, he’s secured himself a place in Marvel’s ranks via the superb New Avengers: Illuminati and solid work on almost two year’s worth of Ms. Marvel comics. His latest challenge is something of an uphill struggle, however, as he inherits the current, messy status of Captain Marvel, as established during Civil War and then kicked quietly into the background while they tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Reed does make a fair attempt at this. He creates a solid mystery regarding Marv’s amnesia - presumably related to why he arrived in the future at all - and quickly starts to build a supporting cast. A sub-plot regarding some pseudo-religious types called “The Brotherhood of Hala” doesn’t quite work for me, largely because I’m sick of seeing these kind of cults springing up all over the place. It simply feels played out to see yet another bunch of mindless fanatical robe-wearing brainwashed automatons doing the bidding of their conspiratorial masters, and I say that as a fairly staunch atheist. Perhaps it’s going somewhere good, but I’m not entirely sure whether to trust it or not.

Overall, we get a fairly ponderous reboot to the Captain Marvel story, ending with his re-introduction to society at large. I consider myself one of the few remaining Captain Marvel fans out there, and even I’m not sure he’s worth re-visiting in this manner. Marv’s frustration at knowing he’s going to die, not in battle, but of cancer, makes for some good material, but it can never be as good as the frustrations shown on his death bed in the graphic novel where he originally died. It’s good to see Lee Weeks on art duty, but he seems slightly mismatched. He’d make for a good Daredevil artist, certainly, but a character like Captain Marvel feels like it requires something a bit more striking than Weeks’ subtler style allows.

Uncanny #492 picks up right where Messiah Complex left off. The X-Men have recently arrived home and they’re watching coverage of the destruction of Cooperstown, Alaska, destroyed by the recent mutant birth and subsequent battle between Sinister’s Marauders and the mutant-hating Purifiers. The X-Men arrived just in time to earn some good PR by rescuing some of the victims, but they’re wondering why no-one is blaming the violence on mutants, as expected.

The answer isn’t stated on the page, but it should be fairly obvious to readers - it’s because Predator X, the genetically engineered mutant-hunting beast, has EATEN the corpses of the dead marauders found at the scene, meaning there’s no clue that this was a mutant-based affair. Lovely.

Brubaker shows why he’s a great choice for X-Men with a great scene between Cyclops and Professor X, where the former reminds his old mentor that, after all the crap he’s put up with, he doesn’t feel like he needs permission to take a team of X-Men out. This builds nicely on storylines that you can read in Brubaker’s miniseries, Deadly Genesis, as well as Joss Whedon’s work in Astonishing X-Men. The Professor is certainly not okay with a large proportion of the team, and the pages of him wandering aimlessly around the mansion are surprisingly poignant.

Meanwhile, Wolverine’s out tracking down the Marauders by way of Exodus, and Jamie Madrox (of X-Factor) checks in. Relations between the X-Men and X-Factor are frosty right now, but some telepathic coaxing brought Jamie in and the crossover’s going to be in X-Factor this week, so it’s lucky he turned up. Layla Miller is proving to be a great character, as ever, and between Rictor’s assignment to go undercover with the Purifiers (he is, after all, human now) and Madrox’s task to go talk to Forge, the crossover feels remarkably organic, which is definitely something you want. At this point in the story, the X-Men are definitely playing catchup, but for the first time in decades it feels like Cyclops might actually be the leader they need to get ahead of the game.

There’s only one way I can begin this blog, and that’s the same way I began reading comics: With the X-Men.

Messiah Complex is a one-shot that kicks off the whole “Messiah Complex” crossover, and since it’s been out for a few weeks (I’m reviewing this issue for completeness’ sake) I’m going to discuss the crossover slightly more than the contents of the actual comic.

This is the first time the X-titles have done a line-wide crossover in years, largely because this sort of thing was seen as being one of the poisons that nearly killed off the comics industry. For whatever reason, Marvel is testing the waters by bringing them back. In the past, this kind of story was often poorly plotted and borderline incoherent, so if nothing else, let’s hope everyone’s learnt from their mistakes…

The crossover’s starting issue is written by Ed Brubaker, who, as one of Marvel’s biggest writers right now, seems almost too good to be slumming it in the X-Books, which are not the sales juggernaut they used to be. Messiah Complex promises to change all that and put the X-Men back on top by giving the titles the direction they’ve lacked for a long, long time. Coming out of the “Decimation” event, which drastically reduced the number of mutants in the Marvel Universe, the story of the first new mutant birth has certainly been in the planning for a while - it’s just a pity they didn’t appear to have much planned between Decimation and Messiah Complex.

In fairness, the one criticism of the Messiah Complex one-shot is that it actually doesn’t build on previous stories when it could - the last two storylines in Uncanny X-Men and its sister title, X-Men, have revolved around various groups of mutants eliminating people with any knowledge of the future. When those groups manage to beat the X-Men to the scene of the mutant birth, it should seem fairly obvious what’s going on, but no mention is made of it. Personally, I like to see these things given a nod.

The issue is given an appropriate sense of gravitas by Silvestri’s art, even if it does actually feel almost retro by today’s standards. Kids, I remember when ALL comics looked this muscled and pouty. Nonetheless, it’s a callback to the era when this sort of crossover was having its heyday and as such, works very well.

While I’m going to avoid spoilers, it’s fairly clear to many long-time fans of X-Men where Messiah Complex is going, and why the mutant birth is important the the X-Men on a personal level. Even so, I’m looking forward to the journey we’re about to be taken on, and the promise of some entertaining twists and old-school, shared-universe fun. Hell, it’s even going to make me pick up New X-Men.