Synopsis
In the wake of Messiah CompleX, there are no X-Men. But where does that leave the mutants that WERE X-Men? Some of the industry’s hottest creators bring you stories of your favorite mutants as they make their way in a world without the X-Men. And only those who adapt will survive. Featuring Cannonball, Husk, Nightcrawler, Storm, Black Panther, Neznho, Anole, Beast, Dark Beast, Havok, Vulcan and Surge!
Collecting X-MEN: DIVIDED WE STAND #1-2 and X-MEN: MESSIAH COMPLEX – MUTANT FILES.
‘No More X-Men’ doesn’t sound like a good idea for a storyline, but in the main issues it actually works. Not with this limited series though.
In short, the two issue set makes the ten stories too short, and without some knowledge of the ‘Divided We Stand’ cross-over you won’t have a clue what’s happening.
Each story is separate from the rest and focuses on one or two mutants. This is also one of the downfalls as the mutants are generally unknown to the casual X-Men fan, thus there is no real benefit unless your collecting the rest of the cross-over as some of the gaps are filled in. The stories try to help with this though as some characters, not yet involved in the main events, discover what has happened. But this acts more as a spoiler than a hook.
The stories aren’t bad, and the writing never falls below ‘good’, but they can be dialogue heavy with little action. Only ‘Forges’ story manages to find the right balance between these elements, and provides a hook for the main series. Worth checking out just to see what happened to Bishop.
As the stories are separate, so is the art work. All ten stories are both written and drawn by a different team and works just as well as a showcase to their talents as it does to the mutants involved. The art-word is impressive for each and you will easily find your favourite, and maybe look for more of their work. Looking through them you may notice how the art work fits well with the tones of the story, or you may think some should had been swapped. Either way it’s hard to fault the variety.
One other benefit though to picking up a copy is the ‘Messiah Complex – Mutant Files’. This fact file section gives detailed information on some of the characters in the above stories, and gives a better understanding of what is going on.
One for the die-hards, or fans of more character driven stories.