Broken Frontier

The Messiah Complex hits X-Factor Investigations as most of the team goes undercover and Madrox and Layla do a job for Forge.

Whereas the newly completed X-Men: Endangered Species crossover really had little to no impact on the main stories running through X-Factor, the "Messiah Complex" crossover hits the title hard this month. If you are not following the rest of the "Messiah Complex" story expect to be out of luck here.

X-Factor has been pulled into the search for the newborn mutant baby – the glimmer of hope that Homo Superior is not headed for extinction. Most of the X-Factor team hits the mutant hate group, the Purifiers, and works to get Rictor into their ranks as an infiltrator but Madrox and Layla Miller have another job. Forge has found a couple of timelines that need some exploration and Madrox can provide just the men to do it. Of course, the job is not as simple as Forge lets on and Layla proceeds to do "stuff."

I’ll be honest here. I currently read only two X-Men titles and one of those is currently divorced from Marvel continuity. As such, I have not been following the "Messiah Complex" story and found myself pretty much bewildered and lost through most of this issue. All of the complex stories that Peter David has been building since day one… Madrox’s background, Rictor and Rahne’s budding relationship, the mystery of who on the team just might be pregnant, how and why Layla Miller "knows stuff," all of that has been back burnered here. There are two kinds of crossovers really, ones where you do not really have to buy all the titles involved in order to get the full story and ones where you do. "Messiah Complex" is one of the latter. As far as the story itself goes, writer Peter David does his usual good job handling the occasional bickering of the X-Factor team as well as writing for several other X-Men characters, advancing the plot along its pre-approved lines, and leaving the story on an appropriate cliffhanger to be handed off to the next writer in line.

Pencils on this issue hare handled by the always impressive Scott Eaton. His realistic style works well for the title as well as the story he is working on. He has a good grasp of both the little character moments as well as the big action moments with lots of special effects and superpowers.

In the end, however, if you are following "Messiah Complex" then this story is a must have as it advances the overall story. If you are not interested in the crossover, though, and have not been following it then put this issue of X-Factor back on the shelf because you will only be disappointed.