Normally I would agree with you. However, they did a great job with these two characters and seem to be attempting to make them more relevant and interesting, and less "Hi I'm a time traveller from an alternate future".
That's because there isn't an outcome. Marvel seems to have forgotten how to write stories that have ends, so we get stuff like this, which is twelve issues of beginning with a bit of middle if we're lucky.
The argument is that this is serialised fiction, and so doesn't have an end, to which I cry "bollocks". "Kraven's Last Hunt" has a beginning, middle and, importantly, end, and yet slots into the ongoing Spider-Man narrative without a problem. "Operation Galactic Storm" is a big sprawling crossover, just like "Messiah Complex", and yet it tells a complete story in itself. Yes, there are loose threads that are picked up sooner or later in the contributing titles, but the main plot has a beginning, middle and end.
I agree. I can understand leaving some plot lines open to pick up and explore. The Rogue and Gambit thing for instance wasn't terribly central, and if it was to be picked up pretty quickly in continuity than that would be fine.
But in this case, we were left with no clue of how the Messiah affects the mutant population aside from one panel in one comic. That just doesn't create enough resonance to make all of this worth it.
DC is suffering the same problem. Didio recently talked about how he was upset that readers were not willing to "wait for the payoff" from the recent deaths. Well, it is 2 years and we have yet to see the "payoff" from Ted Kord's death. There is only so far you can carry something without resolution.
Sadly this is one of the reasons I was so excited about the major story line that Messiah Complex was. It wasn't a retcon. It showed that you could tell really compelling stories in a periodical format without undoing everything that has come before. In fact, it drew on *so many* aspects of X history, probably the most complicated history outside of Hawkman in comics, that I was amazed by the detail.
Well ... so much for that hope.
That being said ... it wasn't bad per se, but I'm pretty sure this could have been told without calling it an event.
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The argument is that this is serialised fiction, and so doesn't have an end, to which I cry "bollocks". "Kraven's Last Hunt" has a beginning, middle and, importantly, end, and yet slots into the ongoing Spider-Man narrative without a problem. "Operation Galactic Storm" is a big sprawling crossover, just like "Messiah Complex", and yet it tells a complete story in itself. Yes, there are loose threads that are picked up sooner or later in the contributing titles, but the main plot has a beginning, middle and end.
But they don't do that anymore.
Oh and the baby is Jean Grey.
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But in this case, we were left with no clue of how the Messiah affects the mutant population aside from one panel in one comic. That just doesn't create enough resonance to make all of this worth it.
DC is suffering the same problem. Didio recently talked about how he was upset that readers were not willing to "wait for the payoff" from the recent deaths. Well, it is 2 years and we have yet to see the "payoff" from Ted Kord's death. There is only so far you can carry something without resolution.
Reply
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Sadly this is one of the reasons I was so excited about the major story line that Messiah Complex was. It wasn't a retcon. It showed that you could tell really compelling stories in a periodical format without undoing everything that has come before. In fact, it drew on *so many* aspects of X history, probably the most complicated history outside of Hawkman in comics, that I was amazed by the detail.
Well ... so much for that hope.
That being said ... it wasn't bad per se, but I'm pretty sure this could have been told without calling it an event.
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