X-Men: Endangered Species

Collects the X-Men: Endangered Species one-shot and the seventeen Endangered Species chapters originally published in X-Men #200-204, Uncanny X-Men #488-491, X-Factor #21-24 and New X-Men #40-42, written by Mike Carey, Christopher Yost and Christos Gage with art by Scott Eaton, Mark Bagley, Mike Perkins, Tom Grummett and Andrea Divito.

The mutant population has been in a crisis since the Scarlet Witch mumbled her famous last words during M Day, and the X-Men are worried that this may be the end for Homo Superior. The Beast, in particular, has been busy trying to solve the mystery through science, but with no luck. His lack of success in this regard leads him to seeking help among old enemies which leads to a surprising ally in Dark Beast, with whom he sets out to find a solution once and for all. During this quest, Beast has to question himself and his beliefs and do things of questionable moral integrity which provokes more soul searching and character development than you'll get to see in a whole year of the regular X-Men titles (Astonishing excepted...).

This book serves as the connection between House of M and Messiah CompleX, but most importantly it is Beast's story. He is not only the main character of the story, he is what the story is about. During the story we see Beast interact with other science characters, and especially Dark Beast is interesting in this regard. Beast is a man (mutant) of science, and science is morally neutral, that is, science's morals are defined by whoever uses science. Beast has high morals himself, but Dark Beast is the exact opposite, and Beast is forced to ackowledge that Dark Beast's lower morals may be helpful when he himself has run out of ideas. The Beast's moral dilemma is finely exposed in the relationship between these two characters, and the character of Beast is made that much richer by it. This book proves that Beast can easily carry a story on his own, while presenting a good tale of going to great lengths to apply science where science really isn't applicable.

The story is paced much slower than any of the other X-Men stuff I've read recently, and this is a good thing, because it can be a little hard to keep up some times. Plenty of page space is dedicated to character development and this pays off in the quality of the story. There is an unsually low amount of fighting for an X-book, but again this feels like a nice breath of fresh air. And yet, the book does feel like an X-book, probably due to the numerous references to characters and events from those books.

With so many writers and artists doing the same story, one might be worried that the cohesiveness of the story would take a hit, but this is not the case with his book. The artists all have similar styles, and all contribute to the overall dark mood of the book. There are no problems with characters suddenly speaking with a different voice either, so kudos to the editors for organizing what must have been a bit of puzzle.

This is a good prologue to Messiah CompleX and a very good story about Beast. If you read House of M and Decimation and are curious as to what happens with the mutants after that or are planning on reading Messiah CompleX, you should consider getting this. If you're a fan of the Beast, you should definitely get this.

7/10