X-Men: Divided We Stand

Collects X-Men: Divided We Stand #1-2 written by Mike Carey, Matt Fraction, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Skottie Young, C.B. Cebulski, Duane Swierczynski and Andy Schmidt with art by Brandon Peterson, Jamie McKelvie, Sana Takeda, Skottie Young, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy, David Lafuente, David Yardin, Frazer Irving and Chris Burnham. Also includes the X-Men: Messiah CompleX - Mutant Files handbook.

Messiah Complex is over and the X-Men are gone. Does that mean we'll never see them again? Well, if you believe that, I got a couple of Eiffel towers I'd like to sell you. The dissolving of the X-Men does not stop Marvel from putting out this book of appetizers, giving readers a glimpse of where the X-titles will be headed the next year or so. A lot of the stories concentrate on (former) New X-Men characters, but we also get stories featuring Beast, Nightcrawler, Havok and Illyanna Rasputin.

My main complaint with these stories is that none of them ever get very interesting. Being teasers for future story arcs, I guess this is in their nature. The interesting parts should come later. The sheer number of stories and small number of pages per story, leaves a rather confused and not at all coherent impression. And this is the problem with this book. It wasn't designed to tell it's own story, but rather to introduce later stories. The result is a bunch of very short stories ranging in quality from totally indifferent to a little but interesting. There's nothing in here that will shatter your mind.

Whereas the authors never really get a chance to show what they can, this book does function as a showcase of some the artists that hang around the X-office. There's a lot of different styles in here, and some of them are pretty interesting. I would like to especially point out Skottie Young, David Lafuente and David Yardin as promising talent.

The Messiah Complex - Mutant Files is nice to have nearby when reading Messiah Complex. But one has to ask why this wasn't included in the Messiah Complex book itself? And in any case, the information in here is not more than a simple wikipedia search away.

The cynical would say that this book is just a way of making people pay for previews of future publications, but I think that is a bit harsh. There are some interesting bits in here, but as a whole the book is not really that interesting. If you like (very) short stories and are eager to get some hints at what will happen in the near future, e.g. Manifest Destiny, X-Infernus and Kingbreaker, you might as well get this book. If you're looking for the usual over the top all-out X-Men action I suggest holding your breath a little bit longer or rereading Messiah CompleX.

4/10