X-Men storylines update

I've been reading through the wikipedia and newsarama to see what's up with the Marvel Universe. The past few years have been centered more on the Avengers heroes -- the likes of Captain America (who died by the way), Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine -- well, Wolverine is a special case; he's soooo famous, he is part of Astonishing X-Men (Cyclops' team) and New Avengers, and appearing on numerous comics (New Avengers, Astonishing X-Men, Wolverine, and Wolverine Origins, plus tons of guest appearances in other comic series).

Minor spins to major plots
The point is, X-Men have been sidelined for a long time ever since M-Day -- the day most of the mutants on Earth lost their mutant powers. As stated earlier, major story arcs in the Marvel Universe involves mostly the non-mutant heroes - case in point, Civil War and World War Hulk. Except for a few characters -- Wolverine (member of New Avengers) and Storm (temporary member of Fantastic Four), they play very little, insignificant roles in the Marvel Universe.

Although the X-Men have their own series in the above story arcs, they are very limited and you can do without reading them. We have the four-part "X-Men: Civil War" and the three-part "X-Men: World War Hulk", both of which, in my opinion is poorly written and has very little impact on the main MU story arc.

"Endangered" Endangered Species
Serving as a prelude to the main arc is this minor storyline. I was really looking forward to this storyline due to the hype it got a few months ago.

Centered on Hank McCoy, the Beast, we get a glimpse of how one of the most intellectual beings in MU suffer as he hopelessly and desperately finds a "cure" and restore the mutant race. I've always liked the Beast, so I guess this is the good part.

The bad part is the way each chapter "or episode" becomes too... for lack of a better term, "template-ish". For the most part, each chapter features Beast and a "guest" character. The likes of High Evolutionary, Bishop, Dr. Kavita Rao, etc. I dunno, I guess it became predictable and simplistic. It could have been better.

Anyway, it was never intended to have a great significance in MU. It's just a springboard for the next storyline...

Return to the mainstream
With the conclusion of the Endangered Species storyline comes the highly anticipated Messiah Complex. The hype about this one is really building and I can't wait to read the entire saga.

Just read about it here.

The part I like is about the idea that "Cyclops will also unify the X-Men in a way they haven’t been for years." Well, this one I really want to see. Cyclops is regarded by many as a minor character, thanks to the three X-Men movies, where he is practically a supporting character for Wolverine. He is more than just a supporting character. He's not leading the X-Men for nothing. Hopefully, he gets the spotlight that he deserves one -- one that is long overdue.