Customer Reviews

X-Men: Endangered Species

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"No more mutants." With these three words, Wanda Maximoff (the Scarlett Witch) changed the landscape of the Marvel Universe in "House of M." Since that time, the mutant population dwindled from 10 million down to less than 200, with no new mutant births. "Endangered Species," a prologue to the "Messiah CompleX" X-Men crossover event, follows the Beast as he tries to find a way to bring mutants back from the brink of extinction.

The writing, by Mike Carey, Christos Gage, and Christopher Yost, is a roller-coaster ride through recent mutant history that will require most new or part-time readers to hit up Wikipedia to find out who some of these characters are. The "science" gets a little confusing as well--be prepared to suspend your disbelief (but you already knew that, right?). While "Endangered Species" doesn't stand on its own, it does provide readers with a bridge between "House of M"/"Decimation" and "Messiah CompleX".

X-Men: Endangered Species is more of a direct lead-in to the X-Men meha event that is Messiah Complex. Originally published as backup stories in various X-titles, Endangered Species follows brilliant X-man Hank "Beast" McCoy and his attempts to reverse the damage done by Wanda "Scarlet Witch" Maximoff during House of M. With the mutant race dwindling down, Beast finds himself in bed with some nefarious and unlikely people, all in the name to save mutantkind. While Endangered Species is interesting, not a whole lot happens here to be honest. Written by Mike Carey, Christopher Yost, and Christos Gage; Endangered Species also comes off as a bit uneven in terms of the story's flow. While Beast makes advances in finding a solution, we're still left hanging by the time the TPB is over, which leads in to the massive Messiah Complex storyarc, which is one of the best X-Men mega-events in recent memory. The various art, including work from Scott Eaton and Mark Bagley, is quite good though. All in all, Endangered Species is worth a look for X-Men fans, but whether or not its worth picking up is a different story all together.

There's still the stigma attached to superhero comics that they must all be bombastic, over-the-top action scene vessels and Endangered Species eschews much of this. A character study of a character who too often gets relegated to "the brain of the group" and is simply written off as a scientist type.
An especially intriguing part is seeing the other-dimensional variants of the Beast, particularly the one that turned to religion, and how this reflects on the character we're reading about. More a character study, highly reccomended for fans of the character, lightly reccomended for others.

I almost passed on this book because of the negative reviews. Please note this book is less about 'the adventures' of the X-men. Than it is an exploration of science and faith (though I would mostly say science) to fix things. Sometimes trying to make things 'better' actually make it worse.


Yost, Carey and Gage are truly some of the greatest writers in the industry. All three writers understand that comics don't have to be 'dumbed down' to be good. It's an awesome and very complex story, that will have you picking it up to re-read.


If you are looking for a 'smack down' between the X-men and their enemies. Then this book is not for you. However if you are looking for an intelligent and well thought out story that asks very profound and serious questions about science and attempts to right wrongs. Then please read this. It's truly worth every penny.

If you're looking for a book that promises "an all out action extravaganza" or to "forever changes the status quo," look elsewhere. Here you'll find more internal conflicts than external ones, more moral conundrums then explosions. Mike Carey is an extraordinary writer and uses these little vignettes to give real depth to Messiah Complex. Without it, the big crossover would seem pretty damn empty.

This books stems directly from Marvel Comics 2005 revolutionary "House Of M" event which curbed their fictional world's mutant population down to a few hundreds out of millions, as well as preventing (for all of one "real time" year, WOW) new mutant births. Let's forget for a moment that train wreck though, and let's go back to the book at hand.
The plot: Doccor Henry McCoy, aka beast, one of the original X-Men and one of the world's premiere scholars on mutantkind, is hell bent on finding a way to reverse the apparent imminent extinction of the mutant race. In desperation, he tries everything he can to find out the truth and a way out of this evolutionary dead end, consorting with villainous mad scientists and worse on the way. Eventually, he gives up after seeing that it had nothing to do with science but all with magic, that maybe not all that looks bad also is bad, that even the "villain" deserves her newly found amnesiac idyllic peace.
Sigh.
Never mind the fact that the villain is a mutant born with genetic based magic powers (sic), never mind the fact that X-Men have dealt with the supernatural (hell, vampires, assorted demons...) often enough for Henry McCoy to be much more willing to look into magic scientifically. Never mind the fact that the villain's powers are thus written off as one of the worse deus-ex-machina devices of literary history, barely matched by Peter/Parker's nearly contemporary deal with the devil that cost him his marriage and all memory of it, while also deleting from everybody's memory the fact that he outed himself as the Spider-Man on national TV.
Yes, sadly, and despite a lot f top-class material, superhero comics are that bad.
This particular book should deal with Beast delving into his darkest side and coming out of hit, Heart-Of-Darkness style.
The Beast though, mostly comes off as naive, hysterical, much more stupid than writers like Grant Morrison and Josh Whedon had made him, and nearly written in a void. Nobody needs a backlog of decades of muddled continuity, but you could use good characterisation and plot points. The book is overly written as it is, less 2 cents psychoanalysis and more meat on its bones wouldn't have hurt. As a character, Beast is left unchanged and very much diminished by all this. Thak God I had forgotten about this muck when I read the brilliant SWORD book by the insanely talented Kieron Gillen, or I might have dismissed that one and I would have made a horrible mistake.
If you liked Beast n that book, in Grant Morrison's New X-Men and in Josh Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, please forgive him here though: What can he do about it? They just wrote him like crap...
Paradoxically, in a tale that strives to be so deep and manages to misquote Machiavelli in the process, it is still the classic superhero artists like Mark Bagley and Tom Grummett that manage to turn out the best artwork, even more suited to the book than the dark, more realistic art of the rest. Probably,because it remains at heart a below average superhero yarn, not science fiction, not fantasy, not horror, not introspective fiction: Thus only good superhero artists can make sense of it. Scot Eaton comes close in his efforts, but after some great pages he gets sucked into the genera mediocrity too. Mike Perkins is a total disappointment, he is good enough with realistic but he is given two furry monsters to draw, and all he can do is draw ugly men and awkwardly stick tufts of hair on them.
There is also nearly no difference to be noted among the writers of the various chapters. My half-guess is that Carey excels at the psychological portrait, sometimes remotely remembering us of his Unwritten and Hellblazer work, while Gage is the most hard-boiled writer of the bunch and Yost is competent and leagues above his abysmally bad New X-Men work.
I had rated this book at one stars first, but I'll settle for two, in reluctant honour of Carey's, Bagley's and Grummett's misguided efforts. There's worse, after all.

Henry McCoy's search for answers has been done before (Legacy Virus) but here he tries to enlist unlikely sources of help. Sadly, it all seems like a X-Universe greatest hits tour without the hits. The story was predictable and utterly pointless. The multiple writers voices were impossible to differentiate which goes to the vanilla-ness of the plot. The art was by far the upside of the book. This is a trade that can and should be pushed aside for the real stories going on.

this is not a book full of fights but it still holds up to the x standerd.
beast is at his best and the x men will never be the same.

This is a BEAST story, where he goes around Marvel Universe failing, failing and failing more. And the story tries to end with a moral, which really doesn't work. I just bought it because I was thinking that it's important to understand Messiah Complex, but it isn't.

Compared to House of M and Decimation, this book was a let down and seemed slow. I read it only because it's the book before Messiah Complex.