If there was ever an example of a comic that relied solely on its creative team to sell the issue, then Dark X-Men #1 is the king of all those examples. Honestly, I can think of no other reason that anyone would be initially interested in this book, besides the fact that fan favorites Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk were working on it. From the initial premise that we read about in the solicits, we get this: It's a Dark Reign related book featuring Norman Osborn, its features a spin-off team of X-Men who were the focus of a semi-decent crossover, and has second tier characters who most fans never really cared about. These ingredients nearly ensured in my mind that this book would be more superfluous crap, though I had blind faith that Cornell and Kirk would weave a story that would undoubibly hook me despite all these elements. In this case, I'm glad that I trust so easily, as this issue was a sure fire home run.

One of the great things about Cornell's script is that he gives personality to the half of the Dark X-Men team who were initially personality-less. First we have Omega, who in the past has been nothing more than a sniviling vessel for this amazing destructive power, and here we see him as kind of losing his mind from all the powers he's absorbed and acting absent minded from all the shenanigans he's causing. Then we have Mimic, who has revealed to have some emotional baggage, so it'll be interesting to see the developments of this character who in the past was more defined by his array of powers than anything else. The second half of the team, Dark Beast and Mystique, have previously established personalities which Cornell showcases very well, and not too extremely to make them seem corny or ham-fisted. So overall, all the characters are written nicely and there seems to be a great team dynamic going on here, so its looking like this will definitely be a team worth following, which is sort of suprising.

While we're on the topic of characters, this book sees the return of one of my favorite characters: Nate Grey aka X-Man. He was a character who I loved during Age of Apocalyspe, though was frustrated with his Marvel Universe proper stories since they never seemed to be interesting. It was annoying since he was a character who I fell I should love since he has such awesome powers, but could never get behind any of his further adventures. Then comes Warren Ellis, who revamps the character into someone who not only has near omnipitant powers, but can also be quite a joy to read. I finally felt self-justified to call Nate my favorite character...and shortly after this, he's killed off. So for a long time, I digress about X-Man and think about "what could have been" if they let his character grow under this great new direction of his character. So I admit...I was quite giddy to see him pop up at the last page, and now I am highly optomisitc to see Cornell, who does wonders for all characters, write his further exploits.

This has become a highly anticipated book for me every month now. The winning team of Cornell and Kirk have once again made a compelling book about characters I wouldn't normally give a toss about. Plus, given the fact that it was revealed that the plot surrounds one of my childhood favorite characters, there is no way I'm missing this. Marvel was wise to keep these two creators together, as it's obvious they strike nothing but gold.