4. Mike Carey
The less said about House of M and Decimation, a contrived story that reduced the mutant population to 198, the better. But fortunately something good came out of itnamely Mike Careys run on X-Men beginning in issue #188. Carey formed a truly unique team, a strike force hand-picked by Rogue, and whom she chose was a very interesting mix. You had veteran characters like Iceman, Cannonball and Cable. And in addition to that, there were some very offbeat picks, like Omega Sentinel, a former police officer whose body was altered with Sentinel technology and villains Sabretooth, Mystique, and Lady Mastermind. Such an offbeat team shouldnt have worked, but it worked very well for this book. Carey brought some much-needed development to woefully underdeveloped characters like Lady Mastermind and Omega Sentinel, and he introduced fascinating new villains like Pandemic and the Children of the Vault. In addition, he managed to use other concepts from X-Men history, such as the Mummudrai from Grant Morrisons run and new twists on familiar characters like Mr. Sinister and the Marauders and Exodus leading a new group of Acolytes. Following the excellent Messiah CompleX crossover (really the best one the X-Men had been involved in for a very long time), Careys title was retitled X-Men: Legacy as of issue #208. In Messiah CompleX, Professor Xavier was shot in the head by Bishop and X-Men: Legacy saw him revived from a coma by Exodus and go on a quest to fill in the gaps in his memory. Issue #226 changed the focus to Rogue. Carey addressed numerous dangling plotlines in X-Men continuity, while providing some of the best characterization of characters like Professor X, Rogue, and Gambit.