District X #7 begins the book's second arc, "Underground."  But reassuringly, all that's really happened is that we've jumped forward in time.  The book is still continuing with previous storylines, and the characters from the first arc are still around.

This is nice to see, because the first arc did seem a little incomplete.  The book makes much more sense if it's going to follow this route - it's one of those titles where the "part 1 of 6" stuff really indicates nothing at all, other than the planned break points for the trade paperbacks.  This book doesn't really do six-part storylines - it does an assortment of ongoing plotlines, and it's paced more for the monthly title than the trade paperback.

That said, the book's certainly shifting gears here, starting a number of new plot threads to replace the ones that were tied up last issue.  We've got a bunch of mutants living in the tunnel underground, who are presumably going to be a focal point for the next few issues.  I'm a little cagey about this.  We've done the Morlocks to death, and I have no real interest in seeing them done again under a different name.  That said, writer David Hine seems to be taking a slightly different approach; for all that they were meant to be ugly outcasts, the Morlocks were generally portrayed more as a magical hidden community beneath the ground.  There was something kind of romantic about them.  District X, on the other hand, has a bunch of desperate drug-addled losers who just happen to be taking shelter somewhere.  Oh, and a mutant earthworm.

Elsewhere, we've got a woman who seems to be a serial killer out to get mutants; relationship problems between Izzy and his wife (spinning off a rather weak "why are you reading my diary" scene); and a rather better subplot with Izzy wracked with guilt over the death of his previous partner Gus, who topped himself and lay there for several days before anyone found him.  That one's not really pushed too hard, and works better for sterring clear of melodrama.

There's also a mutant artist who paints precognitive images - a bit of a plot device power, to put it mildly, and another concept that I'm rather uncertain about.  Come to think of it, it's been done before, and he doesn't get much of a personality here.

I'll reserve judgment about this arc until we get a clearer idea of where Hine is heading with the apparently-central concept of mutants living underground.  It's been done so often that I'm going to take a little persuading that there's a new take here.  But the possibilities are there, admittedly.

Rating: B

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