If you want to be technical about it, the Morlocks do not appear in District X #8.  "Underground" involves a community of homeless mutants who've set up their lives down in the tunnels.  But not the Morlocks.

Of course, it's a recurring theme.  The Morlocks seem to keep springing up again, no matter how comprehensively they get wiped out, and Joe Casey introduced a completely separate group of underground mutants living in England.  It's a fairly logical idea - there really are supposed to be people living in the tunnels under New York, and it makes sense for the more disfigured outcast mutants to retreat there.  But it's also been done plenty of times before, which means that the pressure is on to find a new angle.

As you might expect from District X, Hine takes a more realistic tone than we're used to getting from the Morlocks.  True, we've still got the inspirational leader figure who stands up on makeshift stages and makes bitter-yet-inspirational speeches to a horde of bit-part characters.  But despite their destitute trappings, the Morlocks were always written as more of a magical fantasy community, down to the deeply implausible stuff about Storm becoming their absentee leader by winning a knew fight.  The District X characters seem to have more concrete concerns; they're worried about social services coming to take the kids away.

It's a more interesting angle than usual, since the possibilities of the Morlocks have largely been exhausted.  (Even Claremont doesn't seem to touch them any more.)  On the other hand, it just leads to a fairly stock plot where the underground mutants - who seem remarkably well-equipped for homeless outcasts - use bombs to break power lines and cause a blackout on the surface, in order to... well, make some kind of point about how miserable they are.  Since the authorities only seem to care about helping the kids rather than the adults, one can kind of see their point.

Interestingly, even Izzy doesn't actually seem that bothered about the idea of people living in the tunnels; he's only outraged that they're being allowed to hold onto the kids.  Which may seem a touch harsh, but then this isn't a hugely sympathetic issue for Izzy.  Until now, he's generally been played as the character who's easiest for the readers to identify with; but by this issue, he's behaving appallingly towards his long-suffering wife, and falling into somewhat contrived plot traps where he's led to think that Bishop's moving in on her.  Izzy's over-reaction to all this is pretty unsympathetic, and takes the character into new areas.

I'm still reserving judgment on the story as a whole, which still teeters on the edge of "magical hidden community" cliches at times.  But there's plenty of interesting material here, and the book isn't just allowing its characters to stick to easy and sympathetic ground.

Rating: B+

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