New X-Men is going to have a strange few months, since the book is spending a whopping four issues as part of the House of M crossover.  Fortunately, for those who'd prefer something a little closer to normal, the regular writers also have the Hellions miniseries running alongside it.  (Hulk is doing something similar, incidentally.)

Whatever else you say about New X-Men, it's certainly not a book that can be accused of decompression.  If anything, the common criticism of the book is that it's trying to cram far too much material into the available space, and everything rushes past faster than it really needs to.  There is a lot of truth to this criticism, but nonetheless, I'd rather have too much in my comics than too little.

For once, here we have some supporting characters who actually merit their own miniseries.  The Hellions are one of the more interesting groups in the school.  They serve the traditional role of being the New Mutants' opposite numbers, but unlike the original Hellions, they're certainly not villains.  At worst, these are the characters who might potentially be villains one day - many of them aren't even that, but simply fellow-travellers swept along in the wake of Julian's obnoxious but apparently effective leadership.

In the parent book, naturally enough, the Hellions tend to be defined more by the way they interact with others.  (Badly, as a rule.)  But DeFilippis and Weir have been careful to establish that they're evidently not that bad, and most of them are capable of being perfectly pleasant when they aren't swept up in the group dynamic or, in Hellion's case, playing to the crowd.  They're precisely the sort of characters who would benefit from a story like this - they're on holiday, they're away from the school, and for once the story is told from their perspective.  It opens up sides of the characters which are hard to get at in New X-Men.  It also means that the cast is kept down to a sensible number, and the characters really do get the space which isn't always available in the hugely overpopulated New X-Men book.

The plot has Julian invite the team back to his parents' house for the summer holidays, only to discover that his recklessness has become so alarming to the family that he's being cut out of the will.  Seems a bit drastic, but apparently he's deemed unsafe to inherit the family business.  More out of revenge than anything else, Julian starts investigating how his parents became rich so suspiciously quickly in the first place, all of which leads us into a slightly contrived "you all have one wish" set-up.  These can be tricky stories to pull off simply because the concept is so utterly artificial, but DeFilippis and Weir can usually be relied on to keep the character issues to the fore.

Clayton Henry turns out to be a good choice of artist for the book.  It's bright, open stuff, which suits the tone of the story.  New X-Men is an X-book which ought to be happy - it's the kids in their fantasy school, after all - and that's what we get here.  Enough dynamism to carry the action scenes, enough acting to carry the dialogue.  That's enough to keep me happy.

In some ways, this is actually better than some of the New X-Men issues, if only because it isn't trying to cram so much in.  Certainly a promising first issue.

Rating: A-

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