Okay, I realise that there's only one main event in the X-books this week, and it isn't New Mutants #10.  But Marvel have sent another four books out there to be overshadowed, and the X-Axis is nothing if not comprehensive.

The revised version of "The Ties That Bind" passes the halfway mark.  It seems the original plans for the arc have largely hit the buffers in favour of setting up for the upcoming overhaul, when the book is going to be relaunched as New X-Men.  So, out of nowhere, we've got characters breaking up into little teams and discussing what codenames they want.

To be fair, the codenames don't come entirely out of the blue - the kids in Morrison's New X-Men use them - but they've been absent thus far in New Mutants, which seemed to be going for a more down-to-earth approach.  As I've said before, though, moving this title in a more superhero-based direction isn't necessarily a bad move.  If you're going to have a superhero training school, you might as well give it all the trappings.

However, the title still has the feel of a comic in awkward transition.  The kid with decay powers seems to have disappeared off the radar altogether; meanwhile, supporting characters are being foregrounded, new characters are still introduced, and ten issues in, we still seem to be establishing who the regular cast are going to be.  With the original New Mutants, the X-Men in mentor roles, the pseudo-New Mutant team and Emma's proteges, the cast is inflating to unwieldy proportions.  The book could use a little streamlining.

There are interesting ideas here about individual characters, nonetheless.  DeFilippis and Weir have some promising material with the idea that Rahne has been trying to change her personality to recapture the side that she was formerly able to express as Wolfsbane before she lost her powers, and with Josh's attempts to reach out to Rahne as a similarly isolated character.  On the other hand, some of the pop psychology is spelled out a little too blatantly, as characters spend pages theorising about one another's motivations.

There's some good stuff in here, and the current transition will probably do it good in the long run.  For the moment, though, the feeling of an awkward change of direction continues to linger.

Rating: B

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