Into every life a little rain must fall.  Grant Morrison's departure from New X-Men is, let's face it, unlikely to reverse the declining quality of the line.  Mind you, his final issue is still eleven issues away, and by today's standards, a run from issues #114-#154 is pretty good.  And there'll be plenty of other Grant Morrison stories to read.

The question is who's going to get the book next.  In that context, it must be remembered that Marvel have been unable to find a winning formula on Uncanny since... well, a good few years now.  The chances of them suddenly hitting on a winner for New X-Men, in that context, have to be rated as low.  Unless, that is, they find somebody who's got a great idea for the series that couldn't be done while Morrison was already there taking the line in another direction.  Nonetheless, I have to admit to extreme pessimism here.  Quite honestly, I'm bracing myself for Frank Tieri or somebody of that ilk.

But that's a story for another day.  Let's balance that out by pointing out something good.  There are many fewer adverts in the books this month.  This means that we actually get nine pages of story in a row at the end.  Definite improvement.  The adverts on every alternate page for the rest of the book are still a thorough nuisance, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Okay, let's move on to the actual comics.  New Mutants is still in its untitled opening storyline.  We've established the format by now - each issue introduces a new cast member, and by issue six the format should be more or less established.  However, and wisely, Weir and DeFilippis aren't simply abandoning their remaining cast members.  So while roughly half of this issue is devoted to introducing Kevin Ford, the remainder continues to follow up the storylines back at the Mansion.

Magma is also brought back into the cast, as a comatose patient.  It seems that in this book, thank god, Warren's healing blood isn't quite so effective.  It's an interesting decision to use that character, since when she wakes up, they're going to have some difficult material to disentangle with her.  Nova Roma was never one of Marvel's more successful concepts, but getting rid of it altogether and replacing her entire history with a mind-control plot always seemed a highly ill-advised move.  Subsequent appearances by Magma have tended to confirm this theory, so the writers have their work cut out for them if they're going to try and make her work now.

Kevin's introduction is pretty straightforward - nice kid, unfortunate powers, inadvertantly killed his dad.  Perfectly serviceable stuff, albeit that we've seen the basic "can't be touched" routine done before.  He cheers up surprisingly quickly at the end, considering he's recently killed his father, but we'll see where they're heading with that.  It's easy to see him working as part of the ensemble cast, and the series is doing a good job setting up all of that.

The art's still patchy.  There are some decent enough layouts, but the character designs are a little bland, and figures still seem a touch stilted.  Grant also seems keen on drawing strange little highlight lines on characters' faces, which the colourist seems to find rather awkward to work with.  Even so, the storytelling is fine. The problems are in the details.

Still promising, although it seems a little subdued.  There's enough going on to hold attention if they're doing a slow burn, though.

Rating: B+

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