Plenty to get through this week, both from the X-books and assorted new releases.  And we kick off with New X-Men as it begins the "Riot at Xavier's" storyline.

Or more accurately, this is part two of the storyline which began last month, but for some reason it's being labelled as episode one of a new story arc.  Maybe that's to coincide with the return of Frank Quitely, but it doesn't really match up with the narrative arcs.  We're still dealing with the hyper-intelligent Quentin Quire's newfound rebelliousness.

Arguably this isn't really a superhero story at all, since it's really about the X-Men running their school and trying to deal with pupils who aren't prepared to play along with their peace'n'love philosophy.  I'd prefer to say that this sort of story demonstrates what you can do with the genre if you're prepared to step beyond the stock plots.  Strictly speaking, the story does have villains - Quire and his gang - but as they're already the X-Men's pupils, the dynamic is a little different.

Despite Morrison's reputation for bizarre high concept stories, this is relatively grounded.  The Omega Gang's anti-human uniforms, and their immediate banning from the school, obviously echo the ridiculous trenchcoat purging from US schools in the aftermath of Columbine.  However, this time round the X-Men's suspicions are well founded, and Morrison raises some interesting questions about the degree of control that the school should be exercising over its pupils.

Thus far in Morrison's run, the school has been portrayed as an experimental establishment with a blithe assumption that all will be wonderful in the fabulous new morality of mutants.  From the look of it, the pupils must spend half of their time in eurhythmics classes.  Confronted with something that poses a challenge to this entire approach, plenty of characters promptly back off in favour of suggesting a return to conventional ways of doing things.  The story questions some of the assumptions that have been present in Morrison's run and looks more seriously at how the X-Men should be running the school.

On the down side, the Omega Gang's costumes may be a bit too obscure a reference.  They're intended to look ridiculous, and inherently innocuous, but by the same token Quire intends people to recognise the source.  God knows how many people are seriously going to remember that this is what the evil mutant was wearing in an artist's impression of the future, illustrating a newspaper article by Bolivar Trask, which appeared for about three panels of one issue, thirty-five years ago.  It's explained, but I'm not convinced it really has any resonance to readers or characters.

Morrison also arguably gives the X-Men a little too much evidence pointing to Quire's responsibility for the anti-mutant attacks in New York to justify them giving him the benefit of the doubt in the way that they do.  Then again, we're told Quire's a subtle and manipulative telepath, so who's to say whether the X-Men are entirely in their right minds here?

Frank Quitely returns to the art this issue.  He may not be around often, but it's always worthwhile - he gives us a great selection of bizarre mutants for Xorn's class, and his version of Quire hits the right balance between geek and menace.  He's a great fit for Morrison's writing, and hopefully in the next year Marvel will finally sort out the overuse of random fill-in artists on this book.

Despite the glitches, the art is great and the central ideas are intriguing.  The storyline is looking very promising thus far.

Rating: A-

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