New X-Men #136 is nominally part two of "Riot at Xavier's", although that seems to be more of a guide to which trade paperback it's going to appear in.  In fact, most of this issue is the second half of the field trip with Xorn and the Special Class.

At first glance, this doesn't have a great deal to do with the riot storyline at all.  But there's three likely reasons for having it here.  One, it's a nice thematic parallel for the riot plot, as Xorn bonds with his students.  Two, it's probably establishing the Special Class characters with a view to giving them some sort of role in the climax next issue.  And three, it kills some time while Quire's storyline builds to a climax - given that Quire just continues along exactly the trajectory he was on for the last two months, it would have been rather boring watching him instead.

Even so, while this is nominally the second part of a storyline, in practice it works mainly as a standalone story.  Last month Xorn took the Special Class off to the woods on a camping trip, and they didn't take him very seriously.  This month, Xorn and the students are forced to bond together when they come under attack from the U-Men.

And yes, you're right, that is a stock plot.  But that's not really a problem, because it's mainly an excuse to flesh out the characters, particularly Xorn, Beak and Angel, and do a bit of comedy with them.  It's not immediately obvious what Angel is doing in a class which the students apparently see as "remedial" - she's always seemed at least averagely intelligent and competent - but I'll just about let that slide.

Xorn gets some great material here, as he tries to connect with his students, and admits that he's floundering badly.  The sequence where Angel finds him having just singlehandedly destroyed the attacking U-Men is particularly good - it's a great contrast, both with the slightly ineffectual Xorn seen in the rest of the story, and the relatively lighthearted tone of the earlier scenes.

The U-Men aren't exactly my favourite Morrison X-Men concept, but they work in this role.  They're really just generic attackers, but Morrison gives them enough characterisation to make them work as bizarre and eccentric zealots.  I don't much care for them as the focus to a plot, but as occasional guest villains, they work.

Frank Quitely's still doing the art, and it's dawning me that the only reason issue #134 was billed as a "prequel" to this storyline was to let them claim that he was drawing the entire arc.  Nice try, lads.  Nonetheless, Quitely's on top form here, making the best of the U-Men and the comedy sequences with the students.  The Xorn/Angel sequence is sublimely beautiful stuff.

I notice that Quitely is now being computer-inked.  I have no idea whether this is quicker or not.  Certainly it works fine with his style - I wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for the lack of an inking credit. 

Morrison manages to deliver an entertaining story, develop his characters, play it for laughs, and the Xorn/Angel scene is a classic moment.  Great stuff.

Oh yeah - the arc plot.  There's a few pages of it at the end, setting up the riot for next month.  To be honest, it gets overshadowed by the Special Class.  But I don't care, because the Special Class stuff is so damn good.

Rating: A

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