We have a ton of X-books this week, as well as three other titles I want to look at, so you'll forgive me if I skip past some of the X-books which are just pursuing business as usual.

New X-Men #137 is the penultimate part of the "Riot at Xavier's" storyline, although labelling this as a four-parter seems odd.  As Morrison has been mentioning in interviews, he seems to be shifting away from a story-arc structure and back towards structuring his stories for the individual issues.  Last month's diversion with the Special Class makes a nice thematic counterpoint but doesn't have anything to do with the plot of this issue.  It's going to read oddly when it's presented as a single story in the trade paperback.

Morrison finds himself with a problem in this story.  The basic idea seems to be that the Omega Gang's riot (inspired in large part by Kid Omega's telepathic influence) is ineffectual, directionless rebellion which only serves to be counter-productive by damaging the X-Men's image.  The difficulty is that the Omega Gang need to be seen to be ineffectual while still being able to hold off the X-Men for more than a token period.

That's a tricky balance to achieve, and Morrison doesn't quite pull it off.  The result is a story where the Omega Gang are ineffective, but hold out against the X-Men largely because the X-Men don't do anything to stop them, despite being horrified by the impact on their image.  The X-Men stand around making vague attempts to keep order, but don't really seem to be doing a great deal.  The plot has gone to the trouble of preventing Xavier from defeating Kid Omega telepathically, but there's no obvious reason why Emma can't do it. 

And when the X-Men have yet to make any real effort to defeat the Omega Gang themselves, it's unclear why the Stepford Cuckoos feel the need to take matters into their own hands.  The idea seems to be that, in fact, there isn't a crisis and the Cuckoos are unnecessarily putting themselves into the forefront of the plot for ego reasons, and are as immature in their way as Kid Omega; but it doesn't come across as clearly as it might.  It really depends on how long you think the story has taken - if, as Xavier claims, it really is "minutes" then it makes sense.  But the pacing makes it feel longer, and I think that's where the glitch lies.

Nonetheless, the character ideas are strong, and the Cuckoos' equally misguided belief in their own maturity is interesting.  The story does make its point about the ineffectiveness of the Omega Gang's protest (even if it makes the X-Men look rather ineffectual as well), and their frustration about the painfully slow timescale of Xavier's more realistic approach to social change.  And of course, Frank Quitely's art is excellent throughout - the sequence with Xavier crying from under his helmet is excellent, and the riot sequences are wonderfully laid out.

Great ideas, but the pacing problems drag it down.

Rating: B

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