New X-Men #156 is the final issue before the title reverts to X-Men, although I think it goes without saying that the last two issues don't really count.  The fact that they're being banished to an Uncanny X-Men trade paperback tends to suggest that Marvel don't exactly regard it as a key part of the title either.

In theory this is supposed to have been a transition arc between Morrison and, primarily, Joss Whedon.  In reality, it fails because it just sets matters back to exactly the same position that Morrison left us with in issue #154.  There might have been a reasonable story to do covering the reconstruction of the mansion, and Scott's awkwardness around friends who find him jumping into bed with Emma a little too quickly for comfort after Jean's death.  Austen skirts the latter point without really dealing with it effectively, and otherwise just kills time with a riot scene.

Astute readers may recall that last issue, Scott and Hank went into the mansion's basement in order to find Cassandra Nova, apparently unaware that she's already Ernst.  Well, Austen doesn't drive a coach and horses through Morrison's plot after all.  Instead, the entire plot thread is simply abandoned - Scott and Hank shout at one another and then wander off to join the other plot.  Every forgets all about looking for Cassandra.

It may be that somebody else has laid claim to that subplot (such as the new New X-Men, which is dealing with the pupils and therefore presumably inherits Ernst as a cast member).  And yes, leaving it unresolved is fair enough.  But dropping it altogether is just the sort of ineptitude we've come to expect from this book.  You'd have thought that the X-Men might at least be marginally worried about the fact that a genocidal villain whom they thought was in the basement doesn't seem to be there, but apparently it's not a concern to them.

Other than that, it's stock anti-mutant riot stuff, and art which, while perfectly readable, is far from Larroca's best.  Four issues in a month hasn't exactly led to his finest work, but then that's only to be expected - to be honest, it's surprising that he's been able to work that fast at all.

Bland and played in overly broad strokes, and featuring some ridiculous plot-dropping.  It's not as bad as I'd feared, I suppose, but then my expectations of this arc were very, very low indeed.

Rating: C-

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