New X-Men is a slightly frustrating book.  It's consistently decent, yet it never quite seems to click and raise itself to the next level.

Issue #7 is one of the better efforts so far, though.  Prodigy's younger sister Kim comes to visit the school, and is enthralled by the whole set-up.  Meanwhile, a ghost seems to be haunting the school.

This will be the first story in a trade paperback, which might be why Kim spends much of the issue having the premise explained to her.  That could easily have come off as repetitive, but in fact it works out quite nicely.  The book has obviously been trying for the Harry Potter vibe, where the school might nominally be some kind of refuge, but it's really a fantasy world.  Kim shows up and reacts to the school in exactly the way that's needed to sell that idea.  The X-books can often be hopelessly angst-ridden, and Kim's used well here to remind us of what ought to be a key concept: the school is fun.  You want to go there.

The haunting story is well-trodden territory, but works well here because everyone reacts appropriately.  Nobody really doubts that weird things happen in the Mansion, the argument is just over whether it could be a ghost or something else.  After all, as Dani says, a building that was only put up a couple of months ago shouldn't really have any ghosts just yet.

The character subplots are being juggled nicely, and the teacher/student love triangle with Rahne, Josh and Laurie is being handled quite convincingly.  I could live without the power demonstration section in the Danger Room, where everyone is saved by one of their teammates in a remarkably contrived sequence, but otherwise it's a well written issue.

Michael Ryan's art has the right brightness for a title like this.  I'm not quite sure what's going on with Jay's photo of Julia, which looks suspiciously like somebody missed the point (unless she was in the habit of dressing like a Victorian spinster).  It's a minor problem, though.

A fun book.

Rating: B+

back | continue