THE CREATORS: Joe Quesada and Joshua Middleton

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Nil.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2003: Kiden Nixon and X-23 are introduced.

NYX is an idea that has been in development for absolutely ages.  A couple of years back, Brian Wood was meant to be writing it, only for the title to be cancelled under somewhat ill-tempered circumstances.  (If you want to know what his version would have been like, then his current series Demo is said to be not wholly dissimilar.)

After that, it disappeared from the radar this year, only to resurface with Joe Quesada and Joshua Middleton.  The premise is that it's a bunch of mutant street kids in New York.  Since we're only on issue #3 and it's still introducing the characters, it's hard to know quite where it's heading.  The first two issues seemed to be going to for the (comparatively) real-world angle.  The third lurches off in more conventional territory by introducing X-23, a character from the X-Men: Evolution animated show who has connections to Wolverine.

This sort of drawn-out introduction of characters didn't work for New Mutants, but judging from the solicitations, it's set to continue for a few issues yet.  The idea of launching a new series and hitting the ground running seems to have gone out of fashion, which is a bit of a shame.  You can get away with a relatively slow start in novels or cinema - once somebody's bought a novel, they'll probably read it, and once somebody's in a cinema, they're unlikely to walk out.  But with comics, you've got to inspire people enough to make them return for the next issue.  It's all very well to say that readers should be patient, but economic reality has to play a part here as well.  Frankly, if 2004 sees a full fledged anti-decompression backlash, I'll be all for it.

NYX is hardly the worst offender here, but it's got off to a rather slow start.  However, it makes up for a lot of that thanks to Joshua Middleton's art, which is consistently striking stuff.  Given that this is a fairly grim and downbeat title, Middleton doesn't seem like the most obvious choice of artist.  His pastel-coloured, graceful figures always seem beautiful, no matter what the plot involves.  That doesn't really sit with the direction of the story, but in fact it seems to work out okay.  Instead of seeming out of place, there's an interesting tension between the story and the aesthetic qualities of the art.

NYX really needs to sort out its rating problems, however.  In theory this is a PSR+ book, which is a slightly elevated version of Marvel's "parent supervision recommended" rating.  However, it then carries a further warning of mature content.  The result is the same ludicrous mishmash that has plagued Ultimates, where the story concepts are plainly aimed at adults and yet the dialogue is still censored as if the average reader was eight.  In a scene involving forced prostitution and self-mutilation, it's laughable to have punctuation marks representing the word "shit."  The book seems to want to be a mature readers title; if so, they should just adopt that rating and be done with it.  It hasn't done Supreme Power any harm.

It's early days for NYX, and it's got off to a rather slow start.  But there's enough there to hold my interest, and it does look fantastic.

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