Title: Underground (3 of 6)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: David Hine
Pencils: Len Medina
Inks: Alejandro Sicat
Colors: Digital Rainbow
Letters: Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Recently on the forums, somebody asked what book you would recommend to someone who liked the X-Universe, but didn’t want to have to deal with Austen, Claremont, or (unbelivably) Whedon. The response was a resounding answer: District X and Madrox. Since it’s debut 9 months ago, District X has proven itself to be the perfect answer to Gotham Central for the X-Phile. Filled with cop drama, great supporting cast members, and a feeling that with each arc you are discovering a new one hour episode of amazing mutant hijinx – it is the book to recommend as far as I’m concerned.
The first trade is out, and we’re only three issues into the new arc, so maybe it’s time you got yourself into this book to find out what all the hooplah is. You should.
STORY!
There are mutants below us. Now, anyone who has been reading since ‘Mutant Massacre’ has known that – they’re called the Morlocks. Well, even worse – these Mutants are the ones that live beneath Mutant Town – these folks aren’t even the dregs of Mutantdom, they are the kind of mutants that the dregs won’t lend a dollar too. I mean some bad mammajammas with faces only a mother could hit.
Last night there was a power outtage, and a security guard at a local hospital died. Immediately some odds and ends start to tie themselves together. Urban legends of a giant worm creature that lives beneath the sewers. An artist who seems to paint the future. It all leads itself to Winston Hobbes – the ugliest, nastiest looking mutant to ever rear his ugly head up.
Now from the above paragraph, I’ve given you at leats 3 subplots, one major plot, and I’m skipping out on the general problems between Bishop and his partner Ortega. That is how much good story they are fitting into these issues. I could keep going! What about Malek, the leader of the underground mutant movement who wants his people to be left alone – so as a political message he shuts off the power.
Not just that, but he’s planning on a revolution, which everyone knows is bad for business – so some cops go down and invade the tunnels on their own (or was it?). Melek responds with another power outtage. A supremely excellent story to watch unfold as each story links itself into the last, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see ‘Mister M’ from our first arc make a surprise appearance by the end.
Jamie, this review is starting to sound a bit jumbled
Yes, it is, because to lay out to you a point for point of what goes on in the pages of District X would be unable to do it justice. There is too much story crammed into the panels.
ART!
If I have to shoot this book with a flaw, it’s in the fact that Yardin isn’t doing the art anymore. He was the man of the first arc, and each panel felt like a still moment in time that had captured the perfect emotion. Len Medina & Alejandro Sicat are on the book now, and has three things working against them.
The first is that the book comes across as too dark – sometimes hard to see. The other is that there seems to be this weird penchant for using odd lighting. Occasionally people look shiny – not just as if there is light reflecting off their faces, but as if they are covered in a thin sheen of plastic. The third thing? Oh, he isn’t David Yardin and I miss him.
Overall!
District X has been a title that, even at it’s low moments, has still been decent. This issue starts to piece together the fragments of the arc and tying EVERYTHING together. There is still so much more to go, and it’s going to be a helluva ride while we’re on it. I can’t, honestly, recommend this title more.
