Most of the House of M spinoff stories and titles have been strong ones, outshining the parent crossover title itself, actually. Unfortunately, Mutopia X doesn't continue the trend. This is a decent enough continuation of similar themes explored in this limited series's predecessor, District X, but it says nothing new about the characters. Furthermore, the characters' behavior and the premise doesn't completely make sense, and artist Lan Medina's work on this issue is a far cry from his strongest efforts. Hine tries to make a commentary about race relations and pop culture, but the message just doesn't have the impact one might expect.
As Ismael Ortega laments how his life as a human police officer in Mutant Town is falling apart, the world is transformed, and with it comes a new lease on life for Ortega. In a new reality, he and his wife are together once again, and he stands out as the golden child of a new police detachment dedicated to improving mutant/human relations. Ortega is teamed with a mutant hero cop named Bishop on a high-profile assignment: to protect a movie producer who might be targeted by a mutant supremacy terrorist organization.
Hine boasts a detailed, realistic approach that's always been the defining and greatest trait of the artist's work, and that's evident here as well. However, that meticulous, genuine look is lost in crowd scenes in this issue. Those look rough and rushed, so much so that it almost looks like a different artist handled those moments. It makes for a slightly jarring effect. Medina does handle real-world likenesses quite well, and that's an important element when it comes to one particular character. The artist also tries to convey the fantastic nature of the setting with powerful figures flying past the Ortega family's window, but it's not completely clear what's going on. At one point, it looks as though a Sentinel robot is flying ridiculously close to the window and peering in like some kind of tin-plated Peeping Tom.
Ortega's attraction to the shape-changing actress is understandable, but his apparently growing obsession is not. The character seems happy, and we're really not given a strong reason for his wandering eye. Furthermore, his wife's suspicious attitude is unwarranted. Yes, she sees her husband thrown himself on top of the actress, but he does so in the middle of a terrorist attack. He's doing his job, he's doing a commendable thing, so his wife's catty, insecure reaction just doesn't ring true.
I think the biggest problem with this story is that all of the real drama is taken out of the main character's life. Hine gives us a glance at Ortega's misery in the "real" Marvel Universe before shifting over to the House of M reality, and the former is far more interesting than the latter. Yes, there's more intrigue and danger in Ortega's work in the new reality, but his private life was a mess before, and that's more compelling as a conflict. 4/10
