Of all the "X-Men Reload" books, District X is the most likely to be ignored, as it doesn't feature the most commercial of concepts or the most popular of X-characters. And that's a shame, because this is a good first issue with potential to turn into a great series, by some creators new to Marvel who bring a fresh voice and a fresh look to the book. In what is becoming a comics tradition, this is a bit of a slow first issue, not even introducing one of the main characters until the last page, but Hine weaves a fascinating story of two cops working in the mutant district, mixing in a tale of modern horror that for all its familiarity in mutant books comes off as pretty new here and sets the book up as sort of a Training Day meets Alien Nation kind of cop/mutant book.
Morrison's New X-Men may have ended on something of a disappointing note, but it provided Marvel with a really great X-title in general, and perhaps more importantly to the corporate guys, it provided them with an immense library of new concepts. Morrison has a tendency to introduce a ton of ideas casually, letting them sit unexplored in the background while he moves on to other ideas, and then leaving them for exploration by other creators. District X is based around one of those concepts, a sort of ethnic mutant neighborhood in New York City, like Chinatown or Koreatown but focused on differences of genetics rather than differences of culture. That's a great idea, rich with potential for exploration, and it looks from the first issue as if Hine is up to the exploration. Little touches like the unusual mutation of Uncle Gregor or the use of mutant powers for selling sex set up mutation as more than just power blasts and force fields, making it a little more bizarre, a little more David Lynch, and that makes for a very interesting setting.
This first issue is all about expanding on the setting, actually, not getting too much into the business of the characters. Oh, sure, there's a story of a couple of cops and a case that disrupts their daily routine, but there's not a lot of deep characterization in this issue. We get a sense of officer Ortega, who is likely to be one of the main characters, a sense of what he'll do to protect his partner and his devotion to the community, but it's just a surface read, because most of the attention is focused on setting up the story of the mutant district of New York. Actually, this sets District X apart a little, since most first issues these days focus on character to the exclusion of plot, and Hine's story reverses that paradigm to some extent. I still would have liked to have seen a first issue that introduced more clearly the whole concept of the book, including the teaming of a human and mutant as partners, but the first issue does provide enough info to intrigue.
I must admit, Hine was something of a known quantity for me going in, as I read (and loved) his graphic novel Strange Embrace. David Yardin was an unknown, but as it turns out, he's also a boon for the book. His work here, full of detail and a sense of reality, reminds me more than anything of Phil Winslade's work on The Monolith, bringing New York City to vivid life and giving a sense of the bizarre unreality of mutant powers by contrasting it with an almost photo-real backdrop. In what is certain to be an important part of the book, Yardin and Sicat also give us very distinct faces, full of character, so that the many players in this cop drama have their own visual personalities. It reminds me of the great casting on The Shield, where even the background characters build a sense of the neighborhood and the tone of the series.
District X is off to a slow burn start, but it has every indication that it's going to turn into a great book. It's got a great sense of place and a timing and style that reminds me of a classic cop drama blended with a more genre type of TV show. In addition, Hine indicates even in this first issue that this won't be the typical action or spandex book by giving mutation more of a creepy, weird feeling to it and giving us a story of mutant powers turned into urban horror. District X is quantifiably different from the rest of the X-book spinoffs glutting the shelves, and it's worth a look even if (or maybe especially if) you're not a fan of the X-Men in the first place.
