Some of y'all may have noticed that some books get more reviews than others from me, and that District X has now gotten reviews of all four of its issues. There are any number of reasons for that, but the main one is that I continue to love this book and I feel it's worth the increased attention, especially as it gets comparatively less attention from readers of the rest of the X-books, which are for the most part greatly inferior to this book. Hine is joined on this issue by Lan Medina, whose work blends so smoothly with the tone established by David Yardin that most readers won't even notice the difference. The story, of course, maintains the same strength as well, interweaving the lives of several residents of mutant town with a central drug/crime problem providing the plot.
Hine has developed a reasonably big cast over the course of the previous three issues, and it seems like each issue has come with a bit of a shocker revelation about one of the characters. This time out, the shocker is the revelation about the mysterious older man who has touched the life of most of the characters in the story, and it's a doozy. To be honest, the level of his power seems a little ill-suited to the book, and I worry that it could tempt Hine to cheat his way out of some of the stories by having the character undo them, but at the same time the downsides of having such awesome power are played out pretty nicely on these pages.
This issue brings a surprising turn in the toad juice story and one that is less surprising but which makes for a great cliffhanger. The notion of a mutants-only drug with nasty human side effects is a great premise, not unlike the "Kick" subplot that Morrison used but better for being focused on the concept instead of using it as little more than window dressing for another story. Hine has done a pretty impressive job of blending TV drama style writing with the more outrageous elements of the Marvel Universe, and the way the toad juice story is unfolding is a good example of that.
However, my favorite bit of this issue is in the procedural stuff between the cops. The way Bishop handles himself in the club, showing off a touch of personality in his love for his car but generally coming across like a smart and professional law enforcement agent, is exactly the way I'd prefer the character to be written, and I really enjoyed seeing the final resolution of Ortega and his partner, which was both realistic and convenient for the plot.
Lan Medina steps in for the art chores on this issue and does a fine job, with the consistency of style helped by Alejandro Sicat sticking around on inks. As always, the burden of the artist on this title is in making the settings real without making the mutant aspect mundane, and Medina is great on both scores, with a nicely detailed station house or nightclub as well as an imaginatively grotesque take on the overdosed girl and a sense of the mystery man's powers that comes across as wondrous and dangerous.
