Era #11, Part 12: Haunted (New X-Men: Academy X)

Grade: C

This run collects two stories. In the first ("Haunted"), the New Mutants discover that the school is haunted, and in the second ("Too Much Information"), Dani Moonstar and Emma Frost remove the mental blocks that prevent David (Protegy) from permanently retaining the knowledge that his mutant gift allows him to "borrow" from others. 

Students dealing with a haunted presence on school grounds is nothing particularly new for young adult fiction (or the X-Men). I appreciate that Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir resolved a dangling X-Treme X-Men thread, and I liked watching David's sister spend some time on campus. While visiting, she provides a different perspective from the normal responses of hatred or exploitation. I was a little envious of the fantastic things they can do and the camaraderie that they share.

"Too Much Information" was a great concept, but it played out in a way that felt out of character for David. His ability to temporarily absorb the knowledge from the minds of the people close certainly offers the perfect opportunity to explore the impact of not earning those skills. I am not sure that I followed the leap from "too smart, too fast" to "complete moral ambiguity".

[5-Stars] New X-Men (2004) #7

[5-Stars] New X-Men (2004) #8

[5-Stars] New X-Men (2004) #9

[5-Stars] New X-Men (2004) #10

[5-Stars] New X-Men (2004) #11

Collected in New X-Men: Academy X (Vol 2): Haunted