Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Just relaunched for a six-issue run, the original NYX series came at a rather curious time for the X-franchise. With Marvel backing away in horror from the consequences of Grant Morrison’s complex sci-fi take on the concept, most of the X-books regressed to standard super-heroics, with remarkably little overall direction or drive. Joe Quesada’s mature-readers street tale was sharply out of step with the stories told by Joss Whedon or Chris Claremont, and attracted all the more attention because of it.

With the series moving towards its climax, Kiden and her allies are on the run, in a fighting retreat across New York from Zebra Daddy and his enforcers. Filling in for original creator Josh Middleton, Robert Teranishi makes a reasonable fist of the art duties, despite some lazy and obvious recycling. However, as the issue opens, its major difficulty screams from the first page. “@&%$” “#$@?” “#$%@”. In one of its most prudish moments, Marvel’s censorship means that asterisks, mocking the “Mature Readers” tag on the cover, obscure much of the dialogue. That the creatives even tried to tell their story of prostitution and mutilation outside of the MAX line beggars belief, and the book suffers from being repeatedly castrated. There’s a few nods to the label on the issue’s cover, particularly the way that mutant powers manifest with a pool of vomit rather than a crackle of energy, but in general the issue is a remarkably sanitised depiction of its content.

Given the small cast that the story resolves around, the characters are drawn in very broad strokes. Despite her clichéd originals, Kiden is the most compelling, although given her situation, it’s hard to accept her joy in shoving her world in her compatriots’ faces. Former teacher Cameron only serves to provide narration or loud exclamations about the cruelty of the world she’s been drawn into, her own character strand of depression completely discarded. As for X-23, while Quesada can’t be criticised for inconsistency of characterisation with the robotic killer she’s become, it’s hard to believe that this story was intended to launch the TV character into the Marvel Universe. Reading the issue now, Craig Kyle’s comments about being nervous when other writers handle his pet character spring to mind. Issue five’s addition to the cast adds little. Although not without interest, Tatiana’s origin merely pads out the story, and could have been included in any sort of X-Men spin off.

With a better grasp of the subject matter, new writer Marjorie Liu may have more success than Quesada with the concept. However, it’s hard to resist the feeling that this experiment should have been left to rest in piece.