NYX Volume 4

NYX is a seven-issue limited series launched by Marvel between 2003 and 2005, written by then-Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, with Joshua Middleton handling art for issues 1 through 4. In the title, NY stands for New York and X for Manhattan's District X, yet the story deliberately avoids the glamorous side of the X-Men: it is about how mutant teenagers in this city survive on their own without Charles Xavier, without a school, without a team. The protagonist, Kiden Nixon, witnessed her father, a police officer, die in a street shooting when she was a child; growing up, she became a troubled girl, and in her first school confrontation she unconsciously awakens the ability to freeze time, drawing those around her into a dangerous vortex. While wandering, she meets Tatiana, who can transform into animals; Bobby, who can invade others' bodies; an enigmatic younger boy; and X-23, a female clone of Wolverine scraping by on the streets. This group of homeless children survives by rummaging through dumpsters and begging for change, dodging pimps and gang pursuers while learning to treat "superpowers" as tools for survival rather than capital for saving the world. This volume is the fourth in the Chinese-language series, collecting the content of original issue 4 and corresponding to main-story issue 4: the newly joined Tatiana, through an accidental contact, reveals a transformation ability that surprises her companions and draws the attention of Kiden's group; meanwhile, Kiden recounts to Cameron and X-23 the past six months since she ran away, the apparition of her dead father appears again, and the story shifts back and forth among the girls' respective situations, ratcheting up the unease bit by bit.