Review by Frank Plowright

Better known as an artist than writer, Jason Latour guides this second series of Wolverine educating mutant students at the Jean Grey School, although he’s barely seen in an opening chapter more concerned with introducing a fair selection of the students and their issues. The most intriguing conundrum is what should the X-Men do with the rebellious Quentin Quire having learned he’ll one day host the immensely powerful Phoenix Force? Despite his brash front, he’s insecure and relies too often on his powers.

There’s a definite energy to Tomorrow Never Learns, supplied both by Latour’s determination to avoid decompressed storytelling and Mahmud Asrar’s accompanying art. His individual panels are extremely well drawn, but he’s not an artist who considers the bigger picture, and for him the image is all, and everything else a means of leading to it. Characters must move between panels so often.

For all the effort put into introducing the school in the opening chapter, there’s not much space for it after an attack from the future. In fact under Latour space really is at a premium as ideas are introduced and forgotten, offhand comments seem to be important, but are never followed up, and a vast cast are seen, but only half a dozen have any purpose. Combined with the art it’s comics with ADHD, which isn’t a desirable situation when rebooting a series.

Making it all the more unpalatable is that when the big reveal occurs it’s nothing that needed the layers of complexity. A message from the future to the person concerned would have saved everyone a lot of trouble, but then we’d not have had a hundred pages of combat. Trying to find something good, Latour makes the complicated Quentin a relateable personality

By the final two chapters Asrar is struggling with the monthly deadlines so several other artists pitch in and the art becomes as schizoid as the writing. Tomorrow Never Learns is poor. Let’s hope for better with The Death of Wolverine.