Child prostitutes, school shootings, censored swearing
Semi-naked child prostitutes, suicide attempts, illegal-drug use. These HBO-worthy tropes are all to be found in these pages, but swears are still censored. This incongruity barely detracts from a series that has just stepped up the level of mental torture it's willing to subject its characters to. (At least their delicate ears are shielded from naughty words, though.)
The new character (who we'll soon know as X-23) barely says a word this issue, but Joshua Middleton's rendering of her makes her look utterly traumatized. Her dark eye-shadow makes her look tired, and her eyes are constantly fixed on some point in the middle-distance; she looks like someone barely present and wishing she was somewhere else.
Meanwhile, Kiden's teacher Ms. Palmer is out of the hospital but still unable to put the events of the last issue behind her. In superhero comics, bullets are relatively harmless -- heroes can take them with or without armour, and anyone who gets shot usually gets dead or better in a few issues (Barbara Gordon being one of the most interesting exceptions). The final page of #2 dramatically showed how badly traumatized she was by her experience, and she's still finding it hard to think about. The writer, Chris Elopoulos, has her evade the subject of the shooting -- after her suicide attempt, it's a subtle reminder that even this grown-up character is not okay. Hopefully, this won't be forgotten about.
NYX risked being a wannabe-Wire with mutants, but rather than simply being X-Men in the Hood, it puts its "mature content" label to good use by portraying some deeply traumatized characters. Even if those characters can't swear.