Riot at Xavier's

"Riot At Xavier's" is a four-part storyline that ran from New X-Men #135-138 (2003). It was written by Grant Morrison and features artist Frank Quitely's last work on the title. The story centers on an original character of Morrison's, the teenage mutant Quentin Quire. According to Morrison, the storyline was inspired by a playground riot he witnessed in his youth.

Plot synopsis

The story centers on Quentin Quire, who had appeared at first in issue #122. Quire is fleshed out as a super-intelligent young teenager, who is a pupil of Professor X's mutant school at the X-Mansion. When he finds out he is adopted, and a mutant celebrity called Jumbo Carnation is killed by anti-mutant racists, Quire begins to mock Xavier's pacifistic teachings, hero-worships the mutant supremacist Magneto, and assembles a gang of militant classmates to kill humans in retaliation. Their rage is fueled by consumption of the fictional drug "Kick", which supercharges their mutant abilities.

Side-plots are the workings of mysterious mutant teacher Xorn, Quire's crush on Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos, the relationship between flirty Angel Salvadore and the ugly Beak and the growing estrangement of Cyclops from his wife Jean Grey, causing Emma Frost to start a psychic affair with him.