Today I’m not going to mince words, New Mutants is awesome. It’s become one of my favorite books in the X-Men line, if not my absolute favorite.
Find out why you should read it after the cut.
In the wake of Schism, the X-Men event that split the camps into two distinct groups of Homo-Sapiens-Superior, half of the team moved back east to re-open the school, while the other half remained on Utopia. Dani Moonstar and the New Mutants, on the other hand, did something a little different. While she aligned with the Blue Squad on Utopia, she decided that her team should integrate with the real world, because both squads are a tad on the home-schooled side. So she brought them back east, but only a little bit east. They settled in the nearby city of San Francisco.
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| Not home-schooled like this, but you never know with those Guthrie’s… |
The move was a perfect choice for the direction of the book, as it gave the book a relatability that the other books lacked: living in the real world. They all live in a house together like friends would do, only with the slight difference of having super-powers. Abnett and Lanning, the masterminds responsible for much of the Cosmic Marvel in the past decade, from Annihilation all the way to The Thanos Imperative, initially seemed like an odd choice for the book. Not because they were bad writers or anything, but because they’re such big guns in the comic world, one would hardly picture them writing a secondary X-Men title at this point. But instead of phoning it in, they crafted the stories with care and humor, making a book more fun than I ever expected it to be.
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| Baller status |
Part of the allure of their writing comes in the way the characters are developed within their interpersonal relationships. Granted, these characters had largely been with each other since the 80’s; and while that’s true, they all feel natural in their current roles with each other, but it all makes sense to the new reader who came in with Regenesis (like me!). Even the stuff that was told before the relaunch with respect to the current issues makes sense, and is still endearing anyway; which brings me to my favorite issue of the series so far.
Sure, the first four issues of the series, issues #33-36, were a lot of fun. The fact they took on an evil metal band to search for the popular character Blink is a brilliant idea in its own right. But in issue #37, there was a call back to the New Mutants Fear Itself tie-in, when Mephisto called in his favor to the squad by taking the character Magma on a date. Showing up not as the evil guy in a red cloak as we had always known him before, he was instead dressed up for the occasion, in a full suit, complete with skinny tie and glasses. What could have been a knock down drag-out fight with the Devil instead turned into a funny character building exercise for both Magma and her date Mephisto. It was the perfect jumping on point for the book if you missed your shot a few months ago when the Regenesis banner. I highly recommend picking it up if you want something a little different than your standard superhero fare. It was a wonderful single issue story, and a fitting palate cleanser for the new arc that came out this past Wednesday.
Perhaps the most welcome addition to the book was David Lopez’s wonderful and expressive visuals. Shying away from photorealistic work to a more stylized, cartoonish style, it perfectly matches the tone and helps push the story beyond what it would have been if anyone else were telling that arc. That’s not to discount Leandro Fernandez’s art in issue #38, which just came out this week. Their art works just as well for the story being told there because their art presents a moodier tone which fits the decidedly dire tone of the adventure on the island where Cypher, well, died.
To put it as starkly as I can, you should be reading this book. We already lost a book from the Blue Side, and while I don’t think this one is in any danger of being canceled soon, you can’t go wrong with picking up New Mutants and giving it a read through. You’ll enjoy it, I promise.
