2.253 (618) New Mutants vol 1 #100 ...

Back in the olden days, as in the 80s and 90s, when I was collecting comics as they were coming out, rather than TPB and softcopies, when a series was slowly dying thanks to diminishing sales, usually the hype was just that - hype. They would give us average stories and change artists to maybe newcomers who need time to hone their skills and I would be left wondering how the F are they supposed to turn it around. Of course, as we grew up and with hindsight, we realized that there is always the possibility that the publishers had some commitments and while they know the series is due to cancellation, they moved the better talents to booming properties and simply use cheaper talents to fill the commitments. Basically we were used - the readers and buyers! It doesn't sound nice but it is the truth

Hence, once in a while, it is nice to see a reversal in trend. The New Mutants did strongly in its early years and especially when Bill S was onboard. After that, it was still good with Claremont on stories and Guice on art. Unfortunately for me and I do believe a fair bit of others, Bret wasn't the right choice of artist. That and the strange storylines with that spyder like character and whatever was going on before and after the big mutant crossover of Inferno drove sales downward

Thus the arrival of Rob Liefeld was a saving grace. Of course, now that I am older and reading this book once more, I can see the other side of the artwork - the part where critics like to hammer him but like I said in my first paragraph, in Rob's case, he put in a lot of energy and spark into the New Mutants transforming them from teenagers with angst into young people who actually have huge responsibilities thrust on them and the challenges that they faced were more grim and gritty though no less worse than the threats before

If there is one thing Rob is good at, it's energy. Look at that cover. It just rocks! While the interior artwork has its moments, we can feel the rushness of the artwork where the artist has to just churn out to meet the deadlines and with a double sized issue? Well, we can understand some of the panels are less than impressive but visually it connects and in fact, I believe if they have a better colorist (or perhaps the challenge is with production quality?),  it would be better

Anyway, story wise, this is the final issue of New Mutants as the team is largely changed in terms of new faces, departure of old faces and the relaunch of X-Force. So here on the final issue SPOILER ALERT we are introduced to even more characters. First up, Lady Domino was just with us a couple of issues ago and last issue was bye bye Sunspot....

So naturally in terms of character development, a lot of chit chat is going on between Cable and Domino and then Cannonball and Boom Boom about changes and moving on and whether who should stay and who should go and what-not

But then in the midst of this we are introduced to Shatterstar who just pops in and is running and fighting everyone he meets. Naturally in terms of visual he is so awesome but Cable pops him easily hahahaha. And where there is new guy who is a hero, we found out that his villains are chasing after him to Earth from Planet Mojo

Now if that wasn't enough, the sneaky person in shadows from earlier is revealed as none other than a new claw person now that old claw person Wolfsbane is no longer with the team and she comes with her own set of problems in the form of Masque of the Morlocks!

And so there you have it ... new members with new problems but that's not all. O no. We end with an awesome epilogue where the Mutant Liberation Front's mystery leader is finally revealed as Stryfe who removes his helmet and ... gasp ... looks exactly as Cable!

What's going on? Well way back then when this came out it certainly left a lot of us hankering for X-Force 1

Ratings: 8/10

2.228 (593) New Mutants vol 1 #46 ...

We skip 10 issues down the road and what do we get? We see the Mutants run smack dab into yet another major mutie crossover and this time it's the original SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT Mutant Massacre

Recap time: the original Mutant Massacre is basically a bunch of nasty mutants going down into the sewer tunnel homes of Morlock mutants and killing them. Anyone get in the way and they get slaughtered as well. At this juncture, the man behind the scenes were never revealed and it ended with no conclusion except a lot of violence and wiping the deck clean. This is the miniseries that saw Kitty having problems becoming solid, Nightcrawler injured and took a long time to recover his ability to teleport and Colossus having problems becoming human ... and Angel ... well ...

As for our kids, the mutants were at school but they have friends among the Morlock community and it's a hot debate as to whether they should go down there to assist or not. Naturally Magneto protests and states that they are students not heroes or warriors like the X-Men which he is right. Unfortunately as the cover indicates, the X-Men at this stage were kind of wimpy inspite of the might that they still possess and let the bad guys walked all over them without them doing much damage except to one or two of the bad guys

O yeah at this point, X-Factor had just started but the X-Men didn't know that it was a front for the original X-Men to act and they nearly but not quite run into each other here in this series

Ratings: 6/10

2.227 (592) New Mutants vol 1 #36 ...

As comics come out once a month and it is not exactly cheap, you cannot expect too much downtime from one issue to the next not if you want to keep your fans coming back each month and so without further ado, after last issue's supposedly fresh start for the Mutants when they come back to their school, we see them land smack in the middle of Secret Wars 2

SPOILER ALERT

For those newer readers to this world, SW2 is when the Beyonder from SW1 decided to come to Earth to learn what it is like to be finite and to have physical appearances

In this issue, as per the cover, we see Shadowcat of the X-Men suddenly coming into possession of the Soulsword. The Sword is mystical in nature and is connected to her supposed best friend, Ilyanna. So if it comes to Kitty, it means something bad has happened to Magik aka Illyanna

And that means also for the Mutants

So Kitty goes on an adventure trying to find out if what she is seeing is really happening or not and learning the hard way that the Beyonder may not be necessarily cruel but he does hurt people all the same, intentionally or not

Not for the casual reader as it is too dense

Ratings: 6/10

2.226 (591) New Mutants vol 1 #35 ...

[Seat belts in everyone and prepare to be jetted through some of the early issues of the New Mutants. Why NM? Because we are huge, huge fans of volume 1, that's why so there!]


Thirty five as the cover indicates is sort of a turning point in both Xavier's school as well as the life of the younger mutants. You see, this story kind of takes place, if memory serves correctly after Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #200 the trial of Magneto where Prof X finally succumbs to his injuries that have been mounting and is yanked away to be with his beloved to rest and recuperate ... SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT ... and in his place in comes Magneto whose trial did not end conclusively one way or another. And therein lies the hokum of comics ... villains that have killed can be given second chances by heroes as heroes are judge and jury in that world hahahahah!

So naturally at first with no one around to explain things in a rational way, the New Mutants act out by trying to be rebellious ... or at least some of them did ...

And the Mutants themselves have been having a tough time too because recently they came through a tough time where Dani Moonstar ended up a Valkyrie while Karma an original founding member possessed them and caused havoc ... when they discovered that she is now crimelord and blubbo of some seedy underworld gang ...

And as the cover also clearly indicates ... Magneto made the smart move by giving them a chance to vent their mounting pent up frustration on him in the then Danger Room.

Very cluttered and clunky artwork though the facial expressions do come through sufficiently well to convey the emotions running in this issue. While this issue is sort of a downtime in between major storylines that has crossover impact, it is also a welcome breather to let us know the protagonists much better

Ratings: 6/10

2.37 (402) New Mutants vol 1 #29 to 31 ... Marvel ...

Do you remember some of the weird lame ass seeming characters introduced in the Dazzler and Beast mini-series, Beauty and the Beast? Well, if you don't, no one blames you as it certainly wasn't significant except for a guy who claims to be the real life heir of Doctor Doom NO SPOILER ALERT

Anyway this 3-parter is so good that it rightly deserves its own individual reviews rather than smushed into one like this but ...

#29 - as the cover shows, some of the mutants are "kidnapped" and forced to fight in the Arena against the gladiators who happened to be in the BB mini-series. For those who read this when it first came out, the first reaction would naturally be WTF? Because when that ended, the Mutants had learnt to be free of Doom wannabe and supposedly gone to a better lifestyle than this. So what gives, eh? And o yes, naturally, this is the perfect excuse to introduce Alison Blaire to this title

#30 - next issue, Alison is back and fighting to be top dog of this vehicle or so it seems. Is she slipping back into style because she misses the high of being a performer after her big expose as a mutant forbid her from being an on-stage singer? Or is she merely pretending? And amidst all these, Magneto comes onboard to offer them an out. Remember that last X-Men movie where he ripped a huge stadium shaped thingie? He does that here. And that's how this issue earned its crossover to SW2 but the question on your mind is who the F is running the show since it is most definitely not baby Doom anymore

#31 - the big reveal NO SPOILER ALERT and it is shown on the arty cover as the baddie is ... the first of the Mutants, Karma except she is no longer that shy, lacking in self confidence Vietnamese girl but a hugely bloated bitch. Naturally when faced with overwhelming odds, she bolted and the Mutants are free. Except that since she was once one of them, they decided that they needed to find her and rescue her from herself in need be. O glorious heroics eh? Hahahahahah! We also bid a fond farewell to Bill S with this issue

Ratings: 8/10

2.36 (401) New Mutants vol 1 #23 to 25 ... Marvel ...

We kick off our next 100th reviews (fingers crossed and all that) by taking a plunge back to the 80s with the first spin-off mutant titles. Yes, there was a time when each title had its own identity and was told for a looooooooooong spell without relaunches and a spin off only comes around when it makes story telling sense

The New Mutants as the title indicates are young people who come into their abilities and brought in by Prof X not to be heroes like X-Men but to learn both normal lessons and how to control their abilities so that they can rejoin the greater world outside ... but as it is still people in costumes there will be the occasional foray into superheroics

What is entertaining is that from issue 17 onwards most of the stories are told in 3-issue arcs and with awesome cover art by Bill S. The interiors are also done by him but almost a different style especially with the heavier inking making everything look moody and muddled

In this 3 issue arc after issue 22's breather told in one, we see the youngest of the team, Rahne Sinclair (the werewolf girl) and Roberto DaCosta (Sunspot) ... being embroiled in something totally unexpected SPOILER ALERT ... drugs! Experimental drugs to be more precise with the ability to bring out the worse in people, super or regular

And naturally the Marvel heroes who are generally involved in anything drugs is Cloak and Dagger - she is a mistress of light who dances and shoots a light beam that can freeze her opponents amongst other things while he has a teleporting cloak that can grow and envelope many things and people and also chill his opponents

At this juncture, some may be confused about the origins of C and D and to be honest, so are we. At first, they are regular kids who got involved in drugs that transformed them. Over the years and different writers, in order to boost their popularity, there was at one time stated that they were mutants as well and the drugs merely knocked the power out of them or some such. So one has to wonder eh? But at this point in their storylines, they were NOT mutants

And so you have it!

Of course once the rest of the team realizes what is going on, they rush in to help and all sorts of mayhem ensues. As for supporting cast, we have a "preacher" who assists. All in all, a very "mature" sort of storyline involving the junior members of the X-team. And over the course of their series, basically that's the type of stories you get ... the villains are less colourful


than the X-Men and more grounded

Ratings: 8/10