Broken Frontier

New Mutants first started out as an early 1980s spin off of Uncanny X-Men, featuring a team of the next generation of young mutants. After a 100-issue run the team “grew up” and moved to X-Force. In 2003 Marvel produced a second volume of New Mutants which was a Harry Potter-like teenage melodrama that took place in the halls of Xavier's institute.

As sure as poor dead Doug will be ripped from the ground yet again, the New Mutants have been resurrected. In the series’ third volume, New Mutants goes back to its roots, it is a sort of a reunion comic book. With the noticeable omission of Rahne Sinclair, who is still kicking it with X-Force (Wolverine can be in multiple team books but Wolfsbane can’t even pull two?), much of the classic cast of New Mutants returns. Even some of the New Mutants classic villains join the mix. Indeed, there is not much new in this volume of New Mutants, but don't hold that against the collected volume, Old Mutants can be fun too.

The first first story arc involves Cannonball, Sunspot, Magik and Magma re-forming the original team of New Mutants to rescue Karma and Dani. The story begins when Magik returns from the future on the doorstep of the X-Men’s latest digs out in California. In a clever move, Magik’s re-emergence quickly becomes a stand-off between the original New Mutants and the new (Vol. 2) New Mutants. The hubbub is quickly stopped by Cannonball and Sunspot, and Magik warns the group that without their interference both Karma and Moonstar will die.

And so the New Mutants re-form under the leadership of Cannonball, for a rescue mission to Westcliffe, Co. and save their missing teammates. The team is given snazzy new uniforms and access to one of the “jump-jets”, and soon they are off on their rescue mission in style. Once in Colorado, Cannonball and Sunspot get into a standard scuffle with anti-mutant bigots before the team finds out that Karma’s consciousness has been absorbed into the fractured mind of schizophrenic villain Legion.

The team’s battle against Legion is sets up a classic New Mutants battle, as Legion first appeared in the first volume of the comic. Even though a classic villain is used, the plot set-up is basically an excuse to give this New Mutants team a reason to exist. After the four issue Legion storyline, issue five leads into the Necrosha crossover and reintroduces both Warlock and the desecrated grave of Douglas Ramsey.

It’s nice to have most of the New Mutants back together as a team, but the comic sometimes feels like a High School reunion: filled with awkward interactions between people who are exactly the same as they were two decades ago. Many of the characters still have to face the same character conflicts that they have in the past: Sam doubts himself, Dani and Sam are at odds, Magik’s gone crazy, Dougie gets exhumed. The “rescue mission to save teammates” set up is about as old as it gets. It’s fun to see all these things happen for the umpteenth time, but sometimes a little change can go a long way. These New Mutants were not supposed to be a team of angst-filled teens. They may have grown in age, but they are definitely still angst-filled adults.

Zeb Wells’ writing brings New Mutants back to its roots as a mission-based superhero comic, with team action at the forefront. Wells has really done his homework on the characters' histories, but to this point in the series however, character development has been a little flat. It would be nice to see characters have more non-mission related issues, these New Mutants don’t seem to have lives beyond being the New Mutants, which makes the reader less sympathetic to them.

Diogenes Neves' art is usually spot on and consistent, his smaller panels tend to lose detail, but it’s really no big deal. Zachery Baldus’ fill-in job in issue five is exponentially a step down from Neves, and looks like is was drawn with washed-out colored pencils.Wells and artist Diogenes Neves do collaborate well in creating some really tight and stylish action sequences with real wide-screen flair and pacing. The action sequences are the highlight of the series, and perhaps its saving grace.

New Mutants is like a an '80s hair metal band reunion tour: the band is back together again playing all their old hits. This is great for long time fans, but may not be everyones cup of tea. If your crazy for Cannonball, can’t get enough of Miss Moonstar, or love watching the rotting corpse of Cypher walk among the living (this joke never gets old), then this is the collected edition for you. Me? I’ll just wait around for the return of Rahne Sinclair.


New Mutants: The Return of Legion is the first collected edition of the new New Mutants volume. It collects New Mutants #1-5 and goes on sale this month through Marvel Comics.