The New Mutants Graphic Novel: Renewal

While the X-Men remain lost in space, Professor X must decide whether to carry on with a new class of students

Originally Published November 1982

We begin on the moors of Scotland, where Moira MacTaggart sees a massive wolf running on her land. But as it leaps overhead, it makes a startling transformation...

Moira recognizes this wee lassie as young Rahne Sinclair, an orphan who lives on her estate and is in fact in Moira's care. So Moira's recognition of her is less "Oh, I've seen her around" and more "Oh, I delivered that girl when she was born, she lives on my property, and I have been responsible for her upbringing for many years." Moira, the world's foremost expert in mutant genetics, begins to suspect that this 14-year-old girl, who has just transformed back from being a wolf, might be a mutant.

Rahne is actually being chased, Shrek-style, by a literal torch-wielding mob, proving once again that outside of America it is always the 1800s. At least they have shotguns instead of pitchforks.

This mob is being led by Reverend Craig, who deems Rahne to be a witch (again, it's basically Outlander times) and demands she be turned over for proper treatment (burning.) Moira says nae, as this is her ancestral land and what she says goes, so she hoists the girl up and brings her to Charles Xavier.

Meanwhile, half a world away...

Teenage soccer stud Roberto Da Costa is being cheered on by his father, and his girlfriend Juliana Sandoval. Unfortunately, he shines a bit too much, and things start to get rough on the field.

Like, really rough.

Now that's got to be a red card

Yes, this thing devolves into a literal race riot as Roberto is beaten down simply for being dark-skinned. As I understand it, there really is a stark divide by skin tone in Brazil that gives North America a run for its money.

As the white kid crows about the superiority that a lack of melanin gives, Roberto turns, well, even darker...

Roberto has no idea what's going on, and the crowd panics, but Juliana rushes to his side. He reverts to normal but goes limp as she cries for help.

Meanwhile, the two are being watched from afar by somebody... evil.

Who do we know who is rich, hates mutants, and wears frilly cuffs? Arcade? Dracula?

And that somebody seems to have extremely deep resources considering they just happen to have an aerial camera positioned exactly where this random mutant happens to manifest his powers for the first time. He's pretty ambitious, too, intending to kill every single mutant one by one, like some deranged gave of whack-a-mole.

Meanwhile, a hemisphere away...

Young Sam Guthrie, a 17-year-old Kentuckian reports for his first day in the mines, after the death of his father (sorry, I mean pa) due to the black lung. It's a pretty bleak existence, judging by the look of utter despair on Sam's face on his very first day. In case things weren't tragic enough, Sam was going to be the first Guthrie to go to college, but now he can't - Ma is too proud to go on the welfare, and he's got numerous brothers and sisters to provide for now. Maybe one of them will have a future.

(Looking ahead - we eventually do become pretty well acquainted with the other Guthries, which is something I always liked about this particular character. Too many comic book characters don't have conventional families, let alone large ones, and let alone explorations of life below the poverty line in America's heartland. But the flipside of that is that they're directly involved in one of the very worst stories ever told, which you can ask Jacob about.)

Anywhoodles, as is like to happen on Sam's very first day, there's a catastrophic cave-in and he is trapped with one of the senior miners who fondly recalls Pa Guthrie. Sam feels something like some kind of burgeoning mutant power within him...

Our voyeuristic friend sees this and thinks maybe this young man could be of service to him - for at least a minute, and then maybe once that's done he'll kill him too.

Meanwhile again, now only half a country away in Colorado, we see a young Cheyenne girl named Moonstar, communing with nature, snuggling up with a mountain lion named Ridge-Runner.

She is told by her grandfather, the respected shaman Black Eagle, that she must go learn from his old friend Charles Xavier how to use her powers. Moonstar balks at the idea of learning anything from A White, but then her powers are abruptly triggered, she sees a vision of Black Eagle's greatest fear - his own death at the hands of two men in battle suits.

Moved to tears and realizing that she does need help, she agrees to go.

Elsehwere, we learn the man behind the camera is none other than the Hellfire Club's Donald Pierce, who is undermining their whole "Inner Circle" thing by going out on his own. Since Donald has always openly professed a hatred of mutants, it seems like it was only a matter of time before he decided he didn't like working with the mutants Sebastian Shaw, Harry Leland and Emma Frost. Also, he has kidnapped Hellfire Club waitress Tessa and her 80's hair.

To that end, Black Eagle is soon killed, and Moonstar realizes that the vision of his greatest fear was based on a vision he had had, which explains why it was so specific. She swears vengeance., as one does.

Sometime later, we are at Xavier's Mansion., with the Professor, Moira, Rahne, and Xi'an Coy Manh, whom Moira and Charles discussed in a recent issue of Uncanny X-Men. Xi'an, sometimes called "Shan" for convenience sake, but also known as "Karma," has the ability to mentally possess people, which she does not enjoy using, but Moira offers herself up for a demonstration (which is odd, considering that was part of her son's powers, and you would think that experience was at least a little traumatic.)

Xi'an is a Vietnamese refugee who arrived in America a year ago with her younger brother and sister, and twin brother Tran. Tran had the same power, but enjoyed using it to manipulate people and treat them as puppets. But he died under circumstances that Xi'an would rather not discuss.

The Professor informs them that they must hone their abilities, but he is reluctant to take them on as pupils. At this time, the X-Men have been abducted - and while, following their adventures, it really only seems like a few days have passed, for Xavier it's long enough that he believes them possibly dead. And I will admit, it does seem to be taking a really long time to wrap this Brood story up.

Charles is growing weary of the constant cycle of training young mutants and then sending them off to their deaths, but the book does a really good job pulling him back in by framing it as a moral imperative.

Just as he agrees to take Xi'an and Rahne into his charge, he receives the telegram summons from Black Eagle. The group heads to Colorado, only to find him dead. They have, however, arrived just in time to see the Hellfire goons going after Moonstar, killing Ridge-Runner in the process. Xi'an and the others use their powers to rescue Moonstar, and she reluctantly agrees to join - although Charles says she has to work on letting go of the whole "stabby vengeance" thing.

She and Wolverine would get along... if he were still alive.

She is also dismayed to find that Charles knows her first name is actually Danielle, being that he was there when she was named by her parents. How convenient that Charles goes so far back with this Cheyenne culture, but we've never heard of any of this before.

Charles determines that Pierce is the man behind this whole thing, and that Pierce has other targets in Brazil and Kentucky. Even though the three young mutants are woefully inexperienced in the use of their powers, they're the closest things we have to an X-Men team right now, so they split up.

Moonstar and Xi'an find young Roberto, bringing ransom money to some Hellfire goons who have kidnapped Juliana. Roberto powers up, but he's not strong enough to take them all on.

They help, Karma by possessing one of the goons, and Moonstar by showing them a vision of their greatest fear - in this case Wolverine because, as always, the lead goons on this caper at Cole and Reese, the bionic henchmen who were maimed by Wolverine way way back in the day.

They get away, but in the chaos, Juliana is struck by a bullet and killed. So now Roberto swears vengeance too. Things could get messy.

Back in Kentucky, Professor and Rahne are driving the backroads at night, when they are struck - by a Cannonball!

Let me explain - Cannonball is Sam Guthrie's new codename, since he has the ability to propel himself with a nearly indestructible forcefield surrounding him, thus creating a cannonball-like effect. Also, at some point between the pages he has joined up with Donald Pierce, whom he does not know to be racist and murdery. Also also, Pierce is implied to have owned the mine Sam was working in.

Rahne follows the Hellfire goons using her super-senses, to where they are holding Xavier, and have him locked into one of those Mindtap helmets that keep him from using his powers.

The other new mutants arrive and are able to use their powers to overcome the Hellfire Goons...

The occasional machine gun also comes in handy

But Pierce is too powerful for any of them, as he is immune to Moonstar's and Karma's attacks and has many tricks up his frilly sleeve.

That said, when he tries to get Cannonball to help kill them, the young man has an attack of conscience. This distraction allows Rahne to de-activate the mindtap, which enables Xavier to psychically subdue Pierce.

The heroes leave Pierce to Tessa, to face Hellfire Justice. An embittered Roberto, who had sparred with Cannonball, suggests he goes too, and they just leave him to his fate.

A fortnight later, the new recruits are preparing for their training session, in their new X-Men School Uniforms, wondering just what they've gotten themselves into.

Instead of handing out a demerit, Professor X permits Moonstar to modify her uniform to reflect her Cheyenne culture. But before the session gets underway, they have one more recruit...

That's right, Sam is forgiven for being led astray and joins the Xavier School to learn how best to use his blastin' abilities.

And so, all's well that ends well, and surely no tragedies will befall these young mutants, who are only here to learn how to use their powers and definitely not to becomes actual superheroes.

The end beginning!

Further Thoughts:

With this "graphic novel" and the ensuing ongoing series, the X-Men is officially a franchise, not confined to the monthly adventures of the main Uncanny X-Men team. We aren't going to make a point to follow the New Mutants too closely, but their stories are definitely going to intersect with the one we're following, so I thought it would be good for everyone if we took a beat to look at their introduction.

The story is quite a good pilot. The structure is very much reminiscent of Giant-Size X-Men, where we meet various mutants from around the world who are drawn together into the X-life. Arguably, this is a more sophisticated take, as the New Mutants are given more opportunities to show their personalities and make individual contributions, and the conflict they band together to face is more personal than the mutant island of Krakoa.

Bob McLeod's art works to keep the story grounded, in a way the high flying main X-Men book isn't. It helps emphasize the human aspect of the characters and that they are new to adventuring. This can be a help or a hindrance, as although the art is high quality, it doesn't feel cutting edge the way Uncanny X-Men's artists sometimes make it feel, and that would be an essential part of appealing to the younger market this book might be trying to corner. (If only they could find some young, hot new talent to work on these characters, the book might go somewhere! Except maybe with a snappier name than "New Mutants.") Glynis Wein aids and abets this by softening her usual palette into a lighter, fainter tone to connote the story's grounding and the innocence of youth. Honestly, I give myself far too few opportunities to praise that woman's work - she has definitely been one of the keys to the book's success since she came aboard, but colouring being an "invisible task" (especially in the 1980s) it's hard to find opportunities to call it out.

The New Mutants themselves are all pretty well-rounded characters, with unique backstories and attitudes. Like the X-Men, theres a mix of types - cocky Roberto, intransigent Danielle, humble Sam, naïve Rahne... Xi'an is the hardest to pin down to a "type" since it's hard to tell where she is in her growth as a young person and a person new to this country. I want to impose some kind of placement on the binary of "innocent or experienced" but there's no easy indicator there: she is a refugee, and therefore has seen things the others haven't; she has provided for her siblings and done what it takes to survive, but generally seems nice and tries to do her best. There's no clearly defined leader or audience surrogate, but I would slot Xi'an into that role if I were writing (Dani seems to be poised to take it, and that works too.)

Otherwise, the characters skirt being broad stereotypes just enough to feel familiar to the reader, but are already largely shown to have that Claremontian layer of psychology and development. Moonstar, for example, is in the tradition of Thunderbird as a white man's interpretation of the Indigenous experience: she has a chip on her shoulder about settlers, values her ancestors, and communes with nature to where she has a telepathic link with animals. But she comes by her love of her culture honestly, and demonstrates it more distinctively than any of the other X-people we've yet seen. And besides, being hypersensitive to outsiders and authority figures is part of being a teen of any culture.

While I can see the characters growing together, I'm more skeptical about their powers. Dani and Xi'an's powers aren't as obviously battle-ready as the others and while there's nothing wrong with a unique mix, it can be hard to work those into a story; it feels like maybe we've already seen the ways they can get involved in a fight by the end of this issue. That said, my old friend James Leask had great insight into the ways Danielle's original depiction reflects her culture, as well as how to situate her relationship to that culture, when he wrote about her for Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men.

Though there's still room for fine-tuning, this graphic novel does a great job of showing us new characters we can get attached to, learn about, and watch in action. In all, it's a milestone in that transition into franchise-dom, where more and more mutant characters are joining our heroes' world and we'll be able to see where the next X-Men come from, in the long run.