New Mutants #1
November 7, 2019 3:19 AM - by Ed Brisson - Subscribe

As Dawn of X gets underway, the classic New Mutants (Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Mirage, Karma, Magik, and Cypher) get together with a few new friends (Chamber, Mondo) for a mission into outer space.

Great character beats and voices. Reis's art is Sienkiewicz-like without being a copy, parody or pastiche. Feels like the NM before Liefeld pouched them up.
A great dissection on Xavierfiles.
See Illyana fall in love with a large cup of coffee, Roberto strutting his stuff and Rahne alive and not burdened with years of guilt.
Hear Hickman talk about all the DOX books, and why and how he's working on the first 4 issues of NM.
posted by signal (5 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Apologies if the below is too Talk-y, but someone might need to read it:

I have a weird (but, I've learned, not that uncommon) relationship with the X-Men. I loved the cartoon as a kid, and watched (and usually enjoyed) the movies. But even as an avid reader of comics, I always found the source material kind of impenetrable, if not fully incoherent. Over the years I read and enjoyed a few different runs that came recommended as easily digestible for the layperson, but generally speaking, I had no interest in X-Men comics.

When this relaunch was announced, I was intrigued, mostly on the basis of how much I enjoyed Hickman's Image work. And even though I'm seasoned enough to know that relaunches never "stick" the way we're promised, I'm still naive enough to be curious.

So I picked up House of X #1 out of sheer novelty, and within a matter of weeks, the Dawn of X books became the highlight of my regular media diet. At the start of July I hadn't read an X-book published in the last 15 years, and now I'm subscribed to six different titles. Wednesday mornings are now one of the highlights of my week, when I pour myself a giant mug of coffee and devour the latest issue(s) before work.

So if you're someone who's familiar with the characters through the movies and think you MIGHT like an X-Men comic if it wasn't reliant on being familiar with decades of convoluted mythology, the Dawn of X books are it. The greater story is conceptually grand and thought-provoking, the characters are deeply layered, and the art is beautiful. And though the stage is still very much being set, there's already enough meat on the bone for years and years of great stories. (Is it advisable for us to just get a general "Dawn of X" thread every week, that encompasses all the titles?)

SO! New Mutants. As with the other books, the story is a fun, the art is fantastic, and while I'm not very familiar with these characters (beyond Magik and Cypher), they're fun and funny. It's good enough to make me go back and read some of the Claremont/Sienkiewicz run.
posted by incomple at 8:56 AM on November 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


Oh, I'm so glad to hear this is good and will have to read it.
posted by asperity at 8:55 AM on November 8, 2019


(And fwiw when I was a regular X-reader in the 90s, my jams were the mostly-stand-alone spin-off teams like Generation X and Excalibur, plus back issues of New Mutants.)
posted by asperity at 9:06 AM on November 8, 2019


asperity: "(And fwiw when I was a regular X-reader in the 90s, my jams were the mostly-stand-alone spin-off teams like Generation X and Excalibur, plus back issues of New Mutants.)"

I expect you'll be happy with this, then.
posted by signal at 6:08 PM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


So thankful for Hickman s run. The X books have seen some dark, dark times, and some mediocre times, since I started (gambit and storm vs the orphan-maker).

This series has been so amazing, on a 'careful what you wish for' level. It s been a very rewarding realization of new aspects of old characters so far, so I can't wait to dig in to New Mutants!
posted by eustatic at 4:27 PM on November 9, 2019


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