New Mutants
The New Mutants are a group of fictional mutant superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, generally in association with the X-Men. Originally depicted as the teenaged junior class at the Xavier Institute, subsequent stories have depicted the characters as adult superheroes or as teachers and mentors to younger mutants.
The team first appeared in The New Mutants by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod, part of the Marvel Graphic Novel line, followed by the ongoing series The New Mutants which ran from 1983 until 1991. Like the X-Men parent title, also written by Claremont, The New Mutants featured an ensemble cast, with stories often focused on interpersonal relationships and coming-of-age arcs, blending teen drama with action and adventure. The title was taken over by writer Louise Simonson, ultimately taking a more action-oriented focus under artist Rob Liefeld, who relaunched the characters as X-Force following the series' end.
Since their inception, several New Mutants series have been published, either focusing on the continuing adventures of the original lineup, new groups of young mutants, or some combination of both. Individual characters have appeared in various film, television, and other media adaptations of the X-Men franchise, while most of the original lineup of the New Mutants was featured in the 2020 20th Century Studios film of the same name.
Original run
By the early 1980s, The Uncanny X-Men had become one of the comic book industry's most successful titles, prompting Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to launch The New Mutants, the first of several X-Men spin-offs. X-Men editor Louise Simonson recalled "Neither Chris or I really wanted to do it. We wanted X-Men to be special and by itself, but Shooter told us that if we didn't come up with a new 'mutant' book, someone else would." The name was a modification of Stan Lee's original name for the X-Men, "The Mutants".The New Mutants were teenaged students of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and wore matching uniforms, much like the original X-Men, who had since grown into adulthood. These students resembled the "all-new, all-different X-Men" of their era in terms of ethnic diversity.
The original team consisted of:
- Cannonball, a mild-mannered 16-year-old coal miner's son from Kentucky, United States and eventual co-leader, with the ability to generate thermo-chemical energy and propel himself through the air, during which he is invulnerable.
- Karma, a 19-year-old girl from Vietnam and the team's original leader, who could mentally possess other people's minds.
- Mirage, a Cheyenne Native American girl and eventual co-leader after Karma's apparent death, who could create visual empathic three-dimensional illusions.
- Sunspot, a 14-year-old boy from Brazil who had superhuman strength fueled by sunlight and could store solar energy in his body to use his super strength.
- Wolfsbane, a 13-year-old Presbyterian girl from Scotland, United Kingdom who could transform into a werewolf-like creature.
In addition to very serious depictions of teenage angst and growing pains, the series featured themes of mysticism. The stories also relied on wilder, more far-fetched premises than were typical of X-Men at the time, shaping into more of a science fiction and fantasy series than the superhero coming-of-age comic it had been touted as in its early days. Locales included demonic dimensions, alternate futures, and an ancient Roman civilization hidden within the Amazon rainforest. The New Mutants also encountered a secret society called the Hellfire Club, and began a rivalry with their young apprentices, the Hellions.
Karma was dropped from the series after six issues under initially unclear circumstances. The New Mutants #6 ends on a cliffhanger as the building the New Mutants are in explodes, but issue #7 skips ahead several days and opens with the New Mutants grieving the missing Karma, with no explanation for how she was lost. It was not until a flashback by Sunspot in issue #10 that Karma's absence was explained. Adding further to the confusion, while Karma was dropped from the series head roster for the cover of issue #7, she returned to the head roster on the covers of issues #8 and 9, even though she was still gone. After the apparent death of Karma, Cannonball and Dani Moonstar act as co-leaders. New recruits included:
- Cypher, an otherwise ordinary young man who could learn to read or speak any language rapidly, whether it was human, alien, or machine, making him an unmatched computer expert.
- Magik, younger sister of the X-Man Colossus and long-time resident of the X-Mansion, an accomplished mystic who can open "teleportation discs" allowing travel to Limbo and any point on Earth.
- Magma, a fiercely tempered native of a secret Roman society in the Amazon who can control lava.
- Warlock, an extraterrestrial of the techno-organic race known as the Technarchy. Considered a pariah due to the uncommon trait of empathy.
Furthermore, in 1990, Ann Nocenti and Bret Blevins produced an 80-page issue called The New Mutants Summer Special. The special saw several New Mutants dragged into a world of television, which served as a vehicle for Nocenti to discuss mass media theory.
In 1986, Professor X was written out of the series. Before he left, he made the X-Men's one-time nemesis, Magneto, headmaster of his school. Magneto would be the team's longest-running headmaster, holding the position from The New Mutants #35 through to #75. Fiercely overprotective of his students, particularly after the events of the "Mutant Massacre" and "Fall of the Mutants", he was increasingly used as an uptight foil for the adventurous New Mutants, setting rules that they would inevitably break in the interests of helping their friends.
During Simonson's run, Magma is written out of the book, and Magik is de-aged back to childhood. Due to his unpopularity with readers and artists, Cypher is killed off in The New Mutants #60. Simonson recalled, "He wasn't fun to draw. He just stood around and hid behind a tree during a fight... Every artist who ever did him said 'Can't we kill this guy?' We would get letters from fans about how much they hated him." Simonson also folded the X-Terminators, a group of young wards from X-Factor, into the New Mutants.
The X-Terminators added to the team were:
- Boom-Boom, a teen runaway who could create "plasma bombs."
- Rusty Collins, a pyrokinetic wanted by the U.S. government.
- Rictor, a young Mexican who could create shock waves.
- Skids, a former Morlock who could project a frictionless force field around her body.
A new mentor for the group, the mysterious mercenary Cable, was introduced. Over the next year, several longtime team members were written out or killed off. When Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza took over as writers of the final three issues of the series, they included several harder-edged characters:
- "Domino", Cable's pale-skinned, black-garbed mercenary lover. She is later revealed to be Copycat impersonating Domino.
- Feral, who possessed a bestial temperament and appearance.
- Shatterstar, a swashbuckling warrior from another dimension.
- Warpath, the younger brother of slain X-Man Thunderbird and a former Hellion, an Apache who possessed super strength and speed.