Too young to be X-Men, too old to be called “X-Babies”. During a time where the Uncanny X-Men were lost in space and thought to be dead by Professor Xavier, the New Mutants formed when Moria MacTaggert convinced Professor Xavier to reopen his school to help a young mutant, Xi-an Coy Manh (Karma), control her powers. Soon joined by Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane), Danielle Moonstar (Psyche/ Mirage), Roberto Da Costa (Sunspot), and Sam Guthrie (Cannonball), the first iteration of the young team of Mutants was formed and it wouldn’t be long before the Mutant-sorceress Illyana Rasputin (Magik) and the alien Warlock would be introduced. While they were technically forbidden by Professor X from participating in X-Men level missions, they still managed to get themselves involved in plenty of life-or-death situations, clashing with the likes of Emma Frost’s Hellions as well as a long forgotten society of ancient Romans. That’s just what happens when you prevent a team of angsty young teenagers with mutant abilities from risking their lives to save the world, it would seem.
Though the name “New” Mutants implies the existence of “Old” Mutants, complete with zimmer frames and Mutant dentures, the team derived its name from Stan Lee’s original name for the X-Men, created in response to the massive popularity of X-Men comics at the time. With Chris Claremont writing and art by the likes of Bob McLeod and Bill Sienkiewicz, The New Mutants would go on to offer superhero comics that remain unique.
As the X-Men titles began to focus more on the prejudices against the Mutant race and their place in the world, not to mention casually being abducted by parasitic space aliens (the gross insectoids “the Brood” in Uncanny X-Men #161-167), The New Mutants brought back the school drama that had been missing from Xavier’s Uncanny team of Mutants, bringing the focus back to X-traordinary teens at the X-emplary School for Gifted Youngsters. Enjoying a fairly lengthy run, The New Mutants featured a band of angsty teens from diverse backgrounds, presenting familiar themes of prejudice and bias against Mutants as analogues to real-world social prejudices, with coming-of-age stories that all helps the series continue to resonate with new and old readers. While members of the team have gone on to forge their own stories, The New Mutants still remains my personal favourite X-Men title, proving itself to be more than a simple spinoff.
Arguably, one of the keys to the success and popularity of The New Mutants was thanks to the introduction of Bill Sienkiewicz and his sense of surrealism during the now iconic “Demon Bear Saga” (New Mutants #18-20) – surely the foundation of everybody’s unanimously favourite Marvel movie. Sienkiewicz’s art added a dark dynamic to the Mutant team, giving the super-powered teens an almost occult sensibility, leading his issues of New Mutants down a more horror inspired style than most standard superhero comics. Bob McLeod’s issues boasted some fantastic art, too, and as the co-creator of the team, his art still stands out. But Sienkiewicz, whether he’s illustrating Moon Knight, Elektra, or New Mutants, is immediately captivating for his painterly, avant-garde pages that continue to dazzle, complimenting Claremont’s often mind-bending, reality-warping stories.
Superheroes frequently dabble in science-fiction and horror, where the majority of the Marvel Age heroes find their origins in cosmic and body horror influences through characters such as the Hulk or the Fantastic Four. The New Mutants, more so than any past X-Men titles, really heightened the sense of sci-fi and horror through stories like the “Demon Bear Saga” and the Legion issues in New Mutants #26-28, alongside the introduction of fan-favourite characters, Warlock and Magik.
While Sienkiewicz’s art helped to propel this impression during his issues, the Magik four-issue mini-series – where she finds herself trapped in Limbo – is genuinely unnerving even without his pencils and inks. Trapped in Limbo, being groomed by the demon Belasco to become a powerful dark mystic, Magik witnesses the repeated grizzly deaths of the X-Men, including her brother, Colossus, being torn open and wielded onto a cavern wall. It’s moments of horror like this with the overarching theme of grooming and fighting a destined dark future that made Magik’s backstory so deep and sinister. While her Mutant power allows her to teleport between Limbo, she is uniquely armed with the ability to summon a Soul Sword, protective armour, and wield powerful magic – heightened in Limbo – which has recently lead her to become the new Sorcerer Supreme. Magik continues to be widely recognised as a fan-favourite, while her story within The New Mutants shows a level of maturity to Chris Claremont’s writing that helps create the series’ identity.
Warlock, meanwhile, comes from a race of techo-organic aliens who, a little like the Borg in Star Trek, assimilate organic matter, only to absorb their “life-glow” as a food source. Science-fiction sure has a tendency to give cybernetic organisms a bad rep – and just because the Cybermen and Borg continue to terrify viewers by abducting and assimilating their victims in grotesque ways. That said, even if Warlock does offer moments of comic relief as the series goes on, his teammates are justifiably wary of his potential to turn them into abstract anthropomorphic motherboards. It doesn’t help that Sienkiewicz’s impossibly abstract Picasso circuitry man is adequately disturbing, contrasting against his otherwise innocently curious nature: in-keeping with X-Men themes, despite appearances Warlock is innately loveable.
The level of diversity in genre influences keep The New Mutants fresh and unique among other superhero comics, with its beloved cast of ethnically diverse characters, powers, and team dynamics. Alongside its science-fiction and horror elements, relationships between the members are rarely perfect, often breaking into arguments and fallings out that callback to the X-Men’s key soap-opera character writing. This helped to keep the book engaging to read when they weren’t throwing a man with a metal skeletal frame against a villain with total power of metal, and the same is true in New Mutants.
While The New Mutants is known for Rob Liefeld introducing one of comics most popular badasses in The New Mutants #98 – who else but the glorious ponytailed Gideon and his many, many pouches? – it’s the issues written by Claremont that are easily the strongest. And all before Liefeld brought the hardcore, edgy ‘90s screaming into its pages, turning them from X-Babies to X-Force with all the pouches, belts, and sharp edges ‘90s artists inexplicably thought were all the craze.
Claremont brought the best elements of his Uncanny X-Men, with its thought provoking commentary on social prejudice and well defined, diverse characters through the reintroduction of school drama elements with younger members. This allowed for some visually and narratively creative issues that, especially with Sienkiewicz, pushed the constraints of the comics medium forward at a time where superhero comics tended to follow a more uniform style, creating some of my favourite Mutant characters in Marvel’s hefty catalogue of super-powered misfits.
