A new artist joins for the first extended arc in this series. Good news: It’s still pretty self-contained. It’s hard to find a Marvel mutant book that a new reader can just pick up and fully understand.
The first issue of this arc is narrated by Josh Foley and offers us our first closer look at telekinetic Julian Keller…
We also see Julian playing frisbee with Santos.
That’s part of the grand Chris Claremont tradition of showing mutants playing sports while using their powers.
Josh and Julian sneak down to the medical bay where Magma lies in a coma. Josh uses his healing powers to bring her out of her coma. Unfortunately, she literally explodes awake—blowing open the wall of the mansion before running away.
But this is not a story about Magma. It’s a story about kids and parents. I love that. Each issue pivots and shows a different way that having a mutant teen affects the family.
The above storyline ends as the two boys decide to cover up their involvement, but some fellow students are suspicious and Professor X knows the truth and gives the kids detention. Josh, indignant, asks his parents to dis-enroll him, which backfires—as his parents disown him.
Next issue, David Alleyne’s parents consider taking him out of the school because being associated with it will hurt his chances at getting into Harvard, and Sofia Mantega rejects a visit from her father for the (very good) reason that he’s neglectful and kind of a dick.
Of course, it’s not all kids-and-parents stuff. One through-line across these issues is our introduction to Noriko “Surge” Ashida.
She has electrical powers. She ran away from her parents in Tokyo (thus hewing close to the overall “ties that bind” theme here), became homeless and drug addicted, and the kids track her down and bring her into the school.
We also get the return of Rahne, with a radical new look…
Hm. Not liking her transformation from Sandra Dee to slut…Anyway, she lost her powers (issue #11 tells that story in detail, through flashbacks) and returns to the X-Mansion, kisses Josh Foley, and his healing powers bring her wolf back…
Rahne, a mindless beast now, nearly kills Josh. Through some teamwork, the New Mutants are able to get him to use his healing powers on himself, which reveals a secondary mutation:
He now is golden.
Dani tracks Rahne and gets her to revert to human form, and she joins as a faculty member.
Also, Emma continues to take a self-interested role in the students and forms her own little “squad” with the students assigned to her as faculty advisor. She uses the opportunity to assign them all codenames: Rockslide, Mercury, Tag, Specter, and Hellion.
This is an excellent set of issues. Although there are stories that crossover between issues, it’s really about the theme of family (both family of birth and of choice). Rahne’s origin and her father’s religiosity are explored in detail. The new students deal with the impact of their enrollments on their parents. Surge, a runaway, is brought into the familial fold of the team. Truly great stuff.
Another nice touch: The students in “background” shots repeat, and many have distinct features that make them recognizable, even if they are unnamed. Like Longneck and Gelatin, seen below.
I may have missed some of these characters in earlier issues. This is a fun and rewarding book to read closely!