I get the need for House of M. Marvel’s 1990s were not good (and that’s being kind). Joe Quesada, as the still-relatively-new Editor In Chief had a mandate to make Marvel the best comic book company–as it had been in the ’70s and ’80s. Quesada, like the best EiCs before him, was also a creative type, so he wanted to remake the Marvel line as “his brand,” and also needed to attract new (or estranged) talent who had little interest in making comics the “Marvel way.” All of this necessitated rebooting what had been Marvel’s biggest cash cow.
At the same time, New X-Men: Academy X was one of the few mutant series that worked, consistently, month-in and month-out, and which was doing stuff you didn’t see in other Marvel comics. Nonetheless, M Day happened and so a book that wasn’t broken got smashed. A new creative team is on board. Let’s see if they can live up to their predecessors.
(Oddly, rather than create a new #1, the book changes it’s title from “New X-Men: Academy X” to simply, “New X-Men,” and retains the old numbering.)
This first story, Childhood’s End, might be an unfair measure of a new team. It’s the first story after House of M, bears the “Decimation Event” banner on the cover, and spends most of its time establishing the new normal.
Immediately after M Day, most of the students at Professor X’s school realize they are suddenly now de-powered and “normal.”
Others aren’t sure if they have their powers, so they’re testing them out–sometimes with bad results. Hydro dies trying to use his water abilities in the pool. Beasts saves Aero before she falls to her death…
It’s a strong set of pages. As a reader of this book, we want to know who is still standing after M Day. Among the “important” mutants that we learn are depowered are Wind Dancer, Dani Moonstar, Aero (Sam Guthrie’s sister), Prodigy (who is still smart enough to transfer to Harvard), and Elixir.
Survivors include all the major X-Men (obviously, Wolverine’s not going to be de-powered), the Stepford Cuckoos, Anole, Dust, Hellion, Pixie, Rockslide, and X-23. And speaking of Wolverine and X-23, Wolverine now has all of his memories back reveals that X-23 is actually his clone–he brings her into the school.
Using Cerebro, Emma Frost confirms that 91% of the world’s mutant population has disappeared. So not only are they de-powered, they don’t even register as mutants anymore.
Despite all the “cures” of mutanthood, Emma finds Icarus on the front lawn with his wings cut off. Reverend Stryker returns to television hailing M-Day as God’s work–and assembles an army to take care of the surviving 198 mutants. He calls them The Purifiers.
And we learn that he’s the one who clipped Icarus’ wings.
To adapt to the new normal, a new danger room is created (the “danger cave”) by the de-powered Prodigy.
The story ends with Emma gathering everyone in an assembly and putting all the humans on a bus–expelling them from the school. At that moment, the Purifiers attack and kill everyone on the bus.
That’s the cliffhanger.
So how did the new team do? Very well. I really liked this story and hope they can maintain this momentum after the House of M/Decimation stuff is past.