Some New Mutant Love

Ya know I realised today that I haven't written about my love of The New Mutants in awhile. One of the things that brought this on was me finally getting a copy of The New Mutants: Classic Vol. 4 and chatting about it with a couple of people. So, in an attempt to rectify that, I figured I would do some of that today. First I would like to talk about how disappointing it was when they killed off Doug Ramsey. To me this was a wasted opportunity, he could have been one of the most effective mutants. After all his power is that he can understand all languages. Think about that for a minute. Besides, using it to translate and communicate with all the countries of the Earth and all the alien races of the Marvel Universe, he can also understand body languages (much like Batgirl before she learned to speak) of both humans and non-humans. But, he could also understand all computer languages. Just going with the computer and body language aspects would be like combining the skills of Oracle and Cassandra Cain into one character. Just doing that would have made him into one of the most badassed characters around, then you add in his powers as the best translator in the MU and you have one very powerful mutant.

Next I would like to talk about (again), how one of the things that separated the X-Men from other teams of superheroes and really made them stand out (at least for me). Was the Xavier School. As I've written on here before this is one of the worst parts of that whole House of M fiasco in my opinion. Without the school there isn't much difference between the X-Men and any of the other superhero teams and to keep this post on subject. I would like to add that one of the things that I really enjoyed back in the day about reading The New Mutants was the whole the junior varsity team vs. the varsity team rivalry between the new mutants and the X-Men, especially in the story arc of Kitty Pryde joining the New Mutants and how she felt like it was a demotion from her place on the X-Men.

Finally, I would like to spend a little time on how good this series was in its character work. From the first issue up until Rob Liefeld began working on the book you could really see the through line of the growth each character developed through out the series. From Sam becoming more comfortable as a leader to Rahne gaining more self confidence as well as becoming more comfortable in her own skin. Even the development in both Bobby and Danielle of learning to work with a team and each becoming less implusive in their actions. I could go on and on about all the things I love about this book. But, I think this is a good stopping point.