Poor New Mutants. Professor X just “rescued” them from their homes to train them to control their mutant powers and their first field trip finds them lost in the Amazon, taken captive by a secret city modelling itself after Rome and battling it out in the Colosseum. All alone, with no adults to depend on they have to face down a murderess sorceress, the family of one of their team mates setting them up to die, the dark demonic secret of another teammate and being kidnapped by a rival mutant school.
The issue with graphic novels is that these tales were originally published across monthly issues, and in this case, under multiple titles. Pieces of the story are missing because they appeared in X-Men titles. The two cons combine to make this novel…a bit of a mess. There isn’t a overarching plot, unless you think of the New Mutants as a bunch of kids trying to have their coming of age stories, while being constantly sidelined by secret organizations, demons and adults who are too busy to really seem to care.
That is actually a pretty interesting aspect of these tales. The New Mutants consistently find that they cannot trust the adults around them, not even Professor X. Some adults, like Sunspot’s dad and Emma Frost seem to be outright toying with them and plotting their deaths for the most dramatic effect. This theme is reinforced when it’s the students at Frost’s Massachusetts’ Academy who help them escape.
Marvel missed some chances here, but of course the 80s weren’t really a time of long term story arcs. The New Mutants does offer a uniquely diverse character base for its time period. And, of course, there’s the delightful utter lack of Jean Grey-based story lines.
Recommended for younger teen comic fans.