New Mutants are back...

[Guest starvenger]

Posted at Newsarama

 

Pick your catchphrase - "these ain't yer daddy's New Mutants." "It's the Old New Mutants and the New New Mutants." No mater how you phrase it, Marvel is using its Tsunami New Mutants title to give X-fans what they want - a return of the core team from years ago. Newsarama spoke with Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, the writing team behind the new series.

 

The two came to the project through two gatekeepers at Marvel - C.B. Cebulski and Bill Jemas. "Bill Jemas read Skinwalker and liked it," DeFilippis said. "At the same time we met C.B. in San Diego and told him we'd love to do some X-Men work - fill-ins, Unlimited stories, that sort of thing. So while we were working with C.B. on a Nightcrawler idea that never came to pass, Bill apparently told the editors that he liked our stuff and couldn't they find a project for us. The New Mutants idea was floating around the office with no writer attached and - perhaps because Dani is Native American - C.B. decided to throw it our way and see what we could do in a proposal. It kind of happened from there."

 

As hinted at in the original release by Marvel about the new series, New Mutants, drawn by Keron Grant with covers by Josh Middleton, will feature four of the old New Mutants (Dani, Rahne, Amara, and Shan) coming back to the Xavier Institute to teach. While Grant Morrison has created dozens of new teenage mutant students in the pages of New X-Men, the students in New Mutants will be a core of five completely new mutants.

 

"It was a dream come true type of offer when C.B. told us we'd have a chance to create all new characters for the X-verse," Weir said. "The concept is that our old New Mutants come back to the school in a 'passing of the torch' type scenario to teach a new generation of New Mutants. But it's not like they'll pass the torch and then leave. They're in it for the long haul.

 

"In the first arc we will introduce five new kids. Part of what we're trying to do is use the first arc to let the readers get to know, and hopefully learn to like, these kids, so we're going to keep the descriptions here minimal. There's a girl named Sofia who has the ability to manipulate the wind. There's a boy named Kevin who withers any living thing he touches. Laurie is a girl with pheromone powers that she doesn't know how to control. David is an overachiever who has a limited form of telepathy - he can mimic any of the skills of a person nearby. And Josh has the ability to heal. Each of them needs Xavier's, partially because of their powers and partially because teenagers need a place to fit in, powers or otherwise."

 

DeFilippis: "As to the mutants in New X-Men, those are Grant Morrison's creations and he should play with them as he sees fit. We're not going to isolate this book continuity-wise. You'll see the X-Men teaching classes and some of Grant's students will pop up on campus, but we're not planning to do any real exploration of those characters as there are other books for that."

 

"This takes place in current X continuity, but there won't be a lot of overlap," Weir added. "Our definition of continuity is to make sure that we don't contradict anything going on in the other books, but it's not necessary to read those books to follow the story in ours."

 

The dynamic of the returning New Mutants won't be the same as their previous reason for being in the mansion - they won't be an official "team," per se.

 

"The old characters will come back slowly over time and as fits naturally into the story," Weir said. "The basic dynamic is that Xavier wants younger faculty that can relate better to kids today. He starts with Dani and as the story progresses, the other characters will return to teach as well."

 

Part of the reason, though unstated, for Xavier to ask some of his younger alums to come back and teach has to do with the recent "Riot at Xavier's" storyline where Professor Xavier and the X-Men lost control of the school to the Omega Gang - a group of disenfranchised students who were led by Kid Omega, a student who had deep philosophical differences with Xavier.

 

"It's certainly part of Xavier's thinking but he doesn't discuss it outright," DeFilippis said. "Mostly, we want this book to be accessible to new readers and not feel like they had to have read the 'Riot' storyline, but as the story goes on we'll discover how the riots and events afterwards have affected the school. There will be a big question as to whether or not Xavier's is the safe place it once was."

 

So, while Dani comes back on her own, Xavier sees the need and moves to make sure she stays at the school. "Her return and her ability to make a connection with the first couple of kids we introduce is what prompts Xavier to make the offer," Weir said. "She's not sure about teaching but she helps Xavier out of a loyalty to him. Plus, she may not realize it, but she likes these kids."

 

Unlike the original series, the new New Mutants won't be as heavy on field experience as its predecessor. Safe to say, Xavier does not envision this new class one day turning into a paramilitary strike force under the leadership of a soldier from the future who was actually the son of the … oh, never mind.

 

"At its core, New Mutants is a drama about a school - focusing on the growth of the teachers and the adolescent issues of the students - that's kind of what we're going for," Weir said.

 

DeFilippis agreed. "Staying at the school is the goal. There are plenty of X-teams out in the world battling villains and the like. These kids - our new students - are going to a real school - we plan to show Xavier's Institute as an actual high school. As such, the kids won't range too far unless they are on a break or story demands it."

 

That said, there will be occasional world-saving. "Most of them think the X-Men are cool, but school comes first," Weir said. "That being said, we have a big villain who will slowly work his way into the story and the kids and teachers will have to deal with him. But that's a ways down the line."

 

Weir and DeFilippis stressed that, at least for now, plans for the faculty are limited to the four young women. For a quick refresher…

 

Dani (Mirage/Moonstar) - ability to project illusions Shan (Karma) - a telepath Amara (Magma) - she becomes a being of fire and can manipulate fire and to a lesser extent, earth Rahne (Wolfsbane) - a werewolf who lost her ability to turn into a wolf "They'll each have their reasons for coming back and will respond differently to an offer to teach at the Institute," Weir added. "As for the wolf on Josh's cover art... Rahne will be exploring ways to get her powers back and wondering if that's even what she wants to do. That's a story we have planned for a few issues down the line."

 

(And in case you're wondering, Weir has the lowdown, as well as subtle proof she's got her X-chops - "Rahne's powers were removed by a neutralizer gun made by Forge, wielded by Mystique. There was some speculation on the internet that this gun's effects fade after six months. That's not the case. When we see Rahne, she has no powers. Whether it stays that way is up to her. And the other characters in the book.)

 

DeFilippis: "For the readers familiar with these characters, we'll be taking each of them from where they currently stand in continuity, but trying to do it in a way that doesn't require knowing that continuity. There are questions about backstory and powers, the kind of convolutions that come when a character has been around a while in the changing world of comics. We're going to start each of these characters from a straightforward point, allowing new readers to get to know them, and then we'll explore their pasts as the series progresses. If you're a long-standing fan and want to know why Amara is calling herself Amara and not Allison, for example, we only ask that you have patience - the answers will come in time."

 

The writers said that there are no concrete plans at this time to bring back other members of the original team of New Mutants.

 

In speaking of "long-standing fans" it's clear DeFilippis counts himself among their number. "I was a fan of the old New Mutants before they became X-Force," he said. "I have a lot of affection for these characters and have to keep the fanboy in me in check. Christina's a good balance because she gets to view these characters as new, which forces us to find ways to make these characters interesting for people who haven't read all the old issues."

 

Finally, in good fashion, DeFilippis and Weir were more than willing to tease the first arc of the series. "The first story arc is primarily an introduction," DeFilippis said. "We have five new characters that will each be introduced. Dani will be asked by Xavier to find a handful of young mutants and bring them to the school if they desire. So a lot of the first arc is meeting these kids and having Dani find them and bring them to Xavier's. This allows us plenty of time to get to know these kids. Hopefully it will also let us introduce Xavier's to any new readers and to explore Xavier's as a school which should appeal to both new and old readers.

 

"We'll shake things up a little bit in the second arc - some of the returning characters don't truly return until then and we'll introduce another potential student," Weir added.

 

So basically they want to make an X-book focusing more on chracters than action. Riiiight...

 

Anyways I see a bit of power duplication:

- "There's a girl named Sofia who has the ability to manipulate the wind."

Duh. Geez, if you're gonna reuse a power, don't reuse one that's very identifiable with another X-Man.

 

- "There's a boy named Kevin who withers any living thing he touches."

The Rogue of the bunch, I guess.

 

- "Laurie is a girl with pheromone powers that she doesn't know how to control."

Yeah, we NEEDED another Stacey-X in the X-books, right?

 

- "David is an overachiever who has a limited form of telepathy - he can mimic any of the skills of a person nearby."

Didn't Synch die?

 

- "And Josh has the ability to heal."

The ability to heal others would be a cool power. Sadly I get the idea that he has a healing power a la Wolverine, Sabretooth, Deadpool...

 

Anyways, I like the fact that Moonstar and Magma are coming back, but all things considered I don't see this as a very exciting book and I don't think that it's one that I'll pick up.

[Guest raptor]

I'll pick this up to see how they handle Moonstar, but I'm not too optimistic. I have to drop some Tsunami titles from my list, so even if this is good. I might not be able to buy it.

[Guest Vyce]

I get so many comics these days it's ridiculous. It's putting me in the poor house.

 

That said, I'll have to try and give some of Tsunami a chance too.