tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post1215454100436769313..comments2024-03-28T10:18:00.370-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining New MutantsAustin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-4594046685916355612022-05-05T14:17:42.642-05:002022-05-05T14:17:42.642-05:00I loved this book under Claremont, and suffered th...I loved this book under Claremont, and suffered through it under Simonson- I got a huge collection of the entire thing many years ago and it was a rollercoaster. I'd read about it years after it had ended thanks to one of those comedic X-Men review sites (the one that riffed on Bobby's Magnum PI obsession and having lots of "joke stories" where the characters snark on each other). That had built the series up a lot to me, and it was shockingly able to meet and surpass my expectations.<br /><br />That the Hellions were wiped out so horribly after Claremont left Marvel at least gives them a bit of a "legacy"- we never saw them misused and altered during the '90s like so many other characters (a LOT of X-villains were dead during most of that decade, too, as the Image Guys did a lot of "Spring Cleaning" to showcase their own baddies). And this kind of helped them out a bit, as we never saw them used badly, like the personality-free goons of the MLF or Dark Riders.Jabronivillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07318218102203693195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-47190662306621706762016-01-11T15:54:06.661-06:002016-01-11T15:54:06.661-06:00@Teebore: // Done. :) //
Much obliged. Had you no...<br>@Teebore: <i>// Done. :) //</i><br /><br />Much obliged. Had you not mentioned that a retrospective was also coming up for <i>X-Factor</i> as we knew it, since <i>New Mutants</i> is really the first time a series you’re covering has outright ended, I might not’ve wondered about whether there’d been one for <i>X-Men</i> on the cusp of the reprint years before <i>Giant-Size</i> #1; whether you should do one for Claremont’s run, I don’t think I can properly advise you. Don’t worry about consistency, though, since it’s not like you put up retrospectives when various artists left aside from whatever was in the posts on their final issues, nor when Stan Lee handed over the reins to Roy Thomas.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-51635367958307113942016-01-10T01:25:13.378-06:002016-01-10T01:25:13.378-06:00Personally I use telekinesis. On our local sniffer...Personally I use telekinesis. On our local sniffer-loops using traffic light too.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-15486266514086127552016-01-09T12:59:42.859-06:002016-01-09T12:59:42.859-06:00but I humbly suggest that you tag this and whateve...<i>but I humbly suggest that you tag this and whatever other posts you deem of like style with, say, “retrospective” so it's even easier for me. 8^)</i><br /><br />Done. :) <br /><br />Though now you have me questioning whether I should do something like this as a moratorium on Claremont's run. I wasn't planning on it, since the whole thing is just so sprawling and I'm not sure there's anything I could say that hasn't been said already in these hundreds of reviews, but it would be consistent...<br /><br /><i>The painted Sienkiewicz work is mostly great across the board and the Windsor-Smith ones are pretty nice too.</i><br /><br />I really should have included at least one of the BWS covers - they are, as you say, pretty nice across the board. I had a hard time singling one out, since they were all pretty much on a similar level. <br /><br /><i> the latter two largely for the visuals, although back in the day I had a soft spot for Rahne as the one I was most likely to hit it off with personally.</i><br /><br />Both Rahne and Warlock came very close to making my list. I know a lot of fans dislike the latter, but I think he works very well for this series. I wouldn't necessarily want to see him in, say, X-Men or X-Force, but for this series at this time, he brought something unique to the table. <br /><br />And Rahne is one of those characters who received a surprising amount of development over her time in the series that always seemed to come about quietly. There was no big "Dark Rahne" storyline or anything that triggered a jump her development or change in characterization, but the Rahne of issue #1 is vastly different from the Rahne who went into "X-Tinction Agenda" (which of course spit out an entirely new and manufactured Rahne), even while remaining consistent throughout. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-35323115522650392542016-01-09T12:50:47.008-06:002016-01-09T12:50:47.008-06:00the larger legacies this title gave the franchise ...<i>the larger legacies this title gave the franchise wasn't just the characters themselves, but the concept of the title itself: the idea of a younger junior team in training.</i><br /><br />Shoot, that's a great point, something I really should have emphasized - as much as NEW MUTANTS lives on in X-FORCE, it will, before long, also live on in GENERATION X, and then NEW X-MEN, etc. <br /><br />While it'll be awhile before we get another series titled "New Mutants", as you say, the idea behind the series never really goes away (at least not for long), and continues in one form or another to this day. <br /><br />(In part, I'd argue, because nobody has yet to really want to or be able to commit fully to the idea of characters as students before superheroes. The DeFillips/Weir & Kyle/Yost NEW X-MEN has probably come the closest, but then that got all hosed up by Decimation). Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-28253494903964298672016-01-09T12:44:41.634-06:002016-01-09T12:44:41.634-06:00It may even be that they were stealing a show a bi...<i> It may even be that they were stealing a show a bit there for me precisely because of I having no access to their own adventures and them being very obviously very developed Claremont characters.</i><br /><br />I definitely encountered most of the classic New Mutants characters first in those Paul Smith/JRjr UNCANNY issues, which is another reason why I like that era so much. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-82379779777159268342016-01-09T12:43:07.880-06:002016-01-09T12:43:07.880-06:00Get. Out.
:) Get. Out. <br /><br />:) Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-25589885764121572772016-01-09T12:42:53.348-06:002016-01-09T12:42:53.348-06:00Does pretending you're using the Force to open...Does pretending you're using the Force to open automatic doors at stores count as fantasizing about being something fantastical? Cuz I still do that, like, almost every time I go to Target...Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-88616758224662461542016-01-09T12:41:26.410-06:002016-01-09T12:41:26.410-06:00The group of teenagers-as-mutants, in a SCOOBY DOO...<i>The group of teenagers-as-mutants, in a SCOOBY DOO-BH 90210 way, full of teen fun & angst, weird adventures, and witticisms.</i><br /><br />I definitely think my love of stuff like 90210 informs my appreciation for series like these (and all the subsequent student-focused series). It boggles my mind that no one has yet to try a New Mutants (or some approximation thereof) TV series. I don't even need specific characters or story beats recreated; a "90210 with super-powers" show could easily become a favorite. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-3377187774408599012016-01-09T12:39:33.749-06:002016-01-09T12:39:33.749-06:00So when I read all those old NM issues, I found th...<i>So when I read all those old NM issues, I found that my favorite chunk was the earliest stuff, from the graphic novel up through the Nova Roma saga</i><br /><br />Which, I'm sure comes as no shock to you, is probably my least favorite stretch of the series. Though I think it less to do with the lack of narrative or artistic experimentation and more that the later stuff seems more developed and fleshed out, more what I think of when I think of "New Mutants". <br /><br />My favorite stretch of issues is, probably, #35-54. The art's not flashy but its solid and dependable, Magneto hasn't yet become the raving lunatic he will under Simonson, there's a nice mix of serialized stories and done-in-ones, including appearances from the Hellions, and the series probably makes the most of its SECRET WARS II tie-in the best of any of the books involved in that nightmare. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-36975166082459691942016-01-09T10:10:54.379-06:002016-01-09T10:10:54.379-06:00I’m glad I stopped picking up New Mutants when I d...<br>I’m glad I stopped picking up <i>New Mutants</i> when I did, one issue after Sienkiewicz left. Although it’s entirely possible (even likely) that I’m forgetting something, I can't say there were more than a couple of issues that I was really happy to read for this project — edification for history's sake notwithstanding — apart from those early days and a couple others I'd grabbed off the racks purely for the covers: #40 and #51, both of which ironically barely have anything that says “New Mutants” about them apart from the logo.<br /><br />I tried to remember if you’d done a like post for the Silver Age, by the way. It wasn’t too hard for me to find <a href="http://www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com/2010/01/x-amining-x-men-silver-age.html" rel="nofollow">that you did</a> but I humbly suggest that you tag this and whatever other posts you deem of like style with, say, “retrospective” so it's even easier for me. 8^)<br /><br />My favorite issues are #21 (“Slumber Party”) and Special Edition #1, same as yours. After that I’d probably rank #18-20 (“Demon Bear” saga) and, if you don’t count those three individually, then I guess for variety #40 (“Avengers Assemble!”) and #51 (“Teachers’ Choice”) if just for the Nowlan art despite how garish the colors are under the era’s Flexographic printing; besides the earliest Claremont/McLeod stuff, Claremont/Sienkiewicz, and maybe some Claremont/Buscema for nostalgia, however, I range between not caring much and being outright hostile to the lack of quality.<br /><br />My favorite covers, taking pains to spread the wealth, are <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/39123/cover/4/" rel="nofollow">#19</a> by Sienkiewicz, <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/41529/cover/4/" rel="nofollow">#40</a> by Windsor-Smith, <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/37511/cover/4/" rel="nofollow">#4</a> by McLeod, <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/903882/cover/4/" rel="nofollow">#51</a> by Nowlan, and <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/38913/cover/4/" rel="nofollow">#17</a> by Brigman with Sienkiewicz inks. The painted Sienkiewicz work is mostly great across the board and the Windsor-Smith ones are pretty nice too.<br /><br />My favorite characters are probably Dani, Illyana, Sam, Roberto, and Warlock, the latter two largely for the visuals, although back in the day I had a soft spot for Rahne as the one I was most likely to hit it off with personally.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-15144410165792286662016-01-09T02:03:39.478-06:002016-01-09T02:03:39.478-06:00Check out the New Mutants entry in the great "...Check out the New Mutants entry in the great "Secrets Behind the X-men" series:<br /><br />http://secretsbehindthexmen.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-mutants-averted-x-men-west.html<br /><br />Lots of interesting background info, with regards to what we ended up seeing and what we didn't see, with regards to dropped and changed plots. And the genesis of the series itself is interesting, since CC and Weezie more or less chose this concept to avoid having someone else do “X-Men West". Its a good read, and a nice companion piece to Teebore's analysis of the title. <br /><br />Not much to add to Teebore's analysis, except of the larger legacies this title gave the franchise wasn't just the characters themselves, but the concept of the title itself: the idea of a younger junior team in training. Whether its Generation X, the New Mutants/New X-men, Young X-men, Generation Hope, Wolverine & The X-men...Marvel will always come back to this concept whenever it can and try to make it work. Heck, you could argue the current All-New X-Men title fits that bill, even if they aren't being trained in a mansion; it is still the younger generation team book. <br /><br />As for this series? When it was good, it was actually pretty good. When it was bad, it was really bad. But it does have historical context as Teebore pointed out, which always makes it worth looking back on. wwk5dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-35555673531288409782016-01-08T10:20:51.408-06:002016-01-08T10:20:51.408-06:00Please sounds off with some of your personal favor...<i>Please sounds off with some of your personal favorites in the comments</i><br /><br />The space ape man shooting blast on Illyana's face with his pleasure gun!<br /><br />Ahem. I only got to read the Claremont run of NM just recently, because barring #50, the Asgard Special and the Mojo Wildways Annual #2 our publisher was very sparing with pure NM material, but I have still since always been very partial to the New Mutants due to their appearances in JRjr era UNCANNY and in the Annuals. It may even be that they were stealing a show a bit there for me precisely because of I having no access to their own adventures and them being very obviously very developed Claremont characters.<br /><br />The Hellion massacre to amp up the threat of a crappy post-Claremont villain is pretty much the most egregious thing in comics for me, because even as I never got to read most of them at all, what little I did catch of some of them in UNCANNY #193 seriously made me want more. I have opinions about other media shenanigans making their way into the comics Universe, but little Angelica Jones introduced in that story stands as a shining exception.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-11473716305343243422016-01-08T09:51:07.824-06:002016-01-08T09:51:07.824-06:00And my top 5 favorite NM characters:
5) Bird-Brain...And my top 5 favorite NM characters:<br />5) Bird-Brain<br />4) Bird-Brain<br />3) Bird-Brain<br />2) Bird-Brain<br />1) Bird-BrainIan Millerhttp://ianjmiller.deviantart.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-5748193925071794632016-01-08T09:50:21.382-06:002016-01-08T09:50:21.382-06:00New Mutants was always a fun book for me, but neve...New Mutants was always a fun book for me, but never as important as X-Men or even X-Factor. I only really discovered the books in 2001 when I was 16 after I read a huge portion of X-Force and wanted to see where they started. At the time I dug the concept of the NM - Being a teenager myself, I could really relate to the characters. <br /><br />I'll never forget that while in the middle of reading the entire run I helped my Grandma move. The move was so monotonous and straining on my lanky body that I began imagining myself having Sunspot's powers so that I could lift the furniture with ease and get out of there faster. This was also significant in that this was probably the last time I actively had a Doug Funnie-esque fantasy about myself being something fantastical.<br /><br />Ian Millerhttp://ianjmiller.deviantart.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-9989102222176471552016-01-07T18:39:47.653-06:002016-01-07T18:39:47.653-06:00Although I grew up around the CC-JRjr era, I barel...Although I grew up around the CC-JRjr era, I barely gave the New Mutants much interest aside from the occasional issues we had (1-2, 5, 21, and 33). Near the end of the century, I began collecting comics again, and among them concerned the adventures of Illyana, the bad girl trying to be good with a smartbutt attitude. I even sculpted a statue of the character (structured from a clay statue of Wolverine). Liking her led to liking the group. For the turn of the century, the New Mutants were my favorite comic-book group. The group of teenagers-as-mutants, in a SCOOBY DOO-BH 90210 way, full of teen fun & angst, weird adventures, and witticisms. As my interest in Japanese Animation also grew, the two mixed. They were my fanfiction group (specifically the dream team 9) in crossovers. A Tenchi Muyo-New Mutants crossover! A Tenchi-NM-Trigun crossover! A Tenchi-NM-Dragon Ball Z crossover! To this day, I toy with several crossovers having the novice group in the worlds of FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST and NARUTO (it's rather easy when you have a dimensional teleporter in your cast). My favorite storylines were the Hellions/Kitty rescue, the Demon Bear-Warlock, the Legion, the Asgard, 45 and 52. I pretty much liked them all.angmc43@hotmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15379700547226493861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-11345775096999865742016-01-07T17:22:52.717-06:002016-01-07T17:22:52.717-06:00For me, NEW MUTANTS has never meant much. I came t...For me, NEW MUTANTS has never meant much. I came to the X-Universe a few years after it ended. I never read X-FORCE except when it participated in crossovers, so even the NM characters who carried over were pretty much unknown to me. The only NM back issues I ever picked up were those relating to crossovers, such as "Inferno". It wasn't until within the past decade that I really gave the series a try, via the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC trade paperback series and the various hardcover collections (as of now, there are only a dozen issues of NM not reprinted by Marvel).<br /><br />As you're doubtless aware, my tastes tend to lean toward classic, traditional, non-experimental superhero comics. So when I read all those old NM issues, I found that my favorite chunk was the earliest stuff, from the graphic novel up through the Nova Roma saga. Claremont, McLeod, Buscema... Xavier as their teacher, no Magneto, no Cable... no Warlock... that was the stuff I liked best, and the original lineup is my favorite.<br /><br />I also would have originally cited Cannonball as my favorite New Mutant based on my limited exposure, but having actually read all those issues, I would now call Mirage and Sunspot my faves -- the former due mostly to her characterization and the latter due mostly to his visual.<br /><br />I don't think I could list any favorite issues or stories, though. Important as they were, and to some extent remain, to the X-Men's mythos, for me the New Mutants are still pretty much just a footnote in the franchise's history.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.com