New Mutants Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Renewal

New Mutants Epic Collection

by Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo (Contributor), Bob McLeod (Illustrator)

Collects Marvel Graphic Novel #4, New Mutants (1983) #1-12, Uncanny X-Men (1981) #167, Marvel Team-Up Annual #6, Magik (1983) #1-4 and material from Marvel Team-Up (1972) #100.

Meet the future of the X-Men! Karma. Wolfsbane. Sunspot. Cannonball. Moonstar. They're teenagers, thrown together by the X-gene that makes them different. Follow the adventures of these young mutants from Karma's first meeting with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to their early days at the Xavier School! The New Mutants' on-the-job training begins in earnest with battles against Sentinels, the Silver Samurai, Viper and the Hellfire Club; a team-up with Spidey and Cloak and Dagger — and the team gets a taste of life as X-Men in a disturbing encounter with the Brood! Plus: Meet fiery new recruit Magma, and discover how Colossus's sister, Illyana, became the demon sorceress known as Magik!

Genres: Comics, X Men, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Comic Book, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

520 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 21, 2017

About the author

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.

Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.

Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vintage comic awesomeness. :D

I'd never read any New Mutants before, & was only familiar with Rahne from her stint in X-Factor; these other MCs were new to me, or met so briefly in crossovers that I didn't remember. Either way, this was 500 pages of vintage teen scifi, complete with after-school lessons & drooling monsters. Roberto is still my favorite, but I got attached to them all pretty quickly.

What elevates this collection to 5-star material is Claremont's epic storytelling. Even in the more intimate stories, there's a heavy, sweeping feel to the overall arc, & you can tell the creators were fans of other major sci-fi franchises like Alien, Star Trek, etc...clear evidence of the pop culture shift between Kirby & Claremont. I also loved how even in the more lighthearted stories, the dark, dangerous nature of the kids' powers is never swept under a rug. (This is especially evident in the Magik miniseries, which is one of the bleaker things I've read in the mutant universe. I loved it, but it made me wince more than once.) Claremont understood how to balance light & dark in his stories -- a rare gift in any fictional format, but esp compared to next-gen graphic storytellers like Kirkman & his slavering slaughterfests. (Is this an issue of taste? No doubt. But I can't be the only one, right? *crosses fingers*)

4.5, rounded up for the fun factor of classic '80s.

NB: I really hope Marvel releases repackaged collections for Cloak & Dagger and/or Ka-Zar. (I'd like a Dazzler one too, but that's probably too much to hope for. >__> Lol if you like, but I was That Kid who collected used copies of Dazzler from the comic store. :D)

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The early days of one of my favourite superhero teams. So much fun. Slightly depressed by the fact that when I first read these stories, I was younger than the youngest character in the team… and I’m now two and a half times older than the oldest! Thanks to the miracle of ‘Marvel Time’, these guys are only about ten years older now… Why can’t we all age in Marvel Time? 😂

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Mutants has always been a book that I knew about and had a vague idea of what they were about but had only started reading their ongoing adventures after Hickman’s X-men run began. Now having read how the team began, the current books are even more intriguing. What’s really amazing about this series is how quickly we get to know the personalities of this team. It probably helps that there is only 5 members so we get more time for each character but it made me really invested. The opening graphic novel is fantastic. The Bob McLeod art is so good and it’s amazing how Claremont was hitting nothing but home runs at this time.
What this book truly does well is getting us invested in these characters and setting up what this book is going to be about. It has me excited to not only see their further adventures, but also what new members Magma and Magik will add to the team dynamic. Highly recommend this book to any X-men fan.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvel’s X-Men franchise is one of their most wide-spanning properties with many titles. This is where that expansion started! The first mutant spin-off title, the New Mutants centered around a new group of teens that Xavier recruits when he believes that the X-Men have been killed by the Brood in space.

The book is interesting in that you get a sense of what Chris Claremont Would have done he was writing the stories with the origin five X-Men in the Silver Age years. Once again, he stresses racial and regional diversity in the team and of course still has the trademark interpersonal drama alongside the superheroics. The writing feels a little more focused than usual in this title but I wish that these New Mutants could have as much personality and charisma as the old ones.

[Vinton Bayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not my favorite New Mutants. But this stuff is classic and while Team America is awful and Nova Roma can’t hold my interest, Magik is amazing and I love getting to meet the kids for the first time all over again.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quando esta edição da Epic Collection foi anunciada pela PanniTM eu fiquei bastante contente porque muitos materiais dos Novos Mutantes que tinham saído no Brasil picotados ou ainda permaneciam inéditos, como a minissérie da Magia, finalmente chegariam em terras brasilis. Muitas das histórias continuam tão boas quanto quando eu li e finalmente pude saber o que aconteceu com Illyanna no Limbo, depois de tanto tempo acompanhando os X-Men. Mas tem umas partes desse encadernado que são ruins, como o encontro dos Novos Mutantes com o Homem-Aranha e com Manto e Adaga, uma dupla de super-heróis que sempre quis gostar mas nunca consegui. Também lendo sem os picotes achei a saga da origem de Magma na cidade de Nova Roma na selva Amazônica arrastada demais. Fora isso é importante destacar a importância dos irmãos John e Sal Buscema para esse início dos Novos Mutantes. O primeiro fez a minissérie de Illyanna Rasputin e o segundo deu continuidade ao traço de Bob Layton. Sinceramente espero que a PaniniTM anuncie o segundo volume para breve.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gleefully purchased this when I found out about it. It's incredibly nice to revisit these characters whom I have loved for a long time - and not loved for a long time. Current writers think crippling, killing, maiming, etc are the only ways to tell good stories with these characters. And back in the "simple" days, these characters showed they could stand on their own without all the gritty nonsense/ story convolution. Sure, they still have problems, but no one needs to become a useless or psychotic or dead character to fulfill authorial nihilism. The darkness here is in how scary their powers are and how not learning to use them is an even scarier option. Claremont smartly took these adolescent fears and amplified them as a teen superhero book. It holds up very well.

I'm also struck by how Claremont layers in plot details that he will not come back to for 2+ years: the first mention of David and the impending arrival of a very bad psychic villain. We've changed from that slow build structure to an immediacy in storytelling, which I'm not sure is helpful for the audience. I think a lot of contemporary authors could look at this as a lesson in plotting (not necessarily that all the stories are well done, but rather that the overall plot structure of the volume has something to teach).

Two notes: I have never been a Buscema fan (Sal or John) or a Magma fan, so I'm reminded by this volume how much that is still true.

[Shawn Ingle · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I've read this twice now as a collection as well as individual issues way back when. I still enjoy revisiting the origins of these characters. The storylines aren't bad but nothing special either in this compilation. But the character development is really well done and I appreciate the distinct difference in how Claremont handles and portrays these characters compared to the X-Men. Their vulnerability, ignorance and innocence as youths are all explored in ways we had only seen touched upon with Kitty Pryde previously. I still wonder though why they couldn't have come up with a better team name than The New Mutants.

[Tony Romine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The majority of this is excellent: the graphic novel that introduced the team, the first handful of issues in the new series, and the four part Magick miniseries at the end. There is a sizable 4 or 5 issues that take place in a lame concept of a place that is Ancient Rome in the middle of a rainforest that I just hated. It's so boring and convoluted and only serves to introduce a new member to the team, which could have been done a lot better. Also there is some nonsense featuring a motorcycle team called Team America that, for some reason, are more important to Professor X than a group of inexperienced teenage mutants. The boring rainforest Rome stuff is worse though.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Xavier recruits a new team of mutants with the goal of using them as hosts for alien larvae.

He was going through some stuff.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

When sales on the Uncanny X-Men title proved so strong and showed no sign of waning, Marvel decided to start a second X-Men themed title, the New Mutants. The original title that Kirby and Lee wanted for the X-Men was The Mitants, so this title was a nod to those early days of the X-Men, when they were just Uncanny and not All-New, All-Different. With this title Claremont's goal was to focus more on the characters and how they learn to control their powers and abilities and less on a super-villain of the week. He succeeds admirably and his soap opera style works wonderfully with these teenage, multi-national students. Our team of New Mutants spend a lot of time away from school in this volume. There is even a lost civilization story that introduced a lost colony from ancient Rome in the mountainous origins of the Amazon River. New team members Magma and Magik come aboard and guest appearances by Kitty Pryde and Professor X help round out this fun-filled and action-packed collection. This title still hadn't reached it's peak yet, that begins with the next volume, but Claremont was certainly in the top of his form, weaving exciting and entertaining stories with melodrama and making the first school for mutants (or superheroes) a believable experience. When Marvel first started publishing the Fantastic Four change was inherent in almost every issue, not nearly as much in early issues of the X-Men, but change was there. Sometime shortly after Lee and Kirby stopped producing material for the company everything stopped changing. Yet even under those early years of status quo stagnation, Marvel had some good runs. John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, Peter David’s Hulk and Walter Simonson’s Thor are good examples. In these runs, change, to a degree, was possible and might even last - at least until the creative team changed. But the real problem with this stagnation was that characters don't age. They did when Kirby and Lee were involved, but they stopped when they left. Franklin Richards was born in 1968, and he's now only a teenager when he should be pushing 60. So when Colossus's little sister was first introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1 as not much more than a toddler, Claremont had a dilemma when he wanted to bring her in as a new mutant and make her Kitty Pryde's best friend. She was just too darn young for that to work. So he had to come up with a way to age her up quickly - and so the incident that sparked the Magick mini-series was conceived. That's right it's just a plot device to age up a little girl quickly all because Marvel is terrified of change. But it was done well. Nice art from all the contributors and Claremont offers up an interesting little story which was also, unfortunately, partially the inspiration for that awful Inferno crossover event several years later. Claremont and his loose threads/dangling plot-lines seeped into every corner of the Marvel Universe. If you like the film Sky High, you'll love The New Mutants!

[Tom Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

The New Mutants is a comic written by someone who didn't want it to even exist. This was nothing new for Marvel, especially in the Jim Shooter era: read the fan press of the late 70s and early 80s and it's full of enjoyably candid interviews with creators confirming that yes, nobody really wanted to do eg a Spider-Woman book and it existed because editorial demanded it did. Sometimes those interviewers would then stoutly declare the comic turned out just great actually! Sometimes... they wouldn't.

New Mutants came into being because the X-Men were hugely successful and a companion title was a no-brainer. It came into being in this particular form because Jim Shooter thought the "school" element of the X-Men was important, and because X-Men writer Chris Claremont wanted the second X-Comic to exist on his terms, if it had to exist at all. What we get with the New Mutants is a cross between the original "strangest teens of all" concept and the Giant-Size era's team of global misfits.

It's also the first mutant group entirely created by Claremont himself, which probably explains why the characterisation in this collection is very strong. Which is just as well, as the stories are all over the place, and the choices he makes with the New Mutants characters show a vision for the book more than the actual action does. Most of the cast are female (something that holds pretty much throughout Claremont's run), most have abilities that are limited or don't quite work properly, and they all have strong individual hooks for future stories and character growth - something Claremont had to graft onto the "new" X-Men, who were mostly a collection of great costumes and dodgy accents.

It's a book, in other words, that's expressly about people, young people, not superheroes or even superheroes-in-training. And mostly it works very well as that. The kids are a little wholesome, and their internal struggles can devolve into tics, but the basic material here is strong - the angst grounded in recognisable teenage emotion: Rahne's chronic self-esteem issues, Sam's mix of pride and resentment at having to grow up too soon, Bobby's rich-kid impulse control problems. Characterisation is Chris Claremont's strong suit, and he's on top form here. So why aren't these stories classics?

There's a double problem. The first is that whatever Jim Shooter thought, there's nothing inherently interesting about the "mutant school" concept, especially when you have a writer who doesn't want to run with it and only five pupils and two teachers as your cast. The first handful of New Mutants issues run through the training tropes - danger room action, awkward interactions with local human teens, friction with Professor X - but despite Sentinels and monsters it's low-intensity stuff. It's not surprising, then, that the book shifts gear quickly and gets the kids off-campus for some wilder adventures. And the comic improves, right? Anakin meme face. Right??

So here's problem #2. Does Chris Claremont have enough good ideas for two mutant comics each month? More than two, in fact, as this is the phase where he's being tasked with writing multiple mini-series on top of the core books. The answer seems to be no. The X-Men issues which run contemporary to New Mutants 5-12 are the Paul Smith run, probably Claremont's peak on the parent comic. But in this book he brings us... Team America, Nova Roma and Axe.

Some of this stuff was always likely to date badly - in 1983 "Mr T, but a mutant" was a fun pop-culture reference; 40 years on Axe and his "sho' nuff mama" style dialogue feel like a terrible decision. (It doesn't help that the very next issue introduces Magma*, surely the only long-running Marvel hero to spend her first appearance blacked up.) If time's been unkind to Axe, there was never an excuse for two issues of motorcycle stunt outfit Team America, a toy tie-in whose comic had ALREADY BEEN CANCELLED when they showed up here, taking up space as literal spare wheels in an already dense storyline**.

Professor X shows how sick he already is of training the New Mutants by shifting focus entirely onto his new biker pals, packing our heroes off to the Amazon rainforest where, naturally, they encounter a lost colony of the Roman Empire. Nova Roma has become something of a watchword for stupid Marvel ideas - unfairly, I think: it's a Silver Age concept which feels too goofy for '83 but works on its own terms. The several part story with the Mutants negotiating Nova Roman politics and fighting Selene is the most exciting in the collection.

It's also a marker for how the New Mutants comic would end up working best - as a place Claremont could indulge wilder ideas while his X-Men run got stuck further into the issues of mutant rights. That doesn't really start happening until Bill Sienkiewicz comes on as artist - in this volume the art is mostly Bob McLeod either pencilling or inking over the chameleonic Sal Buscema, and he's a strong, naturalistic artist who's good at drawing sensibly-proportioned bodies (the forever curse of teen superhero books). But he's not so hot at selling the flights of weird pulp fantasy some of these sequences need.

The comic ends with the Magik limited series, which explains why Illyana Rasputin suddenly aged from 7 to 14 in the X-Men comic (aside from "to give Kitty Pryde a friend her own age", that is). It's really an X-Men spin-off but dropped in here since Illyana later joins the New Mutants cast. It's also Claremont working through some of his favourite themes - occult temptation, corruption, mind control and enslaved parallel versions of pet characters (in one case here not a metaphor). For me this stuff gets a lot more uncomfortable when the subject is a child and I'm not a great fan of this series - or, to be honest, of Claremont's occult storylines in general. In fairness, though, a lot of people really love Magik for a lot of reasons, and some of the reasons are that Claremont's story about grooming and abuse *does* deal head-on with some very difficult topics and experiences. Caveat lector.

*(Magma and Magik's introductions raise the nerdish but interesting question - how does Chris Claremont see mutation as actually working? Both of their powers activate in response to life threatening stress and involve very, very specific manipulations of their immediate environment. Either Amara was always going to have lava-based powers and it just happened that Selene threw her into a lava pit - what-a mistake-a to make-a! - or we're going off a model of mutant powers in which the actual power the X-Gene grants is contingent on the stress the mutant is under, which works for a lot of the Claremont-created characters but not for most before or since)

**(One reason the Team America storyline is such a bust is that we're in the phase where not only is Claremont juggling too many sub-plots, he's also juggling too many versions of the *same* sub-plot. Xavier is too powerful to take an active role in the stories so he's constantly getting blindsided by psychic attacks from unknown forces the like of which he's never experienced, etc etc. I think these end up coming from three if not four separate entities, none of whose plots get remotely resolved for at least a year. Such is the way of the Claremont era.)

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time reading any new mutants stuff and i loved it. Magic mini series was amazing. Im working through Clermont era X-Men and i love it so much.

[Ma'Belle · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars - the best stuff being the first and final stories, and their significance in introducing these characters
I started this book because I so thoroughly loved the first two seasons of the show Legion, which springs out of the pages of these Chris Claremont New Mutants comics from the early '80s. Nearly 500 pages in, the Legion character has not surfaced, and his existence only alluded to as the secret son of Professor X.

But I want to use this massive collection to talk about different methods of storytelling in comics. The main drag about getting through this thing is not the fault of Chris Claremont - who is a fine writer - but of the scripting style of most comic books until the last 15 years or so (notable exceptions being some of my first and all-time favorites, from the '80s and '90s, by Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, et al, largely under the editorial guidance of more progressive thinkers within the industry such as Karen Berger, founder of DC's Vertigo imprint).

Specifically, the thing I *most hate* about reading "classic" superhero comics is the retelling of so many plot points OVER. AND OVER. Each issue will have characters awkwardly explain part of their origin, or what their power set is and how it works, in the middle of action, ad nauseum. I believe this is because publishers knew, or assumed, that readers would be picking up random issues of different titles, and needed to be told bits of backstory from the previous issues. That is a valid point, but one that is much better dealt with by having an intro page dedicated to The Story So Far...

Publishers now give readers more credit for being able to follow a storyline from beginning to end without constantly interrupting it with boring exposition, but it's still an issue that crops up from time to time. But something in these stories that makes the retrospective exposition problem even worse is when the writer contradicts themself, thereby drastically changing the canon from one issue to the next.

An example of this I just came across: in one issue of the 4-issue miniseries Magik, the title character, Illyana Rasputin, briefly travels back in time and space to witness [a version of] Storm/Ororo doing battle with a demon lord who has captured them in his Limbo world. Illyana immediately notes that Ororo is at her prime - the peak of her powers as a sorceress - and that the villain stands no chance against her in this state. Skip ahead to the very next issue, Illyana (as narrator) contradicts that real power dynamic by saying, "Ororo ... in her prime, she was no match for him -- doomed from the start." I've seen this happen multiple times while reading this Epic Collection - Claremont, through his characters, drastically changing the events that had happened through retelling them merely for the sake of catching up readers. This goes beyond the "unreliable narrator" technique of storytelling, and is instead misinforming readers through gaslighting. Why show us a character being *absorbed* into another in an interesting way that preserves their living essence and potential influence, if you're just going to flatly claim in subsequent issues that they died? I don't think this serves the purpose of building suspense and shock so much as it reveals inconsistencies within a narrative, claiming that the most recent assertion is "how it's always been."

[Vaughn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard one to rate, as it's a pretty mixed bag.

As others have said, the first third of the book and the Magik miniseries at the end of the book are really good. The first issue introducing Shan and the New Mutants original graphic novel are a great introduction to the team and we see them grow together over the next few issues. The stories start declining when we're introduced to Team America (issues 5 to 7) and then the Nova Roma story (issues 8-12). The Nova Roma story does introduce us to some great characters though in Magma and Selene.

The best part of this collection for me was the Magik miniseries at the end. It shows Illyana Rasputin's childhood growing up in the hellish dimension of limbo after she was kidnapped by Belasco in X-Men #160. It goes through her grooming and abuse by Belasco who generally stole her innocence and corrupted her before she was able to overcome his influence and escape. It's a bleak story, but forged Illyana into one of the most compelling mutant characters in the X-Men franchise. While Magik isn't part of the New Mutants in this collection, she joins the team in the next one and becomes a very important character.

While some stories are good and some are bad, the characterization is fantastic all the way through. Chris Claremont did such a great job creating these characters and making you care about them. These stories have a different feel to the mainstream X-Men stories at the time. There is a real theme surrounding characters who feel that the power inside them is evil or that they're bad people because of situations out of their control. From Wolfsbane whose religion makes her feel that her power is from the devil, to Moonstar who can't control her power to manifest peoples worst nightmares. Every character has a unique voice and unique personal issues.

I would recommend this purely for the characterization, the graphic novel in the beginning, and the Magik miniseries at the end.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up reading Claremont's X-Men, and they got me into superhero comics. I've been re-reading them ever since. For whatever reason I never seriously collected his New Mutants run, so it was with some happiness that I realized there was a whole bunch of prime Claremont mutant stories that would be new to me.

This collection was okay. I'd already read the GN and the first two issues as a kid, and whether because of nostalgia or for objective reasons, they remain the most memorable stories of this collection. I think they stuck closest to the concept of Xavier's school as an actual school/haven for mutants and not as a training ground for future X-Men. Some of the other issues were boring (and thematically at the level of after-school specials). I'd never understood the appeal or logic of the Nova Roma concept, and reading its origin here did little to help. The Team America crossover was an unwelcome distraction that derailed the book (I'd venture that the slow burning Legion story was put on the back burner because of it).

I think mostly this collection shows that Claremont was struggling to figure out what to do (and probably having to scramble with editorially forced crossovers). He created good characters and a solid core concept -it would be later on that he would figure out how to really make them shine. I'm looking forward to reading those issues, especially the Sienkiewicz run.

[Ross Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where it All Began

Marvel had a good thing going, with the X-Men. But things good always get better.
Like maybe having a team of teenage superheroes. One that younger readers could relate to.I
Team who had the same issues of dealing with their newly emerging powers, on my as well as the day-to-day issues of being a hormone-raging teenager.
Enter The New Mutants.
I was a passive fan of the series - I had enough problems being a teenage, why would I want to read a series about ones who had Mutant Powers, something I didn't have.
And then things got....well, a change in artists meant it was more a text book in modern art and less comic book. (I might be in the minority, thinking this)
But it got more interesting - Magick joined the team, and Doug and Warlock. And suddenly, the stories were better and I enjoyed reading them. Then comes Cable and finally Deadpool at the end of the run.

This collection has their first adventures - solo, early team, the WTF team up with Team America (yeah, even 13 yr old me was "ummmmmmm what"), the lost of one member and the addition of Magma. And to finish off the collection, the Magick mini series.

I figured with the (much delayed) movie coming on sometime this decade, why not go back to the beginning

[Nate Deprey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The New Mutants is one of Chris Claremont's best contributions to comics as literature and an art form as well as seamlessly expanding the diversity of the Marvel Universe in a completely organic way. The Marvel Graphic Novel that serves as the first appearance of most of the original new mutants has a gravity to the art and text nearly on the level of Claremont's masterwork God Loves Man Kills and includes the type of team building that usually takes half a dozen issues. Claremont also deserves credit for writing five of the most believable teenagers in the Marvel Universe and giving them real life problems above and beyond the Hellfire Club. My only complaint is that by concluding this collection with the Magik miniseries the collection gets away from the strength and cohesion of the title's ongoing storytelling. The story of Illyana Rasputan is an interesting footnote but in the context of this collection is really a distraction from the first twelve issues of the New Mutants I could have done without.

[Matt Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a longtime X-Fan and knew about some of these characters (Cannonball, Magik - I've actually read her 4-part mini before, and a little of Rahne), but with the movie just around the corner, I really wanted to dive in.

To be honest, it didn't really wow me but I really didn't expect it to. I more read it so I could get to the Demon Bear arc (because I looooove Bill Sienkiewicz's art), but there were still some surprisingly good parts, like the stuff in Nova Roma, and there were some parts that I really had to slog through, like the first story with Karma.

All-in-all, I like the characters and I liked a lot of Claremont's writing (except when it would get words), but I wasn't a huge fan McLeod's art and origin stories usually kind of bore me. It's kind of dated, but if you're an X-Fan and, more importantly, a fan of any one of these characters, definitely give it a shot. If not, this probably won't be for your.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the approach of the New Mutants movie, I thought it was time to finally read more of the original title since I had largely passed it over during its original run. I would not learn about many of the characters until their plight as X-Force and beyond. This is more of a team of students, than a team of superheroes and its really enjoyable for it.
It seems every decade Marvel introduces a new set of young mutants. Second Genesis from the 70's. New Mutants in the 80's. Generation X in the 90's. New X-Men is the 00's. The time-displaced all-new X-men in the 10's.
New Mutants is a return to school for a bunch of teens from very different backgrounds. Each explored in time with great art by Bob McLeod. This Epic volume packs a lot of essential new mutants related stories for background in with the original series itself. All in chronological order, which I really appreciate. I'll be getting more of these epic volumes as they become available.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series, but grew up reading mostly X-Men at this time, so I never read these earlier New Mutants stories before. This starts off strong with the Marvel Graphic Novel and the first few issues that set the status quo and then gets a bit dull for the next few issues. Fighting the Hellfire Club and the Brood is cool, but Silver Samurai, Team America, and the kid down the street who did prank phone calls are pretty lame antagonists. It picks up a bit with the Nova Roma stories. Now the plot for these is forgettable, but Claremont makes up for this by setting up how the kids interact with each other. We have the introduction of Magma, a character who has been around ever since, but she never really seemed to have a distinct, interesting personality like the other members of the team. Maybe I will get to like the character more when I read more of these early issues.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

if ‘god loves, man kills’ is a distillation of claremont’s x-men into a single story, these early issues of new mutants are a great illustration of what’s rewarding about his longer stories. where the main x-men book picked up heroes and villains with their own histories and added the newest members into their ongoing drama, new mutants creates a team from scratch and focusses mainly on them: it’s a character-led teen drama more than anything else, and claremont excells at bringing each of these characters to life. bob mcleod’s art is perfect for the task, but the buscemas both take over from him excellently too and give the book a real ‘classic marvel’ feel. there’s nothing truly mind-blowing in this volume, but if you want a sense of what was going on in 80s superhero comics - obligatory exposition and all - you could do worse than starting here.

[Crazed8J8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! Introduces so many characters (aside from the team itself, we meet Selene, Magma, and the Demon Bear, among others). They are young, inexperienced, and the next generation of X-Men. It's great to see Chris Claremont do what he does best, creating and developing characters. Sal Buscema has been a long-time favorite too, so it was great to see his work on a X-book! All around, this is a great read, and if the New Mutants movie ever comes out, I am glad to have read the source material. Onto the next book!

[Jefferson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The debut of the New Mutants is a rollercoaster in terms of quality, ranging from a very strong first few issues to the bizarre guest appearance of Team America, a toy line tie-in. This volume also includes the four-issue Magik series which finishes a storyline begun in the main X-Men series. Unfortunately it doesn't really make sense without that earlier story (not included in this volume), and it goes on for way too long and introduces a supernatural "demons and sorcery" element that feels a little off-brand.

[Derek Moreland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hooooooo boy.

THE NEW MUTANTS gets off to something of a rocky start here. Claremont doesnt seem to have a fixed idea on what he wants to do with the team yet, so the stories collected here are a little all over the place and vary almost comically in levels of quality. And the Bob MacLeod / Sal Buscema art is perfectly cromulant for it's time, if a pale shadow of what's to come.

But, you do get the epic conclusion of the first major Brood story, and the absolutely spectacular Magik miniseries, so...worth reading? With caveats?

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit I bought this compilation (which also included the Magik miniseries I had been looking for but couldn't find separately) partly out of nostalgia, as I was a huge fan when I was younger. Not everything stands up - the characters are aiming for diversity but tend towards social/racial cliches even when well-intentioned and the writing is much more long-winded and heavy handed than modern comics. But I enjoyed revisiting the stories and characters.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, if a bit bland, start to the expansion of the X-Men side of the Marvel universe. I really enjoyed the graphic novel, and the Magik limited series is strange and comic-y, but the first twelve issues of New Mutants has some strangely slow pacing for the early 80s. The art was consistent and strong, with characters being iconic but not unrealistically preportioned. More interesting as a bit of history than a really compelling read.

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is still kind of in the dire stages, but I did like Magyk's backstory. That worked, the others, not so much. Also, points lost for kind of sort of introducing Legion in the first couple of issues and then not pursuing the damn thing in favor of random things including an abysmal New Rome storyline. Bring Legion! and also Karma. She was better than the Volcano chick.

[Eric Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never been a big fan of the New Mutant books back in the day. By the time I really got into it the book quickly became X-Force. So it's fun to go back and see not only how the New Mutants came to be, but how the book balanced out with the X-men and Xavier's dream. The artwork is great, Sam's ears are gigantic, and the book re-enforces my belief that Xavier is a terrible person/character.

Nothing beats Claremont's mutant books, so I think everyone should check them out if they haven't.

[Arda · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts off strong with deep character work. The variety of characters was ahead of its time. Art by McLeod and Buscema were looking great and consistent. But I wasn’t a fan of the New Rome arc. I especially found Amara’s Indian disguise weird and funny. Also the Magik mini-series sucks! Oh my god it was so boring and just like her speed of aging the pacing was out of place. Her mutant powe does also seem magical. I don’t know, every choice on that story was stupid.