By: Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk (art), Guru eFX (colors) & Joe Caramanga (letters)
The Story: The epic, decades long saga of Dean’s attempt to get into the New Mutants begins anew. If he dies while reading this issue, how long until he comes back? Seriously, in the fallout from Second Coming, the New Mutants take a little vacation, but (of course) trouble isn’t far away.
What’s Good: The best news is that I liked this issue enough to keep picking it up. I have a decades long bad history with the baby-X-Men titles. I get annoyed by the feeling that I’m missing something when proper X-books reference the New Mutants, yet every time I try to pick up the series, I find that I don’t care about the characters (don’t even know who they are half of the time) and really don’t care about whatever it is that they are doing. And they often have mediocre writing and art!
So, I was pleasantly relieved when I finished this issue and enjoyed it. The story line is very much a carryover from Second Coming (both the regular series and the Hellbound tie-in) that shows the New Mutants taking some time off to depressurize and dissect what may or may not have gone wrong during Second Coming. I like how the X-creators are setting Cannonball up as Cyclops, Jr. and seeing him struggle with the responsibility and with the realization that being the leader is often lonely. And if he keeps kissing Dani, he’ll get hit with a sexual harassment complaint.
I also enjoyed the bad-guy set up for this issue. I have no clue if these are classic New Mutants rogues, but it is interesting see a group of bad-guys who have also spent years trapped in Limbo with Belasco. I’m eager to see more.
What’s Not So Good: I generally liked the art, but I still have trouble telling the New Mutants apart. Why aren’t those funny, Matt Fraction-style word balloons (e.g. “Cyclops: Leader, Blasts things with his eyeballs. Pissed at Logan.”) standard fare in a title like this? I guess I kinda of know who some of these characters are by name, but I forget their powers and I can’t be the only one since X-Men, Jr. titles keep getting canceled.
Conclusion: Good enough to keep picking it up! That’s a major accomplishment for me because I’ve soured on Baby X-Men titles many times in the past.
Grade: C+
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion