What’s CoveredNew
New Mutants Volume 2 # 1 - 12
Roster Watch
Synopsis
NM V2 # 1 - 6: Welcome to Mutant High
Writer - Nunzio DeFilippis
Pencils - Christina Weir, Keron Grant (1 - 4), Mark Robinson (5 - 6)
New Mutants vol. 2 #1 5/21/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Keron Grant
Dani picks up a young mutant girl, Sophia Mantega. Her mom died in Venezuela, so she came to America to live with her estranged, rich father.
The father doesn't treat her well, but she gets plenty of love and support from the family's butler, Derek.
She gets pissed off and uses her wind power until she gets arrested
This captures Professor Xavier's attention and Sophia becomes enrolled at the school.
Sophia is the primary POV character for issues # 1 - 6. While this first issue made it clear that we weren't getting a New Mutants team up series, I love the committment to getting to know these new characters. Sophia in particular has a troubled upbringing, but that gives her inner strength.
The wind powers are also very interesting. There is some overlap with Storm, but where Storm can only create wind (I think), Sophia can control it. Sophia's control of the wind also makes her seem like a telekenitec at times since she can move objects, including herself whenever she needs.
New Mutants vol. 2 #2 6/18/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Keron Grant
Sofia settles in
X makes Dani an offer but she doesn’t take it…yet
Dani as the reluctant teacher is such the right approach for this character. She's a natural leader, so it's no doubt that Professor Xavier and the students see this, but she is very tough on herself and isn't sure she's the role model they need. Perfect.
Dani has Sofia room with an isolated girl (Lauri Collins) who can’t control her pheromones. Sofia can push them away with wind.
This is another smart use of powers. We meet Lauri Collins who purposely isolates herself. She thinks that people only like her because of the pheromones she is releasing. This makes Sophia the perfect friend and roommate because she can use her wind powers to keep the pheromones from impacting her. This also allows Sophia to say "See, your pheromones aren't impacting me, yet I still like you."
It's also interesting that these are the same powers that Stacy X had. Not surprising that the X Office liked the idea of the power, but thought it would be better used on someone other than a prostitute.
New Mutants vol. 2 #3 7/16/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Keron Grant
Dani helps a boy (Kevin Ford) who has corrosive skin. Killed his own dad on accident.
X shows Dani that Magma (Allison) is in a coma. She was attacked by anti-mutant bigots.
Lauri Collins is into Kevin, however Kevin (much like Lauri) tries to stay away from people due to fear that he'll hurt someone.
New Mutants vol. 2 #4 9/4/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Keron Grant
Dani goes to recruit a boy (David Alleyne) who can pull facts from people’s heads
I often have mixed feelings about mutants with limited telepathy. Like both Dani and Shan have interesting power sets, but any old telepath could pull out someone's fears or control another person. In this case, David can do a bit more than a typical telepath by instantly learning what others know.
The boy goes to U of Chicago to learn more.
Shan (Karma) is a librarian there.
She mentions that she’s into dating Kitty, but Kitty’s not sure she swings that way
I don't recall if this is the first time that Shan is specifically identified as a lesbian, but it's another reminder that the comics code is no longer being followed so more can be done with sexual orientation. I also found this pretty interesting because Kitty and Shan became very close during the Mekanix Limited series, but this certainly wasn't directly mentioned. I know there is discussion in the modern meta about whether Kitty is bi, but at this point she is at least not interested in one female relationship.
David is attacked by Purity (anti mutant hate group), but Shan and Dani help
Shan agrees to go back to Xavier’s
New Mutants vol. 2 #5 10/1/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Mark Robinson
Donald Pierce is recruiting for a fight with the X-Men
He always shows up at the most random times. It's like someone is spinning a villain wheel and then he just gets picked out of the blue.
Dani, Shan, and the 4 teenage recruits (Sophia, David, Laurie, Kevin) head to NY
They fight Pierce and his cronies, but one of the reavers (Josh Foley) is a mutant healer. Laurie gets hurt but Josh saves her.
Kevin tries to kill Pierce with his corrosive hands but is stopped.
Josh is abandoned by the Reavers for helping the mutants and ends up coming back to the Institute.
New Mutants vol. 2 #6 10/29/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Mark Robinson
Kevin (Skin burner) leaves school, much to the dismay of Laurie Collins.
Shan agrees to teach at the school, and serve as the librarian
Dani decides to leave the school, until all of the kids say that they want Dani to be their advisor
NM V2 # 7 - 12: The Ties that Bind
Writer - Nunzio DeFilippis
Pencils - Christina Weir, Carlo Barberi (7 - 11), Khary Randolph (12)
New Mutants vol. 2 #7 11/12/2003 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Carlo Barberi
Josh, the former Reaver and healer, isn’t getting along with his peers
Shocker. David in particular (his roommate) is having a hard time forgiving him for being part of the Reavers.
Josh becomes friends with a boy named Julian who has telekinesis. Kind of a bully
Josh uses his healing powers on Magma
She wakes up, creates an explosion, and runs off
Josh’s parents leave custody to the school
New Mutants vol. 2 #8 2/11/2004 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Carlo Barberi, Khary Randolph
It’s parents week
Dani offends Shan by introducing her to a lesbian working at a coffee shop
David can’t go to Harvard while attending Xavier's
Sophia‘s dad comes, but only to try to get Derick to work for him again. This makes her very angry.
New Mutants vol. 2 #9 2/18/2004 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Carlo Barberi
Rahne shows up. No powers, but a badass look and no accent.
This is pretty cool, but we kind of already got this in New Mutants: Truth or Death. In that limited series, Rahne met her younger self while wearing makeup and perfume and was into boys.
Rahne takes Josh plus the other kids to go look for the homeless girl with electricity powers
New Mutants vol. 2 #10 3/17/2004 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Carlo Barberi
Laurie uses her pheromone powers to calm down Nori (Japanese electricity, mutant)
Josh and Rahne make out and she’s cured, now has powers again
Making out, making out!
Rahne accidentally attacks Josh
New Mutants vol. 2 #11 4/14/2004 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Carlo Barberi
Backstory for Rahne and Laurie.
This one was kind of weird because the entire issue was just back story for these two characters.
New Mutants vol. 2 #12 4/21/2004 Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir Khary Randolph
Nori wakes up Josh and he heals himself
Josh turns to Gold. He’s an omega level mutant who can control cells on a cellular level.
I just double checked and yes, Josh becomes Elixir, one of "The Five" of Krakoa fame. Cool.
My Connections and Creators
I really enjoyed New Mutants Volume 2. Getting to know this writing style and these characters has me looking forward to New X-Men Volume 2 (Academy X) when it kicks off in 2004, which will also be written by Nunzio DeFilippi and penciled by Christina Weir. (P.S. I only read 12 of the 13 issues so far. I started reading # 13 and everyone was dealing with the aftermath of a Magneto attack and still to this minute have no idea what that is about so I stopped suddenly until I understand what that's about.)
I will start by adding that I had a very different expectation for this comic at one point. Three years ago when I started this X-Men journey, I created a spreadsheet mapping out all of the series that I would be covering. I assumed at that point in time that New Mutants Volume 2 would be another team story composed of some iteration of Cannonball, Sunspot, Dani, Wolfsbane, Magik, Karma, and Magma. We did get Dani, Karma, and a little Wolfsbane and Magma. Cannonball is part of the X-Treme X-Men roster, Magik is dead, and Sunspot is running the LA X-Corp branch. But while I didn't get another team comic, we may have gotten something better.
New Mutants Volume 2 is really a tale of teenage drama at mutant high. It's a more modern take on what it's like to be a student at the Xavier Institute. While New Mutants Vol 1 attempted that, there were only a handful of mutants at the school and they mostly operated like typical super heroes. This comic takes the premise of their being hundreds of students at the Institute and shows what life would be like.
While I stated earlier that the roster was a negative, we get Dani as the central adult in the series and Nunzio DeFilippis absolutely nails her. This is important since Dani is still holding strong as my 10th favorite X character of all time. I had been happy to see her featured prominently in John Francis Moore's road trip run, but I didn't think she was as compelling in that series.