Dani Moonstar: Mirage Appreciation 2021

[rf2044]

I feel like volume 1 of New Mutants was lightning striking twice back then. It mirrored the "All New X-Men" (Giant Size X-Men/X-Men #94), by giving us a diverse group.

The group dynamics were incredible. Their powers were unique and different (well, other than Rahne, which is your standard "werewolf like powers" in terms of shifting from human to wolf/vice versa).

They showed their inexperience and still always managed to overcome.

They fought everything from Sentinels, to a guy named Axe... with an axe, to Selene in Nova Roma...

All of these stories were just so incredible.

And Dani, standing up for herself, was a large part of that. She always felt like the leader to me, even back then.

Though it was clear, it felt like they were shooting for Cannonball to be the leader.

Agree 100%. The New Mutants were interesting on so many levels back then because they were so... imperfect. Some of them didn't have powers that were all that useful in combat. They struggled with self-doubt and had normal teenaged problems, like Spider Man, that made them seem more "realistic." Dani was even deathly afraid of doing a Danger Room training session in the first issue, because she was so terrified about not having a handle on her abilities.

And unlike the X-Men, while this new team had cool powers, almost all of them had tangible limitations. For example, Sam could fly but couldn't turn. Sunspot was strong, but he had no superhuman durability [meaning that he could be knocked out by a single normal punch, or killed by a superhuman one] and his solar reserves burned out quickly when he used his powers. Dani couldn't control her powers at all, and mistrusted everyone. Xi'an could control people, but had to concentrate so much to do so that she was extremely "vulnerable" when using her powers. Rahne had cool werewolf-esque powers, but was ashamed of her abilities due to her devout religious upbringing. Talk about dichotomies!

And I strongly believe that it was their limitations, insecurities, and difficulties being comfortable in their own skins and with each other that made the New Mutants characters so relatable when I was a kid. Or, at least as "relatable" as fictional comic book super-powered characters can be.

* * *

Writing my own response to the "question of the week," something occurred to me that I hadn't realized before: the timeframe when I began collecting comics was just when the New Mutants volume 1 series began. I was only off by like a month or two, and collected New Mutants from the very beginning. In a sense, the NM's have been a figural part of my comics experience, right from the jump.

Of course, I also was collecting Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. -- all established books that were nearly all 200 issues into their run, but it is kind of coincidental to begin collecting right when a new series kicks off. All these years later I'm still a huge fan of the New Mutants team / characters. That's pretty cool.