Dani Moonstar: Mirage Appreciation 2021

[rf2044]

Hey guys -- as previously mentioned, I've been going back and collecting stuff I missed from Dani's backstory. This post continues my retro-review, by focusing on the New Mutants volume 2 series. Obligatory spoiler alert warning below...



New Mutants - Volume 2 - issues #1-13


Date of publication:
July 2003 - June 2004


The Concept

This entire series was set in a kinder, gentler time before the Decimation. Professor X was alive, and the student population at the School for Gifted Youngsters had burgeoned to > 200. From a historical perspective, many [most?] of the original New Mutants were lying fallow, so volume 2 [which was basically the 20 year anniversary from when volume 1 was first published] may have been an attempt to make this group of characters relevant again.

Dani is the most figural of the original New Mutants in terms of being featured in the plot, followed by Xi'an [who comes in about partway through the series]. Rahne [initially depowered] makes an extended cameo, as does Amara. Roberto / Sam don't appear until the final issue, #13.

NewMutants-4.jpg

The Plot... at a high level

There's too much content to do a deep-dive summary, so I'll just touch on major plot lines:


-- The series kicks off with a mutant girl [Sofia Mantega, aka Windancer] being sent to Colorado to live with a wealthy, estranged dad who doesn't love her. After months of emotional neglect, she lashes out with her powers, destroys a store he owns, and is incarcerated

-- Colorado-native Dani is commissioned by Professor X to recruit Sofia, and convinces her father to let the girl come to Xavier's school

-- After this mission, Xavier pitches Dani on becoming a teacher at the school; Dani initially declines, but agrees to keep searching for "new mutants"

-- Outcast student Laurie Collins's [aka Wallflower] backstory gets revealed. She's so afraid of her pheromone powers, that she isolates herself from others at the school, who similarly shun her. Sofia is assigned to be her roommate, and pulls the girl out of her shell and gets her to begin interacting with the other students.

-- Dani is dispatched to Atlanta to seek out another mutant [Wither], and has to intervene to stop some junkmen from killing him after the boy inadvertently kills their dog with his life-draining mutant powers

-- Dani goes to Chicago to locate another mutant, David Alleyne [Prodigy], who coincidentally spends a lot of time reading books in a university library where Xi'an Coy Manh works! Dani and Xi'an reunite, and bring the boy back to Xavier's with his parents' blessing

-- Dani discovers that she and Xi'an aren't the only New Mutants at the school -- Amara [Magma] is there, but comatose and being kept under observation at the school's infirmary

-- Classic New Mutants antagonist Donald Pearce holds a recruitment rally for the anti-mutant Reavers. One of the attendees is Josh Foley [Elixir], who doesn't realize that he himself is a mutant. When Pearce injures him, Josh is shocked to discover that his injury heals within moments, and conceals this from the other Reavers

-- Dani is sent to New York City after Cerebra detects Josh's emerging powers. She's accompanied by Xi'an, Sofia, Laurie, and David. When Dani and Xi'an go to find Josh, unbeknownst to them they are tailed by the students, who end up in a fight with the Reavers. When Laurie is impaled in the fight by Pearce, Josh heals her with his powers to save her life

-- The Reavers now know that Josh is a mutant and reject him. When he returns home, his parents have found out and kick him out. With nowhere else to turn, he shows up at Xavier's school and asks to be admitted

-- Wither decides to leave school, but Dani talks him into staying

-- Josh and David get assigned to be roommates, but David doesn't like Josh because he was a Reaver. Josh starts hanging out with the "bad crowd" at Xavier's, including Anole, Rockslide, and others and getting into trouble for being disruptive

-- Many of the students select Dani to be their "advisor," which surprises her -- and induces her to take Xavier up on his offer to be a teacher at the school

-- Josh overhears Dani talking about Magma being comatose, and decides to try to help her to impress Dani. He and David sneak into the the medical wing, and Josh indeed heals Amara, only to have her go berserk, destroy the infirmary, and escape

-- Josh sends a letter to his estranged parents, inviting them to the school's open house. He's excited when they actually show up a few weeks later, but saddened when he overhears them abdicating parental control over Josh because they don't want a mutant for a son

-- When Josh and some of the bad crowd he's hanging with are playing frisbee in the school's front yard, they shoo away a homeless looking person who's asking to be let in. Turns out, the girl is a mutant [Surge], who later accidentally injures a worker at the coffee shop the students frequent in order to steal food / money

-- Dani and Emma Frost get into an argument about what's best for the new students, and Emma begins to manipulate some of them behind the scenes in an attempt to get them to switch advisors. Wither shifts over to Frost

-- Emma tells some of her advisees that Josh was a Reaver, so they turn on him and kick him out of their group. David starts being nicer to Josh, and Josh begins to hang with Dani's students

-- A depowered Rahne Sinclair shows up at the mansion. Having lost her powers, she's now a bit of a renegade biker girl, who goes out of her way to be reckless and irresponsible

-- Smitten by Rahne's beauty, Josh follows her to a bar, and tries to hit on her. Despite being older, Rahne kisses him.

-- Dani and the others hear about the coffee shop break in, and Josh realizes that it is the girl [Surge] he sent away from the school. They go to look for the girl, who's become a drug addict to control her electrical powers, and bring her back to the school. Beast designs some technology gauntlets that help the girl regulate her powers without the drugs, and she reluctantly joins the school

-- Dani and Rahne get into a big fight over her reckless behavior, and Rahne storms off. She's followed by Josh, who offers to heal Rahne -- he does, but turns Rahne into a rampaging wolf-creature who disembowels Josh

-- Josh is unconscious, and his healing powers aren't kicking in. As he begins to die, Surge jolts him with electricity to try to get him to wake up. It works, but in self-defense, Josh's powers somehow mutate him so that his skin is now gold

-- The final issue jumps ahead. Magneto has destroyed Xavier's school, and the New Mutants did not participate in the fight because they were trying to help protect the students and get them out of danger. Sam, Amara, and Roberto have returned, and are assisting. They get into a fight with Donald Pearce, who decides to use the commotion to pick off straggling mutants at the school. Recounting their original battle with Pearce from Marvel Graphic Novel #4 -- the New Mutants' first appearance -- the team works together and easily defeats him and the Reavers.

-- As the series ends, the original New Mutants reflect on how well they work together, and how they'll always be family. Sam offers Dani a spot on the X-Men, but she declines -- saying that she prefers being a teacher



The Good

For Dani fans, she was basically the main character [outside of the new students] throughout the series, so she got plenty of "air time."

The series also introduced a number of characters who would go on to be figural "next gen" heroes across the various X-books.

The covers for the majority of issues focuses on cool artwork for the original New Mutants. The covers often didn't have anything to do with the content of the issue, but they were pretty well done.

I don't think that the stories were "great," but I think that this series was historically important for propelling several of the New Mutants off of the trash heap and back into prominent usage.



The Bad

Donald Pearce being the "main" villain for the series was a nice throwback to the New Mutants's origin story, but a little cliche.

Because this series introduced a number of characters, some of the issues are pretty expensive if you want to collect them individually in hard copy format. Fortunately, there's also a far less expensive anthology version that consolidates all of the stories into one book [plus two semi-unrelated stories from X-Men Unlimited] into one book that costs about $25 bucks:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/13...ca6e65c195212d

There was a TON of focus on the new students Dani recruited, which bogged the story down at times and made those sections of the plot seem like a CW teen melodrama.

The series abruptly ended with issue #13, but then [from what I understand] transitioned swiftly into New X-Men - with most of the same characters, and Dani / Xi'an / Rahne operating as older, more mature faculty at Xavier's school.


The Ugly

There weren't too many real villains, or action between either the New Mutants or the new mutants Dani recruited fighting bad guys, outside of Donald Pearce.

Also, no Sam / Roberto until issue #13. Amara was marginally represented more, but was comatose and then missing for 95% of the entire volume 2.