New Mutants 30 Preview

[sunofdarkchild]

The signs are there that her real swan song was issue #28.

Then there are THREE fill-in writers,
1. Danny Lore - New Mutants #29
2. Alyssa Wong - New Mutants #30
3. Charlie Jane Anders - New Mutants #31 to #33

I won't be surprised if Alyssa Wong wrote most of this issue instead of Ayala.

I mean three fill-in writers is a sign that a new writer is coming in on Jan 2023.


Hopefully we can get a new writer that has the caliber of Zeb Wells or Chris Claremont.

Wong only wrote the Deadpool part, because that is leading into her Deadpool series, Vita wrote everything else.

I wish we could have gotten Claremont for the classic story, Simonson and Wells to write stories set in their runs, while Vita wrote the 'main' story set in modern day. Even a reprint of War Children or New Mutants #1 when they all failed their first Danger Room session would go a long way towards making this issue feel more like an appropriate celebration of New Mutants history.

[H-E-D]

The signs are there that her real swan song was issue #28.

Vita uses they/them pronouns.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Wong only wrote the Deadpool part, because that is leading into her Deadpool series, Vita wrote everything else.

I wish we could have gotten Claremont for the classic story, Simonson and Wells to write stories set in their runs, while Vita wrote the 'main' story set in modern day. Even a reprint of War Children or New Mutants #1 when they all failed their first Danger Room session would go a long way towards making this issue feel more like an appropriate celebration of New Mutants history.

They should have made history and paired Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld again

[Master of Sound]

They give us bad artist, lame stories and then whine that series with younger teams just do not sell well. Nope, if it is written well, if the artists are good, youngster book will always do well.

Sssso, got that off my chest.

[ericng]

They give us bad artist, lame stories and then whine that series with younger teams just do not sell well. Nope, if it is written well, if the artists are good, youngster book will always do well.

Totally agree with you.

New Mutants seems like not integrated with rest of the X-books for quite some time now.

They should really do something with the first batch of New Mutants like put each of them into one of the X-Men teams

Magik - X-Men
Bobby - X-Men Red

Aside from the two above, the rest do not really belong to any X-team.

[Triniking1234]

You look at that cover.
Then you open the book and wonder: "WDMC jus' happen? What is dis shit?"

Those were the exact same words that came out my mouth when I saw Dani Proudstar in the Sunspot story.

Also someone must have a worse memory than me cuz how in the name of Galactus' moon-sized balls does a writer even think that Karma and Shatterstar were buddies when she died her hair pink??? Dude probably didn't even know she had siblings.

[rcaguy]

Totally agree with you.

New Mutants seems like not integrated with rest of the X-books for quite some time now.

They should really do something with the first batch of New Mutants like put each of them into one of the X-Men teams

Magik - X-Men
Bobby - X-Men Red

Aside from the two above, the rest do not really belong to any X-team.

New Mutants was never really intergrated with rest of the X-books from the start. There were X-over stories like the New Mutant Special Edition but on the whole attempts like the Demon Bear or Magneto as Headmaster storylines tended to fizzle out or become utter messes like Inferno.

[Solitaryhawk]

Those were the exact same words that came out my mouth when I saw Dani Proudstar in the Sunspot story.

Also someone must have a worse memory than me cuz how in the name of Galactus' moon-sized balls does a writer even think that Karma and Shatterstar were buddies when she died her hair pink??? Dude probably didn't even know she had siblings.

Not gonna lie. I'm all here for the Shatterstar with the mutton chops sporting the ripped jeans and abs-showing-cropped hippie-hoodie look, but I haven't a clue when this exchange between Xi'an and him was supposed to have happened. He and Ric left for Mexico in X-Force issue 70 and Karma appeared in #75 sporting the pink hair and saying to the gang: “I needed a change. I found a doctor who thinks he can undo the damage Spiral inflicted upon my brother and sister. While they’re undergoing treatment, HE convinced me to try to reclaim my own life.” So, unless 'Star got a doctor's license in five issues, it's kind of funny that she would talk about some rando physician and not about a team-mate of the group she joined up with. What's more, by issue 76 'Star was battling for his life against Domino cuz' Mojo hired Arcade to kidnap him. WTF?

Continuity has sucked since the X relaunch and this is a prime example of that. I guess if the head honchos don't care, I'm going to stop caring, too and just roll with it. It'll save on my sanity down the line...

[BobbysWorld]

Honestly, I find at least one sizable continuity gaffe in pretty much every single arc in pretty much every single book anyway, so I don't really see it as a big deal unless its a gaffe that logically SHOULD change things in a major way. Like the kind of thing where logistically, there should be ripple effects that would alter the plots or circumstances of later stories if things had actually played out the way a later continuity mistake suggests it did, as opposed to how things actually played out.

And this simply isn't that sort of situation. Tbh I'm kinda surprised that this has gotten more focus than continuity gaffes that literally contradict or invalidate entire plot points, y'know? Like yeah, this pair of characters being friends at this particular moment in time doesn't really fit, but does it SHIFT the landscape of later stories in any meaningful way? I don't think so, but hey, YMMV.

Then again, I also tend to be a lot more lenient about continuity gaffes or retcons that are essentially revisionist takes on moments that COULDN'T originally play out the way modern writers have them play out now. What I mean by that is....there was never any chance of Karma's haircut playing out this way between Shatterstar and Karma at the time these events were originally written.....because there wasn't this common bond between them at the time. Shatterstar wouldn't be canonically written as LGBTQ+ until years later. At the time, there was no moment of queer solidarity between Karma and another LGBTQ+ mutant from the New Mutants/X-Force circles, and there couldn't be....because Karma was literally it.

And frankly, I don't think the fact that it took decades before comics progressed to the point where there were enough LGBTQ+ characters to even HAVE moments of solidarity, is like.....something that needs to be honored or respected. So if modern writers have to fudge logistics a bit, in order to create a window wherein two LGBTQ+ mutants could have a sweet moment of camaraderie set in the past, when they were both younger and more in need of a moment like this.....even if it means papering over the original stories, where a lack of progress made such a moment a literal impossibility....like, I'm actually A-Okay with that. After all, its not like this is REPLACING those original stories, or the first go-round when Karma got this haircut on her own - that story still very much exists, can be reread at any time. This basically just adds an alternative take on those events, one that 'updates' them in accordance with the spirit of the times, and thus shows what that story could have been, and could have meant for both these characters, if there'd been a larger pool of LGBTQ+ characters available to draw upon back then.

Like, singular characters have to do the work of trailblazing progressive representation. There's no getting around that, or the importance of those singular trailblazers. But the trailblazing work Karma did has already been done, still exists regardless of this story, and that kind of trailblazing is LONELY, even in the context of fictional characters. So I do think there's a place for stories that 'look back' on some of the lonelier eras of various trailblazing characters, and create opportunities for them to enjoy the same kind of solidarity and camaraderie that later characters enjoyed thanks to the trails they blazed to make such things possible.

Basically: its a nice, sweet moment that could never have been written this way back when this first happened, but now it can....so someone did. At the end of the day, it doesn't actually invalidate or erase anything, and its a stretch to think its likely to reframe either character's overall history in any sizable way.....so if past continuity had to be contradicted in order to make it possible for this story moment to exist, its like....so what, y'know? Continuity's been outright erased, ignored or invalidated to muuuuuuch bigger degrees, for far less worthwhile reasons, so I'm kinda like....oh well. I like what we see of this story so far, and this moment in time between Karma and Shatterstar - two characters who do have a lot in common but have spent both their histories on each other's periphery without ever really interacting and exploring those commonalities - so I'd rather have it at the expense of continuity than not have it because of an adherence to continuity.

(Especially given the reality that strict adherence to continuity just flat out isn't a priority for Marvel's writers and editors most of the time anyway, so I see no reason it should be here either. Like, I kinda whip out the side-eye when continuity's only raised as an issue in stories that ignore it to retroactively be more progressive, while at the same time continuity's treated as a non-issue when it comes to stories that ignore it solely so modern writers can make a plot point work or prop up a personal fave, etc).

Also, the same reasoning applies to Roberto being nicknamed Beto instead of Berto, IMO. Like....the former is simply a much likelier nickname for a Brazilian character. The only reason Berto ever caught on in the first place was because the English-speaking writers responsible for most of Sunspot's early decades of existence, like, just assumed that Berto was the likely shortening of Roberto. Not because there was some specific reason for him going with that nickname instead of the much more common Beto. So, some modern writers have decided to have characters use the nickname that a Brazilian guy named Roberto is actually more likely to use, because they don't see 'well this is the way its always been, even if its only always been that way due to assumptions and a lack of actual awareness about the region and culture the character hails from' as like....something that actually needs to be upheld.

*Shrugs* I'm with them there. The Beto vs Berto thing really doesn't need to be a big deal at all, it literally could just be as simple as 'writers used Berto when they didn't know there was any reason not to, and now that they know, writers use Beto'. The end. An expanded awareness or a more informed take on a character should not be something writers should be discouraged from, IMO. Nobody's losing anything by having Roberto use the nickname more likely to be used by Portuguese speakers instead of the one that only exists because English-speakers tried applying the rules and principles of English to a non-English originating name. I'd argue that it'd actually be weirder for writers to KNOW that Berto doesn't really make a ton of sense for a Brazilian character's nickname but still use it anyway 'because changing it at this point would'....do what, exactly?

But anyway, just my take on the nuances of retcons. As I said, YMMV.

[BroHomo]

They should have made history and paired Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld again

Duuude right!!

[sunofdarkchild]

Karma and Shatterstar's story is a level of continuity changes that we've long accepted. Dead Souls couldn't have happened since it explicitly takes place after the Impossible Man annual, which was after Kitty was put in a glass tube on Muir Island to keep her from dissipating into nothing from the Marauders attack, so it's impossible for her to be at the mansion then. The Danger Room story in this issue is impossible since there was never a point where these 4 characters were the only New Mutants at the mansion. They stayed at the spot where Karma 'died' until Roberto's mother came to take them on a vacation in Brazil, and they didn't return to the mansion until after Magma had joined them. Recent New Mutants issues have Cat walking on 2 legs and talking when in the original story she should be on all fours and explicitly could not talk during this period. These sorts of changes are commonplace.

I still question why this particular story is in this issue instead of many options which would better fit a celebration of New Mutants history, but the continuity change is minor in the grand scheme of things.

[Krakoa]

They give us bad artist, lame stories and then whine that series with younger teams just do not sell well. Nope, if it is written well, if the artists are good, youngster book will always do well.

Sssso, got that off my chest.

Good thing new mutants has Vita Ayala and Rod Reis then, who are a fantastic creative team.

[Krakoa]

Then again, I also tend to be a lot more lenient about continuity gaffes or retcons that are essentially revisionist takes on moments that COULDN'T originally play out the way modern writers have them play out now. What I mean by that is....there was never any chance of Karma's haircut playing out this way between Shatterstar and Karma at the time these events were originally written.....because there wasn't this common bond between them at the time. Shatterstar wouldn't be canonically written as LGBTQ+ until years later.

I actually think Shatterstar was pretty canonically LGBTQ at this point. Rictor was only subtext but in X-Force… 56? I wanna say? Siryn wondering if she has feelings for Warpath is explicitly compared to Shatterstar wondering if he’s more than friends with Rictor.

[Sutekh]

*Shrugs* I'm with them there. The Beto vs Berto thing really doesn't need to be a big deal at all, it literally could just be as simple as 'writers used Berto when they didn't know there was any reason not to, and now that they know, writers use Beto'. The end.

What amuses me about the whole 'Berto naming thing is that Sam often called him 'Bobby', which, in today's understanding, is a microaggression, to deliberately change someone's foreign name and Anglicize it to something that sounds 'more American.'

[CGAR]

They give us bad artist, lame stories and then whine that series with younger teams just do not sell well. Nope, if it is written well, if the artists are good, youngster book will always do well.

Sssso, got that off my chest.

Agreed. Imagine if we had a rebooted New X-Men title with Al Ewing and RB Silva or Mike Carey and Clay Mann or Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia. Just examples.

I guess they can still use the excuse that no one is wanting to write them but give them a good writer/artist combo and watch them prosper.