New X-Men 2.0: Stuck In Detention

[The Dying Detective]

NXM continues to be my favorite X-Men run but it has its flaws. Icarus was clearly seen as an expendable character by K/Y and handled as such. He went from being a pretty levelheaded guy in Academy to being totally off his rocker in NXM.

I wonder whether it had something to do with Icarus being the creation of reviled X-Men writer Chuck Austen. If i could redo Academy X Sofia would never have left or lost her powers. Wallflower would be alive and Decimation would never have happened.

[Havok83]

I resented the NXM run bc they largely got rid of the New Mutants in favor of the Hellions

[The Dying Detective]

I resented the NXM run bc they largely got rid of the New Mutants in favor of the Hellions

Only a few New Mutants remained Prodigy, Surge, and Elixir but when you make Emma Frost an instructor this should not be surprising.

[The Big G]

Not that its much of a surprise but I always thought collectively the Hellions were more interesting than the NM (save for Tag sorry Brian)

[The Dying Detective]

Not that its much of a surprise but I always thought collectively the Hellions were more interesting than the NM (save for Tag sorry Brian)

The New Mutants are interesting in their own right too bad some of the other interesting member like Sofia and Laurie got written out in the saddest way possible.

[lurkerforyears]

why create so many characters if you are going to kill so many of them too? and was killing them always a part of the plan?

[akiresu_]

The New Mutants were better protagonists for the kind of story Weir/Defilipis were trying to tell. They had problems meshing as a unit, they had powers that related to the angst-y teen dramas their stories dealt with (Wind Dancer and Wallflower's friendship being based on the former being able to negate the latter's powers), whereas (most of) the Hellions fit the KYost approach to the story better. It doesn't mean that either group is more interesting than the other, more about what those characters could do for the story.

I think it really is that simple.

[The Dying Detective]

why create so many characters if you are going to kill so many of them too? and was killing them always a part of the plan?

I think it stems more from lack of confidence to give roles and personality to so many characters.

[Anduinel]

why create so many characters if you are going to kill so many of them too? and was killing them always a part of the plan?

It wasn't. The New Mutants version of the title was created for Marvel's kid-friendly Tsunami line back under Jemas. Weir and DeFillipis had to keep the stories strictly PG, anything more hard-hitting got nerfed. (This was, by accounts of the time, an era when there was a LOT of editorial interference.) IIRC, things loosened up a little with Revolution and the transition to the New X-Men title, but the book mandate was still very much self-contained teen drama. Plus the writers had to contend with editorial using the book as a dumping ground for teen characters created by other writers and other writers taking characters they were using. Then M-Day comes down the pike, and suddenly editorial switches gears -- the book is too safe, the cast is too bloated, we're going in a different direction. So Kyle and Yost are brought in, and are given pretty much free reign for how they want to cut down the number of students. They chose the bus.

[akiresu_]

It wasn't. The New Mutants version of the title was created for Marvel's kid-friendly Tsunami line back under Jemas. Weir and DeFillipis had to keep the stories strictly PG, anything more hard-hitting got nerfed. (This was, by accounts of the time, an era when there was a LOT of editorial interference.) IIRC, things loosened up a little with Revolution and the transition to the New X-Men title, but the book mandate was still very much self-contained teen drama. Plus the writers had to contend with editorial using the book as a dumping ground for teen characters created by other writers and other writers taking characters they were using. Then M-Day comes down the pike, and suddenly editorial switches gears -- the book is too safe, the cast is too bloated, we're going in a different direction. So Kyle and Yost are brought in, and are given pretty much free reign for how they want to cut down the number of students. They chose the bus.

I know it's much maligned, but hearing about the bus is what lead me to finding out about this series. Bold, meaningful and undeniably hateful, it really felt like the kind of thing that would happen to a mutant school.

I didn't mention but my BTS tpb came too and i'm so excited to read through it all again. Sadly I still have a lot of dissertation work to burn through before I get the chance to read it

[Fokken]

Not that its much of a surprise but I always thought collectively the Hellions were more interesting than the NM (save for Tag sorry Brian)

Trouble makers (I mean, if one were to identify our beloved Hellions as such) tend to be more entertaining. I loved seeing the two teams interact and play off one another, so their co-mingling was, imho, a very welcome and exciting dynamic shift.

[Beaubier]

The bus, the impact it had, and the raised stakes of Decimation are part of what made NXM a compelling run. I wouldn’t remove those aspects.

[Fokken]

The bus, the impact it had, and the raised stakes of Decimation are part of what made NXM a compelling run. I wouldn’t remove those aspects.

I have to agree.

[Anduinel]

I know it's much maligned, but hearing about the bus is what lead me to finding out about this series. Bold, meaningful and undeniably hateful, it really felt like the kind of thing that would happen to a mutant school.

I'm not a fan of the bus, but the part that actually gets under my skin is how the writers who lunched the book got hobbled by other people's choices, then turfed off the book for doing what they were told to in the first place. They're capable of much better work than they were allowed to show.

[The Dying Detective]

The bus, the impact it had, and the raised stakes of Decimation are part of what made NXM a compelling run. I wouldn’t remove those aspects.

Yeah but too bad Icarus was used as a tool to to force it to happen. Still I think some were fine with Icarus being dead since he is Chuck Austen's creation.