Marvel Comics
New Mutants #45 Review
By Andy Frisk
July 16, 2012 - 10:00

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Penciller(s): Leandro Fernandez
Colourist(s): Val Staples
Letterer(s): VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist(s): John Tyler Christopher
$2.99 US



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“Fear the Future” Part 2 of 3 opens with the Sam Guthrie/Cannonball and Shan Coy Manh/Karma of the future arriving in the New Mutants’ current time thus explaining the current Sam and Shan’s mysterious disappearance. It seems that they have travelled back in time to adjust an event that has dire consequences on their near future. Trying to strictly refrain from communicating with the current timestream’s New Mutants but failing, Sam reveals too much, and in turn causes too many ripples in the timestream that leads their future foe right to their doorstep. It’s a foe that none of the current New Mutants could have ever anticipated though…

Okay, so it sounds like the same old “Days of Future Past” rip off type of storyline, but it’s really the type of story that brings to mind the glory days of the original New Mutants series from back in the 1980s. You know…the time when there were only TWO X-books and each one was a treasure to be anticipated each month? The current New Mutants’ are a group mutant superhero young people trying to live side by side with their human counterparts as part of society in San Francisco instead of running a school, fighting the Avengers (at least in this issue) or acting like global mutant storm troopers (a la Cyclops’s team of X-Men). The New Mutants, as envisioned by Dan and Andy Lanning are living Xavier’s Dream. There’s not many mutants (outside of those running Jason Aaron’s Jean Grey School) who are actively promoting Xavier’s Dream. Losing The New Mutants as proponents of it will be a blow to the overall storytelling power of the X-Men franchise. New Mutants, at least recently, has been the runt of the litter of X-Books, but it’s been one of the best written out of a slew of really well written X-Books. I’m going to hate to see it go.

That’s how the comic book market works though. If the sales aren’t there, the book gets cancelled. In the case of New Mutants though, I can’t really figure out what is wrong with this book that causes readers to not to pick it up each month. The Lannings’ stories have been great, and current series artist Leandro Fernandez is great fit for the book and its stories. His style might be a little skimpy on the background details of each panel, but his anatomy, facial expressions, and kinetic fight choreography are top notch.

Warlock, Doug, Shan, Amara, Nate, Dani, and the rest of the crew will undoubtedly show up somewhere else, but the X-Books will be worse off due to the cancellation of its most unique X-Book. New Mutants will be missed.
  

Rating: 8/10

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