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Description
The New Mutants is a group of fictional teenaged mutant superheroes-in-training appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They have been the main characters of three successive comic book series, which were spin-offs of the X-Men franchise.

The first team of New Mutants characters was created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod. They first appeared in The New Mutants (September 1982), part of the line Marvel Graphic Novel, and are subsequently featured in their own title from 1983 until 1991. Like its parent title, The New Mutants highlighted interpersonal and group conflict as well as action and adventure, and featured a large ensemble cast. With the end of the first series, the characters were relaunched as X-Force in a new, eponymous series.

The second New Mutants series, launched in 2003, featured a new group of teenage mutants. Unlike the original New Mutants, they were part of a huge cast of students at the Xavier Institute. In 2004, it was relaunched as New X-Men: Academy X, after which the central group was formally dubbed the "New Mutants." In the aftermath of the "M-Day" crossover storyline in late 2005, the remaining students were merged into one junior team, the New X-Men.

The third New Mutants series, reuniting most of the original team, was launched in May 2009.

By the early 1980s, Uncanny X-Men (under the authorship of Chris Claremont) had become one of the comic book industry's most successful titles, prompting Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to launch The New Mutants, the first of several X-Men spin-offs. X-Men editor Louise Simonson recalled "Neither Chris [Claremont] or I really wanted to do it. We wanted X-Men to be special and by itself, but Shooter told us that if we didn't come up with a new 'mutant' book, someone else would." The name was a modification of Stan Lee's original name for the X-Men, "The Mutants".

The New Mutants were teenaged students of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and wore matching uniforms, much like the original X-Men, who had since grown into adulthood. These students, however, rather resembled the "all-new, all-different X-Men" of their era in terms of ethnic diversity.

The original team consisted of:

Cannonball (Samuel Guthrie), a 16-year-old from Kentucky, United States and eventual co-leader, with the ability to generate thermo-chemical energy and propel himself through the air.
Karma (Xi'an Coy Manh), a 19-year-old girl from Vietnam and the team's original leader, who could mentally possess other people's bodies.
Mirage (Danielle Moonstar, originally codenamed Psyche), a girl who is a Cheyenne Native American and eventual co-leader after Karma's apparent death, who could create visual empathic three-dimensional illusions.
Sunspot (Roberto da Costa), a 14-year-old from Brazil who had superhuman strength fueled by sunlight and could store solar energy in his body to use his super strength.
Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), a 13-year-old religious girl from Scotland, United Kingdom who could transform into a wolf and a werewolf-like creature.
The team was intended to debut in their own series. However, as the first issue was nearing completion, Shooter ordered it to be reworked into a graphic novel so that Marvel Graphic Novel could make its deadline for the next issue. Thus, the New Mutants debuted in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (December 1982), which continued a plotline from Uncanny X-Men. (Despite this, the graphic novel missed its shipping slot by two weeks due to artist Bob McLeod's honeymoon.)

The series was originally written by Claremont and illustrated by McLeod, the team's co-creators, but McLeod soon passed artistic duties on to Sal Buscema. McLeod was unprepared for the demands of doing both pencils and inks on a monthly book, prompting him to have Buscema do the breakdowns after the first three issues, and left entirely after issue #8 when he began to lose interest in the stories. Claremont gave the series a darker tone, which was heightened with the arrival of artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Sienkiewicz's avant garde art style and painted covers broke through the conventional comic book boundaries of the day and helped The New Mutants stand out on the shelf.

In addition to very serious depictions of teenage angst and growing pains, the series featured themes of mysticism. The stories also relied on wilder, more far-fetched premises than were typical of X-Men at the time, shaping into more of a science fiction and fantasy series than the superhero coming-of-age comic it had been touted as in its early days. Locales included demonic dimensions, alternate futures, and an ancient Roman civilization hidden within the Amazon rainforest. The New Mutants also encountered a secret society called the Hellfire Club, and began a rivalry with their young apprentices, the Hellions.

After the apparent death of Karma, Cannonball and Dani Moonstar act as co-leaders. New recruits included:

Cypher (Douglas Ramsey), an otherwise ordinary young man who could learn to read or speak any language rapidly, whether it was human, alien, or machine, making him an unmatched computer expert.
Magik (Illyana Rasputin), sister of the Russian X-Man Colossus and long-time resident of the X-Mansion, an accomplished mystic who could open "teleportation discs" allowing travel to Limbo and from there, any point on Earth.
Magma (Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla), a fiercely tempered native of a secret Roman society in the Amazon who can control lava.
Warlock, an extraterrestrial of the techno-organic race known as the Technarchy. Considered a pariah due to the uncommon trait of empathy.
A supplementary New Mutants Annual series began in 1984. These annuals were always written by whoever was the regular New Mutants writer at the time and often included significant changes to the status quo which were not explained in the parent series so that readers would have to buy New Mutants Annual in order to follow events in both series.1985 annual was solicited as New Mutants Annual #2, but published as New Mutants Special Edition #1 because it exceeded the maximum page count for an annual.

In 1986, Professor X was written out of the series. Before he left, he made the X-Men's one-time nemesis, Magneto, headmaster of his school. Magneto would be the team's longest-running headmaster, holding the position from New Mutants #35 through to #75. Fiercely overprotective of his students, particularly after the events of the "Mutant Massacre" and "Fall of the Mutants", he was increasingly used as an uptight foil for the adventurous New Mutants, setting rules that they would inevitably break in the interests of helping their friends.

With Claremont taking on Wolverine and Excalibur, he left The New Mutants and the series was turned over to writer Louise Simonson and illustrator Bret Blevins with issue #55 (Sept. 1987). Simonson was intended to be only a fill-in writer for the six months Claremont needed to get the two new series launched, but he ultimately remained with his new projects, and Simonson ended up writing the series for over three years. During her run, Magma is written out of the book, and Magik is de-aged back to childhood. Due to his unpopularity with New Mutants readers and artists, Cypher is killed off in The New Mutants #60 (February 1988). Simonson recalled, "He wasn't fun to draw. He just stood around and hid behind a tree during a fight... Every artist who ever did him said 'Can't we kill this guy?' We would get letters from fans about how much they hated him." Simonson also folded the X-Terminators, a group of young wards from X-Factor, into the New Mutants.

The X-Terminators added to the team were:

Boom-Boom (Tabitha Smith), a teen runaway who could create "plasma bombs."
Firefist (Rusty Collins), a pyrokinetic wanted by the U.S. government.
Rictor (Julio Richter), a young Mexican who could create shock waves.
Skids (Sally Blevins), a former Morlock who could project a frictionless force field around her body.
In 1989, Simonson crafted a saga in which the team journeyed to Asgard, the home of the gods of Norse mythology. The storyline wrote Dani Moonstar out of the series, as she joined the Norse pantheon as one of the Valkyrior. However, the most controversial issue of her run was New Mutants #64. Titled "Instant Replay!", the story deals with the New Mutants' mourning for Cypher, and includes a scene in which Warlock attempts to resurrect Cypher by taking his corpse out of its coffin and showing it to Cypher's loved ones. Simonson holds it to be her favorite New Mutants story, though she acknowledges that many readers found it too morbid.

Sales of the series had slumped for several years, but took a sharp upturn after Rob Liefeld took over the penciling and co-plotting chores at the end of 1989. A new mentor for the group, the mysterious mercenary Cable, was introduced, further helping sales. Over the next year, several longtime team members were written out or killed off. However, the relationship between Liefeld and Simonson was fraught with tension, and Simonson claims that editor Bob Harras dealt with the situation by rewriting her plots and dialogue so that the characterizations did not make sense: "Although I wasn't being fired, I think I was being shoved out the door with both hands by Bob Harras. Bob was only doing what he had to do, I expect, which was make Rob Liefeld happy." Simonson eventually gave in, leaving after issue #97. When Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, who wrote dialogue based on Liefeld's plots, took over as writers of the final three issues of the series, they included several harder-edged characters:

"Domino" (Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle), Cable's pale-skinned, black-garbed mercenary lover. Actually Copycat, impersonating Domino.
Feral (Maria Callasantos), who possessed a bestial temperament and appearance.
Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven), a swashbuckling warrior from another dimension.
Warpath (James Proudstar), the younger brother of slain X-Man Thunderbird and a former Hellion, an Apache who possessed super strength and speed.
The New Mutants was cancelled in 1991 with issue #100, but the new platoon-like team formed by Cable continued in X-Force, a successful series (whose first issue sold approximately one million copies)[citation needed] that would continue until 2002, and feature a variety of the former New Mutants cast.

Description
The New Mutants is a group of fictional teenaged mutant superheroes-in-training appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They have been the main characters of three successive comic book series, which were spin-offs of the X-Men franchise.

The first team of New Mutants characters was created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod. They first appeared in The New Mutants (September 1982), part of the line Marvel Graphic Novel, and are subsequently featured in their own title from 1983 until 1991. Like its parent title, The New Mutants highlighted interpersonal and group conflict as well as action and adventure, and featured a large ensemble cast. With the end of the first series, the characters were relaunched as X-Force in a new, eponymous series.

The second New Mutants series, launched in 2003, featured a new group of teenage mutants. Unlike the original New Mutants, they were part of a huge cast of students at the Xavier Institute. In 2004, it was relaunched as New X-Men: Academy X, after which the central group was formally dubbed the "New Mutants." In the aftermath of the "M-Day" crossover storyline in late 2005, the remaining students were merged into one junior team, the New X-Men.

The third New Mutants series, reuniting most of the original team, was launched in May 2009.

By the early 1980s, Uncanny X-Men (under the authorship of Chris Claremont) had become one of the comic book industry's most successful titles, prompting Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to launch The New Mutants, the first of several X-Men spin-offs. X-Men editor Louise Simonson recalled "Neither Chris [Claremont] or I really wanted to do it. We wanted X-Men to be special and by itself, but Shooter told us that if we didn't come up with a new 'mutant' book, someone else would." The name was a modification of Stan Lee's original name for the X-Men, "The Mutants".

The New Mutants were teenaged students of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and wore matching uniforms, much like the original X-Men, who had since grown into adulthood. These students, however, rather resembled the "all-new, all-different X-Men" of their era in terms of ethnic diversity.

The original team consisted of:

Cannonball (Samuel Guthrie), a 16-year-old from Kentucky, United States and eventual co-leader, with the ability to generate thermo-chemical energy and propel himself through the air.
Karma (Xi'an Coy Manh), a 19-year-old girl from Vietnam and the team's original leader, who could mentally possess other people's bodies.
Mirage (Danielle Moonstar, originally codenamed Psyche), a girl who is a Cheyenne Native American and eventual co-leader after Karma's apparent death, who could create visual empathic three-dimensional illusions.
Sunspot (Roberto da Costa), a 14-year-old from Brazil who had superhuman strength fueled by sunlight and could store solar energy in his body to use his super strength.
Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), a 13-year-old religious girl from Scotland, United Kingdom who could transform into a wolf and a werewolf-like creature.
The team was intended to debut in their own series. However, as the first issue was nearing completion, Shooter ordered it to be reworked into a graphic novel so that Marvel Graphic Novel could make its deadline for the next issue. Thus, the New Mutants debuted in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (December 1982), which continued a plotline from Uncanny X-Men. (Despite this, the graphic novel missed its shipping slot by two weeks due to artist Bob McLeod's honeymoon.)

The series was originally written by Claremont and illustrated by McLeod, the team's co-creators, but McLeod soon passed artistic duties on to Sal Buscema. McLeod was unprepared for the demands of doing both pencils and inks on a monthly book, prompting him to have Buscema do the breakdowns after the first three issues, and left entirely after issue #8 when he began to lose interest in the stories. Claremont gave the series a darker tone, which was heightened with the arrival of artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Sienkiewicz's avant garde art style and painted covers broke through the conventional comic book boundaries of the day and helped The New Mutants stand out on the shelf.

In addition to very serious depictions of teenage angst and growing pains, the series featured themes of mysticism. The stories also relied on wilder, more far-fetched premises than were typical of X-Men at the time, shaping into more of a science fiction and fantasy series than the superhero coming-of-age comic it had been touted as in its early days. Locales included demonic dimensions, alternate futures, and an ancient Roman civilization hidden within the Amazon rainforest. The New Mutants also encountered a secret society called the Hellfire Club, and began a rivalry with their young apprentices, the Hellions.

After the apparent death of Karma, Cannonball and Dani Moonstar act as co-leaders. New recruits included:

Cypher (Douglas Ramsey), an otherwise ordinary young man who could learn to read or speak any language rapidly, whether it was human, alien, or machine, making him an unmatched computer expert.
Magik (Illyana Rasputin), sister of the Russian X-Man Colossus and long-time resident of the X-Mansion, an accomplished mystic who could open "teleportation discs" allowing travel to Limbo and from there, any point on Earth.
Magma (Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla), a fiercely tempered native of a secret Roman society in the Amazon who can control lava.
Warlock, an extraterrestrial of the techno-organic race known as the Technarchy. Considered a pariah due to the uncommon trait of empathy.
A supplementary New Mutants Annual series began in 1984. These annuals were always written by whoever was the regular New Mutants writer at the time and often included significant changes to the status quo which were not explained in the parent series so that readers would have to buy New Mutants Annual in order to follow events in both series.1985 annual was solicited as New Mutants Annual #2, but published as New Mutants Special Edition #1 because it exceeded the maximum page count for an annual.

In 1986, Professor X was written out of the series. Before he left, he made the X-Men's one-time nemesis, Magneto, headmaster of his school. Magneto would be the team's longest-running headmaster, holding the position from New Mutants #35 through to #75. Fiercely overprotective of his students, particularly after the events of the "Mutant Massacre" and "Fall of the Mutants", he was increasingly used as an uptight foil for the adventurous New Mutants, setting rules that they would inevitably break in the interests of helping their friends.

With Claremont taking on Wolverine and Excalibur, he left The New Mutants and the series was turned over to writer Louise Simonson and illustrator Bret Blevins with issue #55 (Sept. 1987). Simonson was intended to be only a fill-in writer for the six months Claremont needed to get the two new series launched, but he ultimately remained with his new projects, and Simonson ended up writing the series for over three years. During her run, Magma is written out of the book, and Magik is de-aged back to childhood. Due to his unpopularity with New Mutants readers and artists, Cypher is killed off in The New Mutants #60 (February 1988). Simonson recalled, "He wasn't fun to draw. He just stood around and hid behind a tree during a fight... Every artist who ever did him said 'Can't we kill this guy?' We would get letters from fans about how much they hated him." Simonson also folded the X-Terminators, a group of young wards from X-Factor, into the New Mutants.

The X-Terminators added to the team were:

Boom-Boom (Tabitha Smith), a teen runaway who could create "plasma bombs."
Firefist (Rusty Collins), a pyrokinetic wanted by the U.S. government.
Rictor (Julio Richter), a young Mexican who could create shock waves.
Skids (Sally Blevins), a former Morlock who could project a frictionless force field around her body.
In 1989, Simonson crafted a saga in which the team journeyed to Asgard, the home of the gods of Norse mythology. The storyline wrote Dani Moonstar out of the series, as she joined the Norse pantheon as one of the Valkyrior. However, the most controversial issue of her run was New Mutants #64. Titled "Instant Replay!", the story deals with the New Mutants' mourning for Cypher, and includes a scene in which Warlock attempts to resurrect Cypher by taking his corpse out of its coffin and showing it to Cypher's loved ones. Simonson holds it to be her favorite New Mutants story, though she acknowledges that many readers found it too morbid.

Sales of the series had slumped for several years, but took a sharp upturn after Rob Liefeld took over the penciling and co-plotting chores at the end of 1989. A new mentor for the group, the mysterious mercenary Cable, was introduced, further helping sales. Over the next year, several longtime team members were written out or killed off. However, the relationship between Liefeld and Simonson was fraught with tension, and Simonson claims that editor Bob Harras dealt with the situation by rewriting her plots and dialogue so that the characterizations did not make sense: "Although I wasn't being fired, I think I was being shoved out the door with both hands by Bob Harras. Bob was only doing what he had to do, I expect, which was make Rob Liefeld happy." Simonson eventually gave in, leaving after issue #97. When Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, who wrote dialogue based on Liefeld's plots, took over as writers of the final three issues of the series, they included several harder-edged characters:

"Domino" (Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle), Cable's pale-skinned, black-garbed mercenary lover. Actually Copycat, impersonating Domino.
Feral (Maria Callasantos), who possessed a bestial temperament and appearance.
Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven), a swashbuckling warrior from another dimension.
Warpath (James Proudstar), the younger brother of slain X-Man Thunderbird and a former Hellion, an Apache who possessed super strength and speed.
The New Mutants was cancelled in 1991 with issue #100, but the new platoon-like team formed by Cable continued in X-Force, a successful series (whose first issue sold approximately one million copies)[citation needed] that would continue until 2002, and feature a variety of the former New Mutants cast.