Watched: 06/09/2021
Format: HBOmax
Viewing: First
Decade: 2020's
So, way, way back when in the long ago of the mid-80's, I picked up either my first New Mutants comic, or one of my first New Mutants comics, during the "Mutant Massacre" storyline that wove between the X-Titles and a few other comics. Seeing a bunch of high school kids who were sneaking out and getting involved in the cataclysmic events of the storyline - and absolutely shook by what they saw - absolutely registered with me.
I was a bit of a New Mutants fan for a few years, but (a) always knew I'd missed the truly weird beginning of the comic series of the actual students at Xavier's Academy, and (b) I became irritated enough with where the comic went post-Claremont that, at some point I wrote my first letter I intended to send in. However, rather than send in something that was just a list of grievances, I decided "maybe I can just stop reading the comic instead", and did. I was long gone by that final, Liefeld-fueled phase.
But I genuinely liked those characters, so I didn't want to give up on them when I did. The New Mutants in the 80's were written as high school kids going through a very weird path to adulthood, but still very much teens. They didn't have things sorted out, they behaved often like teenagers with petty outbursts, and generally had their own soap opera going on from month to month as they sorted through psychic powers, the death of a friend, and living in the shadow of the X-Men. But, yeah, they dated, had a rival school they clashed with, and had complicated relationships with their families.
I've since read a collection of the issues that comprised The Demon Bear Saga from which the movie borrows, and it's some pretty good stuff. Recommended.
I'm not sure what to make of the movie of The New Mutants (2020).
