Thoughts

Back to the New Mutants, and its striking that this issue really feels like the title has found a voice. It knows what it is. It is a teen drama set in a school, with occasional powers.

Now that we live in a post-Buffy world, this format would seem a no-brainer – but back then it really feels slightly odd to be reading a comic that frequently wants to tell stories on such a low level. It’s teen kids struggling with their life, and thats the drama. With occasionally flashes of super heroic excitement.

So influential has Claremont been that re-reading this now feels incredibly like reading a pitch for a new TV show. And yet, back then, its hard to see that could possibly have been on Claremont’s mind. It seems like this was seen as a direction to take a comic in, a direction that feels suprisingly novel.

Of course part of that novelty is that comics have unlimited special effects budgets, and so its interesting to see a title exercising restraint. To enjoy itself telling stories of folk chatting in kitchens, or crying the bedroom because they don’t fit in.

Conversely without the scope to adapt it to a TV show, it would be interesting to see how the title was doing sales-wise. There’s a big change coming soon which suggests to me that it didn’t quite land as well as Marvel wanted. So they tried something else. Which is a slight shame when you have an issue like this one where things do seem to be clicking.

Of course, this being the inter-connected Marvel universe, even a title playing at this low-level student melodrama can’t help but drop in whats happening elsewhere. In this case big pulp sci-fi Jekyll & Hyde corrupted drug serum hijnks. The issue itself is worth a read, not least because its a development that the title is going to return to. But its also nice to see Cloak and Dagger, a duo that are based on a great concept that has never quite had a great realisation.

There’s also a slightly Product of its time moment in the Annual where we are told in no uncertain terms that Cloak and Dagger are the same age as the kids in the new mutants. I know they are meant to be young – but making Dagger that young, especially given her outfit, it quite a choice. Nobody seems to have told the artists this fact, given she’s drawn as a (disco-inspired) sexy woman. Contrasting her presentation with the female New Mutants alongside her underlines perhaps how atypical the presentation of the new X-team is being.

Fun Panel

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

Honestly, I get increasingly perplexed about what exactly I am meant to think about Rahne and her extreme religious upbringing. One moment she can barely bring herself to talk out of fear for irreligious disrespect, the next she’s comfortably dancing around in a very non-presbytarian outfit.

A character challenging and questioning her extreme religious faith is an interesting take – but it probably is something that would require the character to have their own title. A title the character just doesn’t seem popular enough to justify. A mini series where she eventually found a way of reconciling her faith with her modern lifestyle. But this whole aspect of her character gets short-changed by making her just one of a team, where we drop in and out of her religious turmoil as an aside during the team’s plot.

Any Googling

As a non-American, Moxie is the stuff of minor legend. As a fan of old films, the phrase “they’ve got moxie” is known to me and its fascinating to find out the expression was based on a fizzy drink that emerged on the market before Coca Cola.

Both the classic vernacular and this appearance made me very keen to try and drink some moxie. According to the internet, the company still exists, having been bought out by Coca Cola in 2018. But its hard to now quite whether it still survives and is available. And if it is, it does seem to be limited to its historic stomping ground in New England.

Sadly it does not seem remotely possible – or economically feasible to ship the stuff over to try some. Maybe one day!

On the other hand, googling Groat Chips suggests a process that makes animal feed. I’ll passon trying those!