Here’s my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Secret Wars II. You sucked…but you featured the The New Mutants. It was fascination at first sight. Before Secret Wars, I was a collector of British comics, Get Along Gang and Masters of the Universe comics. I feel it was with The New Mutants that I graduated. Who was this small band of kids that the Beyonder used to take on the whole Marvel Universe. A few years later I picked up the X-Men: New Mutants graphic novel and the first issue of the X-Men: Mutant Massacre arc and was instantly hooked.
The Rise
Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Karma, Psyche and Sunspot were the original team, but it was only after Magma, Cypher Magik and Self-friend Warlock had appeared that I had started reading so there was a lot to catch up on in between that first New Mutants graphic novel and the issue I had picked up. I lapped up everything I could, the Demon bear and Nova Roma sagas, the wonderful, wonderful Legion, and the Hellions. I loved the New Mutants. I loved the youthful natures of the characters. I was in the same age group as most of them and just loved (and was a bit jealous) that they got into the adventures they did. These were my New Mutants. I particularly liked Cannonball, Psyche, Cypher, Warlock and Magik. I was rapt by everything they did.
