![]() First, he had Reed and Sue decide they finally needed to focus on bringing up their son Franklin, leading to the decision to quit the team and leaving Ben Grimm in charge. Instead, he came up with a new Fantastic Four.Īn issue or two after he took over, Englehart set things in motion. All this made writing FF a daunting proposition to say the least, so incoming writer Steve Englehart simply decided he wasn't going to do that. Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben had enjoyed tremendous success in that period, most notably thanks to John Byrne's staggering six year run in the early 1980s that revitalized the concept. They may have been called X-Babies, but New Mutants helped mature the X-universe.Ħ) - New Fantastic Four (debut: Fantastic Four I#308, November 1987)īy 1987, the Fantastic Four had been around for over 25 years. For a short, blessed time New Mutants and Uncanny X-Men read like one continuous story, with the two casts sharing the school and interacting as they went about their ways. So, even though the New Mutants rarely spoke like the hip and happening teens they were supposed to be, the trademark Claremontian soap opera type of storytelling was a wonderful match for all the obvious angst, heartbreak and insecurities any teenager has to deal with. Every single one of them a teen with incredible powers and attitudes to match.Ĭhris Claremont was already in his early thirties when he started the book. The appropriately diverse, international new class consisted of Mirage, Wolfsbane, Karma, Cannonball and Sunspot, soon joined by Magma and Magik. When the X-Men were lost in space for an extended period fighting the Brood, the professor (himself secretly carrying a Brood embryo) slowly started assembling a band of young mutants to help guide to adulthood. In other words, professor Xavier felt like he was spinning his wheels even more so than usual. Even 13 year old recruit Kitty Pryde didn't seem in any desperate need or assistance in using her powers. Except for Cyclops, all of Xavier's first class had moved on and the current crop of X-Men were experienced and significantly older. Almost twenty years later, very little of that original premise remained. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the X-Men back in 1963, the book was about young teens trying to master their mysterious mutant powers, under the watchful eye of their teacher Charles Xavier. ![]() ![]() Next to Brigman's clear, inviting art, the main appeal of the book was the fact Simonson was able to make it accessible and enjoyable for all ages (the kids even had their own Inferno crossover!), without talking down to the readership or make a teen feel embarrassed for buying Marvel's first ever mainstream children's comic.ħ) - New Mutants (debut: Marvel Graphic Novel I#4, December 1982) Joined by the aforementioned alien Khoffi and even Franklin Richards at times, the Power Pack battled evil, bickered amongst themselves and tried not to burden their parents with their alternate identities. Their powers were derived from Albert Einstein's E = MC2 (Energy, Mass, Speed of Light) equation, with gravity added to the mix. Simonson, hailing from a family of four herself, partly based the children on popular kids' fiction she read when she was young, which always seemed to feature a foursome as well. Together with artist June Brigman, she came up with the four siblings Jack, Julie, Alex and Kate who after encountering the alien Khoffi gained wondrous powers which they sorely needed to fight such menaces as the Snarks and the Bogey Man. Well, actually, the long serving editor on both Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants had been workshopping the idea for a series featuring children with powers for quite some time until editor in chief Jim Shooter gave "Weezie" the go ahead. It was 1984 and Louise Simonson just had an idea.
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