Twit Crit - Nuevos Mutantes

A certain Tibetan meditation master wrote that the enlightened warrior does not need to read comic books to entertain himself. If this is the case I think that I am doomed to while out my earthly days in a dross of ignorance and confusion. I spent yesterday afternoon at a teahouse with a graphic novel from the library and I cannot think of a more enjoyable pastime. What follows are my thoughts on a Marvel Comics subplot from the 1980's, and you are fairly warned, dear reader, that if you don't want to geek out in that direction, maybe try another post?

The New Mutants are the young superheros who moved into Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters after their elders the X-Men graduated (cf. DeGrassi: The New Class). I was introduced to the series about eight years ago by my friend Kiril, who loaned me his copy of the Inferno saga, a convoluted multi issue crossover between the two teams. With this book I spent a few afternoons huddled in my room in Cloyne Court Hotel, reading obsessively and occasionally thrusting my torso out the window for a breath of fresh air. Later on I bought some back issues from Revolution Comix on Davis St. in Evanston. The title ran from about '83 to '90, a timeframe that commends it to my heart, on which more below. By the time I started reading Marvel, around '91, most of the heroes of the Silver Age - Spider Man, X-Men, etc. - had long gotten a bit stilted, and so deadly serious, bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. The writers were aware of this and deliberately brought out a teenage x team to freshen up the atmosphere. Reading the book I get the sense of youth and exploration. The finest Marvel characters continue to be embalmed and entombed in copious piles of celluloid. The fact the there will never be a New Mutants movie makes the team more ephemeral and endearing.

The character on whom many of the book's stories hinge is Ilyana, sister of X Man Colossus, teleporter, demon sorceress. The typical plot involves a villain coercing Ilyana, ever striving to be pure and good, into falling in thrall to her bad witch nature and then terrorizing her teammates, until they regroup and find a way to subvert whatever malefactor is pulling her strings. Her captors tend to display her in lurid poses, for example, wearing xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The repetitive scenario reminds me of the game of vacillation from good girl to bad that Britney Spears ran on pop music when I was in University. For whatever reason I relate to the New Mutants exploration of the madonna-whore more than I do the Mickey Mouse Club starlet, but I acknowledge that they are of a piece.