Wednesday, October 2, 2019

New Comic Reviews: D&D-A Darkened Wish and The New Mutants-War Children



D&D-A Darkened Wish
I’ll sum this up in one word: gay. 

Interpret that as you will.  I’m sure the writer would say, “Why, thank you.”  Really, they should have warning labels on comics, not for age, but rather sensibilities.  Let us say, het-pale-male was not the target audience for this comic.  I love the cover, but even though it’s by the same artist, the artwork inside isn’t anywhere near as appealing.  As for the story, I got no idea what’s going on.  It didn’t make any sense, and I suspect reading issue #1 would not have helped.       
  

Check out all of these other (hopeful better) comics that IDW is publishing.  I see G.I. Joe, Star Wars, Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Disney characters, Batman, and Marvel characters.  I’m guessing the Marvel comics are kids versions of various superheroes.  Clearly, nobody working at Marvel would be capable of making a comic for kids or even human beings at this point.  There was an ad in the back for a Godzilla comic.  IDW apparently wants as many licensed properties as they can get.  If only there was a better, more accessible, venue than comic book stores for these kind of comics.  Not the one I bought, of course.  This comic should be kept in the darkest corner of the most obscure shops. 

Regardless, I only bought this comic as a throw-in extra.  The below comic was what I was there for.   

   

The New Mutants-War Children

I thought this was a facsimile edition of an 80’s New Mutants comic that I didn’t recognize.  I certainly recognized the names on it: writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz (hereto after referred to as just Bill).  As soon as I saw that combination of title and creators listed for this week’s releases, I hopped right down to Zia Comics for it.  I, rather embarrassingly, didn’t notice on my first flip through that it was, in fact, a new comic book.  I had to look twice to figure that out.  Suddenly, I was even more excited.  This was a brand new adventure with the New Mutants.
  
Why was I excited?  I didn’t have a good introduction to the junior team of X-Men.  This group has always suffered from the poor team name.  Not to mention, they have a poor origin.  This group was recruited by a Brood-infected Xavier for the purpose of being super-powered hosts for the alien species.  It was never an auspicious start.  I never read their first appearance (though I think Karma appeared in an earlier comic) in their graphic novel.  (I saw it once in a used bookstore and passed it over.  Mistake.  Just like getting rid of my Demon Bear trade paperback.)    

The premise kept getting worse.  I think their first crossover was with Team America, a bunch of guys riding motorcycles who fight crime.  (It was also later revealed that they were mutants too, like everyone in Marvel Comics at the time.)  They lost member Karma in that exchange with only perfunctory tears shed by her teammates.  They then immediately picked up a new member, Magma, who was living in a lost Roman civilization hidden in the middle of the Amazon jungle.  Yeah.  I collected nearly the first year of the comic before I finally bailed. 

Further irritating me, right after that, Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter must have agreed with my opinion and ordered a shakeup.  What followed was a tremendous run with Bill and Claremont changing the comic for good and for the better.  New members were added.  Old ones were more sharply defined.  Conflicts included the creation of their rivals, the Hellions, at the Hellfire Club-run academy.  The apex of this version of the team resulted in my favorite comic book: New Mutants Special Edition #1.  With Arthur Adams’ finely detailed, but playful and friendly, artwork, the kids had an incredible adventure in Asgard with lasting consequences.


All good things come to an end.  Some other artists came along, but the strong precedent produced some good work.  But when Claremont left, the comic took a sharp downturn.  When you introduce a bird-man character named, Birdbrain, you can’t expect quality stories at that point.  Then Rob Liefield came on and took the group in a totally different direction to become X-Force.  It wasn’t to my tastes, but that was easily the most popular incarnation of the group.  Later, under another change of concept, X-Force, somewhat at loose ends, took a road trip across the country.  I picked up these issues in a $1 box later.  It was one of the most refreshing comic book storylines I’d ever read.  It felt like a true follow up to the New Mutants. 

 
Bill’s art style might not be to everyone’s tastes.  I’ve seen him compared unfavorably to Neal Adams.  I’ve seen Bill on Moon Knight, Daredevil, and Elektra: Assassin.  All he does is make great comics.  His work on the New Mutants was probably his most complete expression, whether he’d see it that way or not.  The bold characterization and visuals of the New Mutants during his run became indelible in the minds of many of the readers.     

     
For this issue, the artwork was all-over-the-place wild.  The story was disjointed and a bit hard to follow.  (If you don’t know the characters well, don’t even bother picking this up.)  It was overpriced and had a bunch of ads that disrupted the flow of the story even further.  Even for the extra price, it was printed on cheaper paper than the thicker paper that the various facsimile editions were printed on.  

I liked it. 

It was great seeing the classic New Mutants team again in a new adventure.  The artwork was dramatic and evocative and emotive.  The story basically examined the characters.  With their complexity, it worked well.  It was an all-too brief visit with old literary friends.  Some were way too brief.  That’s the problem with working with large ensemble casts.  For a one-shot, some characters are going to be slighted in favor of a couple of others.  The characters were all fully in their familiar voices.  It was like slipping on a comfy old pair of jeans for a long-time fan.  If you’re one of those people, you’ll like it too.

I was made aware that there were some persistent complaints about the linguist character, Cypher, who does play a prominent role in this issue.  Doug Ramsey was introduced as a friend of Kitty Pride well before becoming a member, or even knowing he was a mutant.  I never questioned having the character on the team, even without any offensive powers, since he’d usually prove useful in some other aspect.  Frankly, not every mutant has great powers.  This is way it actually should be, though this did take it to an extreme.  The New Mutants weren’t supposed to be a combat team like the X-Men.  (Of course, conflict happened anyway.) 

Apparently, some writers and the fans disliked his helpless status (even though he was usually paired up with Warlock in combat) and wanted him killed off, which one writer did, and then replaced him with Birdbrain (?).  Cypher was later brought back with some uber-version of his powers imaginatively tricked out.  It was sort of like when Princess Projectra came back as Sensor Girl in the Legion of Superheroes.  (It was questionable both times.) 


My favorite character, Magik, had a mutant teleportation power, which she had trouble controlling (which led to a memorable time travel adventure into the future), and had a sword that could disrupt magic, which the team usually never fought against.  Sunspot’s super strength power was initially almost useless at night.  My next favorite, Mirage’s power just made scary illusions (much later upgraded to psychic arrows) and she was the team’s combat leader.  The New Mutants were a team of kids still learning their powers.  In certain situations, all of them were “useless.”  That’s why they were a team.
     
If you have no familiarity with these characters, you’re going to have to wait a bit.  We might finally see a heavily-edited version of their Fox movie next year that fits into the MCU.  (Fox waited too late to make this movie for their X-Men franchise.)  That girl playing Magik is a spot-on dead ringer for the comic book character.  I’m pretty sure Marvel wants to develop the New Mutants for their movies.  A teen version of the X-Men seems like an irresistible concept.  This movie could open up the superhero genre to horror (as it’s been advertised), or it might be a messy betrayal for the fans.  The potential is still there waiting to be exploited.


I noticed this ad in the comic.  Last time I was at Zia Comics, I saw the Cloak & Dagger statue.  It was so cool and not expensive at all, but I had nowhere to put it.  It was gone when I looked this time.  Oh well. 

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