I want to say it was Farouk, the Shadow King but it's been a long time for me as well. I've heard the crystal item Viper stole had some part to play in Claremont's four part story in Marvel Team-Up #82-85.

Speaking of sowing future seeds, I was re-reading some early issues of Excalibur awhile back and came across Claremont's seed of Rachel Summers actually being the daughter of Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force. I'd forgotten all about it till I read it right there, in black & white speech balloons by Moira McTaggert.

Haha, Team America! I'd forgotten they appeared here too. I still have the last few issues of their series (mainly because of Ghost Rider's appearance). The idea of the Dark Rider is interesting...at least more interesting to me than Psi-Force.

New Mutants #8 (October 1983)



Thus begins what feels like a new chapter for this franchise. At first, The New Mutants were the fill-ins Xavier needed while the X-Men were presumed dead, and Xavier got to dominate the scope of the title as their sometimes-benefactor/sometimes-shadowy-nemesis in that time. But now, with the X-Men returned, the New Mutants have the option of either becoming young copies of The X-Men or of becoming something entirely separate and different. Claremont goes for the latter, having the team set off on an adventure in the vein of the classic Golden Age adventure comics, from Terry and The Pirates to Uncle Scrooge:



Uncharted worlds and lost civilizations. It seldom gets more fun than this!


And, to further drive home the point that this team will never be the next X-Men, Claremont takes another opportunity to show us the distance growing between Xavier and this young team, the team having brilliantly cultivated their abilities on their own (Dani can now summon realistic blizzards from Rahne's mind without draining herself, and Sam can now turn and maneuver while blasting), with Xavier merely grading them after the fact.



Oh, and did I not mention they aren't welcome back home, either? "Shan's dead, kids. Don't come home. I'm busy." Sure, Xavier claims he's doing it to protect them from a more sinister truth about what happened to Shan, but he can shield the kids from information within the X-Mansion, can't he? Sure seems like the team served a purpose when Xavier was lonely (and being controlled by a Brood Queen), but now that the X-Men are back, the New Mutants rank low priority for him.

Finally, it just now occurs to me that, while we've been given thorough backstories on Berto and Sam, and partial backstories on Dani and Shan, we know absolutely nothing about Rahne's past beyond her being an orphan. Is this ever going to get addressed?


Important Details:

- 1st appearance of Amara Aquilla (later Magma). The team captures her after she and a band of female soldiers disguised as Amazonians attack them.

- Apparent death of Berto's mother when their yacht is sabotaged by a man working for Berto's father and sent over a waterfall.


Minor Details:

- Dani can now summon precise images from people's heads without exhausting herself

- Sam can now maneuver while blasting

- In New Mutants #2 we were told that Berto becomes near-invulnerable in his mutant form. This is blatantly contracted here, when we are expressly told that invulnerability is not part of his power.



A very different sort of issue that, while not a complete story in itself, suggests tremendous excitement to come.

Grade: A-

She'd been gone so long that even I had that response, and I'd read these in order.

New Mutants #9 (November 1983)



Bob McLeod is gone as of this issue and is now credited as co-creator of the property instead. Coincidence that the series changed direction at the same time that McLeod departed?

I'm assuming Buscema and Mandrake have the same arrangement Buscema and McLeod did, as the pencil work looks very different now, sometimes stronger than it did with Buscema/McLeod, and sometimes far more awkward:



I guess Rahne's powers now include growing a detachable arm as well as a triple-d bust across which to lay it?


I'm not sure I'm buying into the political intrigues of Nova Roma here, with two factions vying for power. The New Mutants, themselves, are drugged for much of this story and have no real horse in this race beyond the leader of one faction being the one who threw them in the arena and has secret plans for them. This actually felt a lot like issue #7, where we spent all this time on the complex relationship between Berto's parents without it really involving the team at all. While Claremont writes these kids extremely well, it still sometimes feels like he's trying to avoid using them -- Team America, the DaCosta marriage, and now all this Nova Roma stuff while the team functions as drugged, mindless minions for almost the entire issue. Can we get a little New Mutants in The New Mutants?

Still, this all seems like setup for a fantastic next issue. If memory serves correctly, it will be.



Important Details:

- 1st appearance of Selene


Minor Details:

- Amara begins experiencing early symptoms of her mutant powers. What are the chances that The New Mutants would run into a mutant in Nova Roma right before her powers began to manifest??

- Dani claims she pulls a specific image from her teammates' minds for the first time this issue, but she did it just last issue with that blizzard.



Random moment of reflection: As much as I loved (and love) this team in its classic iteration, it's sad to consider just how forgotten most of these characters will become down the road. I don't know the current state of the X-comics (and, from what I hear, neither does Marvel ), but even a decade after this issue, Dani, Amara, and Shan will be all but forgotten, Berto will be a secondary character in the X-Force mythos, and only Sam and Rahne will be getting any real use in the Marvel Universe. Prior to this, it seems like virtually every new mutant in the X-Men universe mattered, but this team will prove to be the first disposable mutants in the Marvel Universe.



Generally forgettable issue with too much setup and not enough New Mutants.

Grade: C+

New Mutants #10 (December 1983)



Nope. Not enjoying this portion of the run as much as I did the first time. Maybe I need to give it a few more issues, wait for Illyana, Warlock, and Doug Ramsey to enter the equation. While Claremont still throws us bursts of great characterization, a lot of the time it still feels like he's fumbling with these characters. Throwing in obligatory romantic tensions, for example (Rahne for Sam, Dani and Berto for each other) is appropriate for the age group but feels forced and inorganic here. Claremont just chucks it to us as if to say, "Here. Characterization. Have some." It didn't develop naturally over a span of issues; it was just told to us all at once.

I DO like how he handles Berto here, though. The once care-free cavalier womanizer shows a very different side of himself:



especially as he absorbs all the loss he's experienced in only ten months (our time; a lot less for him):




The rest of the story is what it is; political intrigue with the New Mutants as pawns in a larger game, a generic evil mutant setting herself up as an evil goddess, conveniently preparing to unleash herself upon the world right after she deals with this one last sacrifice, and Amara's first appearance as Magma (itself an absurd convenience).


Important Details:

- 1st appearance of Amara Aquilla as Magma


Minor Details:

- Rahne has a crush on Sam


- Dani and Berto have crushes on one another


- Claremont previously stirred the pot by putting a devout Catholic (Nightcrawler) and an agnostic Jew (Kitty Pryde) on the X-Men, but scores another point for diversity by having TWO devout Christians on this team, finally giving them space to have a fleeting discussion about their shared beliefs in this story:




- Should we be offended by this?



I mean, even though we've never been told what tribe Dani is from, they are North American natives, not South American natives. I've got to think they'd look a little different from one another, especially to Dani and the Inca themselves.


- This is now the second time in four issues that Dani has woken up in captivity, someone having changed her clothing into something inappropriately seductive while she was sleeping:



More uncomfortable yet, in both cases, all of the villains' minions appeared to be adult men. Who exactly undressed and redressed her while she was unconscious??



This story still isn't doing it for me, but at least the team gets to play a vital role in the story this time.

grade: B-

Selene, the evil mutant/goddess in question, was one of the characters I most disliked in the pantheon created by Chris. She was just so generic, so easily turned into whatever the plot required. Impossible to kill except when it was inconvenient, all-powerful except when it was inconvenient, willing and capable to conquer the world but remaining in her steamy jungle... I found no aspect of her character to be interesting. She was just occupying the spot where it said "introduce all-powerful haughty sociopath here". I never understood Chris's clear affection for her; other underused creations like Nimrod or Lee Forester deserved a lot more screen time.



Nah... Sure, Dani would probably have looked a little out of place, as you and I would be if we were transported to, say, Sweden... but she didn't stand out as much as Sam or Rahne would have.




Eunuchs!!!

I can honestly say I have no recollection of what Claremont does with Selene. I just remember she was still a villain being discussed when I got into the X-Men around 1990.



But half the population of Nova Roma is of Roman descent.