The New Mutants #38-40: Aftermath! / Pawns Of The White Queen / Avengers Assemble!

Writer: Chris Claremont
Guest artist: Rick Leonardi (#38), Keith Pollard (#39)
Penciler: Jackson Guice (#40)
Inker: Bill Sienkiewicz (#38), Dell Barras (#39), Kyle Baker (#40)
Letterer: Ken Bruzenak (#38), Tom Orzechowski (#39-40)
Colorist: Glynis Oliver (#38-39), Michelle Wrightson (#40)
Editor: Ann Nocenti
Editor in chief: Jim Shooter

The fate of the New Mutants has been bugging me for some time.

In New Mutants #37 the Beyonder obliterated them all so absolutely that they were wiped from history and had never existed in the first place. Then in Secret Wars II #9 the one from beyond brought back their bodies as soulless zombies to carry out his bidding.

And that's how they were left at the end of that epic. I think.

So just how on earth did their comicbook series still manage to keep running for another 63 issues plus specials?

Well, I should have known better than to expect a straight answer from the typewriter of X-author Chris Claremont.

Here he spends three issues telling the story of their spiritual healing at the hands of their two rival teachers - Magneto and the White Queen.

Such investment really ought to result in a satisfying explanation, yet I'm afraid that, if I followed this correctly, then it just doesn't seem to all be there to be found. It's not merely that the teams' minds appear to be quietly present again at the outset, but how everyone else in the world now remembers them once more, and indeed what their school is doing back in existence, appears simply glossed over.

I've always found one of Claremont's strengths to be his willingness to spend time on his characters, giving them plenty to say and think, resulting in comicbooks which take a good deal longer to read than most. In this respect, these issues don't disappoint, which is great. However I seem to be missing so much, and the sketchy artwork doesn't help me out a great deal.

Of course, being Marvel, it may well be that I'm simply overlooking key elements from concurrent issues of sister-title The Uncanny X-Men…

All the same, that there is an explanation, be it one that I perhaps haven't properly understood, is satisfying enough from a universe which I still find enthralling.

After all, how can anyone not be excited by a world in which videophones can do the following…

Black Knight: (in his civilian identity of Dane Whitman)"The Videocom system is programmed to show our callers computer generated facsimiles of us in costume, regardless of how we really look."

Ahhh, so is that how come the New Mutants now appear to be alive and well again?