Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Necrosha TPB Part 2: New Mutants


New Mutants #5-8

Zeb Wells is really doing a wonderful job bringing back the New Mutants. I never would have guessed that simply putting the original team back together would make me pine for the old days, but it did. The best part is that Wells' new adventures for the next generation of X-Men are pretty dang exciting on their own.

While Necrosha as a whole didn't have a lot of time to focus on the returning characters, New Mutants does. Cypher is back from the dead, and he's serving Selene. He's got a typical makeover too, now that "violence" is a language that he fluently speaks. (It's a bit of a reach, but it sure turns him into a dangerous opponent.) The Hellions work as his flunkies, but they are a lot more content to be bad guys. They blindly follow where Cypher constantly asks "What language am I?"

The first issue has Cypher interpreting the spoken words between his old teammates and Professor X. Wells does a spectacular job breaking down the relationships to a few key phrases. The issue is fantastic, and probably the best in the Necrosha crossover.

And I'd bet that every long-time X-reader got a smile on their face when Cypher started interfacing with an old friend. I'm not sure how well this story resonates with new readers (I'm pretty curious about it, actually), but for those of us who remember these old buddies, it is neat seeing them meet up again.

Diogenes Neves' art is clear, emotional, and powerful. I loved these chapters of the trade, and I think they'd read fantastic just on their own.

Excellent

2 comments:

David Charles Bitterbaum said...

To be honest I wasn't reading this series (I check an issue or two) even when I was reading a lot more of the X-books (I've stopped with most of them) due to the fact I just didn't know much about the characters. I mean, they were big in the 1980s when I was in diapers and I wasn't that interested. However, the new arc with Nate Grey has been good stuff. When he first pops up and fights all the big name heroes in his fake-world...awesome.

Timbotron said...

I'm looking forward to it!

I was about 8 years old when these characters were hitting their prime, so they've got a lot of nostalgia going for me.