Published: March 14th, 2018 – August 29th, 2018
Written by: Matt Rosenberg
Art by: Adam Gorham, Ryan Stegman (covers)
Marvel Comics, 136 Pages
Review:
I had trouble rounding up the six issues in this miniseries, as the first few sold out quickly at my local comic shop and then the last few seemed to have not been ordered. But now that I got all six issues, I was able to finally read this. I was anticipating this greatly, as I am a long time New Mutants fan and I also love Magik.
But man, this was a mixed bag.
Had I bought and read these from the beginning, I would have quit this series after the second issue. As much as I like these characters, this miniseries started out really f’n bad.
To start, don’t let the nice covers fool you because the interior art is pretty unimpressive. In fact, Magik looks like a blonde wannabe of Lisbeth Slander from those Girl With the Predictable Yet Easily Triggered Goth Attitude books and movies.
Go look at the cover of X-Infernus because that’s how Magik should look in the modern age: all woman. I mean, is she a teenager again or supposed to be? Did I miss some moment in recent years where she reverted back to her younger age? Because she grew into one heck of a badass demon women wielding a magic sword and wearing armor like some sexy Red Sonja villain. Now she looks like my neighbor’s pissy daughter, Chloe. I said “hi” to her once and she just starred at her phone, chewing gum and looking like she was cosplaying as Negasonic Teenage Warhead cosplaying as Axl Rose. I just call her “Chlobot” now and her reaction is the same.
Anyway, the story was pretty unimaginative, at least in the beginning. It started out as a New Mutants versus zombies tale but then it evolved into a mish mash of what felt like random shit. It went from The Walking Dead to fighting a frost giant at the North Pole to a bad plane ride to a funeral to I don’t know, it was all over the place.
However, it did pick up and seem more cohesive as it went on. The part about the funeral and it being some mind games from the villain was an interesting twist. I wouldn’t call it original and the twist felt like a cop out, as they couldn’t commit to the more interesting bit but at least it pulled me into the story.
There is a whole side plot about Warlock, which culminates in the big ending of this story but that ending was problematic because it was a non-ending and showed that this six issue miniseries was just a tool to setup something else in the future. The problem with this, is that a miniseries should be pretty self-contained and this wasn’t. It ends in the middle of a larger story arc and I have no idea where this is supposed to pick up or if it even started or not.
Another big issue was the writing and I don’t mean the story, I just covered that. It was the dialogue. Man, it was terrible. These kids talk like every generic and uninteresting Marvel character being written today. They all have the same personality with just minor tweaks. It’s all snark, no likability and it’s a lot of forced humor. You know how some people aren’t funny but try to be funny? That’s just about every character in this book.
I really wanted to like this because I miss the experience I had reading The New Mutants. Sadly, this doesn’t cut the mustard. But I can just go back and pick those old books up anytime, I guess.
Rating: 5.25/10
Pairs well with: I guess the recent X-Men stuff, which has all been pretty weak if not outright terrible. I’d like to say classic New Mutants but this just doesn’t live up to those great stories.
Talking Pulp 