Monday 8 February 2021

How can they be "New" mutants if the story is thirty-seven years old?

 



So, Dave called me today and axed me about why I had sent him the New Mutants stuff and particularly why I thought it had something to do with God and good/evil.
My response:

As to your question about my experience with reading "The New Mutants" and my take on it: Yes, I did first read it when it came out in, as you say, 1984. It was a new mutant experience, after the several years of the Chris Claremont/ John Byrne X-Men experience, so it was, as designed, something that turned my head. Much as, say, a Sentinel might turn its robotic head and take notice.

My reading of it as having a good vs. evil aspect, however, was from watching the movie and rereading the TPB last year (last summer?). Before I sent it to you, I reread it and realized that it didn't have as much to say about that as I had thought, but still enough to engender the question.


Continuing: (BTW, Dave wants you to post this):

I think that the good vs. evil question stems, ultimately, from the characters of Sam and Rahne (I'm relying on memory here, since my only copy is the one I sent you) and their internal conflicts, as Claremont wrote them.

Of course, it's all just comic book FONFLIF! so it's all contrived, but I do think that Claremont was aiming at that, on the admittedly watered-down 12-year-old audience level.

I think that it's obvious that you explored the subject in far greater detail in "Cerebus, in a far more nuanced way, particularly when you got into the direct confrontations between Cerebus and Cirin/Serna. As well as the, as far as it went, internal conflict in Cerebus when he was the Pope


Page 3: I don't know if you have watched, or been able to watch, the movie yet, but I think that it got into the dichotomy a *little* bit more (as I remember it), within the parameters of "we only have two hours and we have this many characters/actors that we have to give relatively equal time to, so we can only scratch the surface of what we're trying to say and, remember, it's a comic book movie, fer cryin' out loud!"

In summation, I did think back then upon first reading it, when I was far more naive, that it had religious or, more to the point, internal conflict about good and bad elements to it. I still thought that, to a lesser degree, after reading it last year.


Page 4: I think that Claremont, being a skilled writer, was and is good at exhibiting internal and external conflict within and between characters, and that he did that in "The New Mutants." I know nothing about his personal life, so I don't know if he is a good, observant or lapsed Catholic, or Lutheran, or Methodist, or Zoroastrian. I just know that he was pretty good at tapping into the internal teenage angst of some of his New Mutants.

As to the demon element of Colossus' kid sister, well, I think that he kind of went off the rails with that character, but that he started off with (IIRC) some internal conflict for her before he just made her into a more one-dimensional character.

Claremont has confounded me with his comic-book characters (look! alliteration!) over the years and perhaps none so much as with Ilyana.

I hope that answers your questions. Fell free to try to get me to dig deeper.
*************
Okay, that's it, Matt. Do with it what you will.

Best to you and yours,
Jeff





The Rigamarole:
And:
Hemingway in Comics: https://www.booktable.net/ https://www.centuriesandsleuths.com/

Hey! This is an old report...
That's code "IEST" for 10% off at cerebusoverload.com.  Good through February 14th.

Your store will be on sale:
Feb 10-12
Feb 24-27
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off! That means $13 tees, $20 phone cases, $30 hoodies, and way more.

Cerebus in Hell?
Next Time: Consumer reporting with Beer? THAT'LL end well...

3 comments:

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Dave really does think he's that important to the universe, huh?

Michael Grabowski said...

So when the CIH? well runs dry, he'll move onto Cerebus in Purgatory? I suppose.

Tony Dunlop said...

Iguana is the new Cronkite: Most Trusted Ma....uh...Reptile in America.