New Mutants 62
“To Build a Fire”
Published: Dec. 1987
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Jon J. Muth (pencils and inks)
Letters: Tom Orzechowski
Colors: Glynis Oliver
Cover: Muth

Welcome to a new, hopefully semi-regular new feature, where I examine an issue from my collection chosen more-or-less at random. I say more or less because I don’t want to waste my time on an issue I’ve just read, that’s super well-known or that I dislike. There’s no point in that. But otherwise, my hope is rediscover some hidden gems or oddities lurking in my 6,000+ comic collection. To pick a comic at random, I’m using CLZ, the online database, which has a “shake” feature which pulls a comic from a collection, yes, at random.

So here we go with the first installment …

Synopsis

The New Mutants gather around to read a letter from their former classmate, Amara Aquila, aka Magma, who has joined the group’s rivals-slash-enemies, the Hellions of Massachusetts Academy.

We cut to Magma facing off against the Hellions in a Danger Room situation, then getting into a heated confrontation with Empath, the emotion-manipulating jerk. Emma Frost, aka the White Queen and the school’s headmistress, interrupts to tell Magma her father is summoning her back to New Rome, the enclave of ancient Rome in the Amazon where she was raised. Frost instructs Empath to accompany her so that he can manipulate her father into leasing the Hellfire Club mineral rights.

The pair are soon in a plane flying across the jungle when it it is hit by lighting and crashes, killing the pilot. Magma and Empath endure several days in the jungle, confronting panthers and vampire bats, and each other’s complicated feelings. Magma, it appears, doesn’t want to be rescued because she doesn’t want to be married off by her father. Empath confesses he is a coward who manipulates feelings to protect himself. After they reconcile, they are eventually rescued by Amara’s father.

What’s going on here?

I don’t recall reading this comic when it came out, although I bought it new. By late 1987, my attention was wandering from comics, save from the few that really engaged me, and I had lost interest in the New Mutants when artist Bill Sienkiewicz left the book.

By New Mutants 62, Louise Simonson had been writing the New Mutants for about a seven issues but this issue felt as if Chris Claremont never left. In fact, it reads like a number of his X-Men issues where two characters with feelings for each other are thrown together in hostile circumstances and have to work their through the difficulties and each other. Probably the most wel-know of these is Uncanny X-Men 186, aka Lifedeath, featuring Storm and Forge, but UXM 197, with Colossus and Kitty, has the same structure. There are others.

The similarity to Lifedeath also includes the art, which in both comics are remarkable work by artists not normally associated with the comic. While Lifedeath was a masterpiece by Barry Windsor-Smith, who filled in from regular artist John Romita Jr., New Mutants 62 is a gem from Jon J. Muth, who takes over from Bret Blevins from this issue. Muth is best known for atmospheric comics like Sandman and Moonshadow (which he painted), and his work here is dark and moody, befitting scenes set in a dark jungle, lit by fire light. It’s very effective, and a welcome departure from Blevins, whose cartoony style grates on me.

Muth’s inks are particularly dramatic:

What I liked

Along with the art, the story is an upgrade over recent issues, which featured the introduction of the irritating Ani-Mates and Bird Brain, a truly dreadful character. It was a welcome spotlight on Amara, who often felt lost in the shuffle among the other New Mutants. And it’s always fun to see Emma Frost as a bad guy before her eventual rehabilitation into an X-Man.

What I didn’t like

Part of the appeal of the New Mutants is that it’s a vehicle for teen angst, but a little goes a long way, and the confrontations been Amara and Empath bang to feel repetitive and tedious after a dozen pages. Also, Marvel comics of this era suffered from inconsistent printing, and the lettering particularly can be blotchy.

Overall

A good comic, with beautiful art that borders on great