Oh what, like you don’t have a pet character who you go crazy over? Bitch, get off my business.

New Mutants #25 is as good a jumping on point as any, as it is the start of a brand new story by new creators while folding in the events of the previous run. In other words, typical stuff. Yes new readers, there’s a few references to a story that you most likely haven’t read, but this is mainstream superhero comics…an ongoing story which will undoubtedly reference past events that you or I have most likely haven’t read. Buck up, folks. The transition from old to new status quo is handled pretty smoothly, as through some carefully crafted character scenes in which the cast more or less deal with the after effects of the previous story, we are at the same time introduced to them. Abnett and Lanning do a pretty good job in smoothly switching gears to their own story, which actually gives the titular team a solid purpose for the first time since this title’s inception. Now lead by Dani Moonstar, the team of “second generation” mutants will be tasked with revisiting stories forgotten by X-writters…er…I mean tying up loose ends that the X-Men teams have created through the years. It’s a novel idea, since not only is the book very nicely written, but this new direction gives this title the possibility to become a deep rooted X-fans wet dream since it will be revisiting many of the more esoteric pieces of X-lore. Naturally, they’re starting out with a bang with revisiting the GREATEST piece of X-Men history.

Nate Grey. X-Man. The Greatest Marvel Character©. The test tube baby of the Scott Summers and Jean Grey from Age Of Apocalypse. Arguably, the most powerful mutant to ever grace the pages of X-literature (Suck it, Jean Grey fans). A year or so ago, Paul Cornell, in his infinite and genius wisdom, brought Nate back to life during the awesome Dark X-Men mini. At the end of it, however, he was defeated and wheeled off into Norman Osborn’s prison and never heard from again. Until now. For the New Mutant’s first mission, they are tasked to find Nate and bring him to Utopia. We only focus on The Greatest Marvel Character© for a few pages at the end of this issue, but when his current whereabouts are revealed on the final page, it’s a moment that made me and probably all 5 other longtime X-Man readers go OHHHHH SNAP!

So I love the idea and, so far, the execution of this new direction for New Mutants. I love the idea of re-introducing past and forgotten about stories and characters to new readers. The bar is set quite high by starting out with Nate Grey since he’s…you know… The Greatest, but if anyone can pull this off, it’s Abnett and Lanning.