History
: The New Mutants are a team of superhuman mutants, most of who were adolescents, who were being trained in the control and proper use of their superhuman abilities. Professor Charles Xavier, who is himself a superhuman mutant, founded the team, and who also founded another team of superhuman mutants, the X-Men. Professor Xavier formed the New Mutants when he believed his team of X-Men had been killed. The New Mutants were based at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in the town of Salem Center in Westchester County. New York State, where they receive education in both the use of their powers and in Conventional academic areas.
Much of human society fears and distrusts superhuman mutants. It has long been Xavier's dream that one day human society will accept superhuman mutants. The original X-Men were also adolescents, and Xavier not only trained them in controlling their powers so that the mutants would not accidentally menace to themselves or other people, but he also trained them in using their powers to battle threats to human society. Hence, the X-Men have always fought menaces to humanity, including superhuman mutants who use their powers in criminal ways.
However, Xavier was anguished by the deaths of X-Men Thunderbird and Phoenix, both in the course of missions in which they fought dangerous menaces. Then, the X-Men were kidnapped by the alien Brood, and Xavier believed the X-Men were very likely to be dead. (In fact, the X-Men survived and eventually returned to Earth.) With the X-Men gone, the distraught Xavier no longer wished to train superhuman mutants for fear that they too might be killed on missions. But his close friend Moira MacTaggert persuaded him to take on two more young superhuman mutants as pupils: Xi'an Coy Manh, who called herself Karma, and Rahne Sinclair, who took the code name Wolfsbane.
Immediately afterwards, Xavier received a letter from an American Indian acquaintance named Black Eagle asking him to teach another young superhuman mutant, Black Eagle's granddaughter Danielle Moonstar, who later became known as Mirage. Black Eagle was murdered by mercenaries working for Donald Pierce, the renegade White Bishop of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. Moonstar decided to work with Xavier to track down Pierce. Pierce's mercenaries also went after the young Brazilian mutant Robert DaCosta, later known as Sunspot, and one of them killed DaCosta's girlfriend Juliana Sandoval. DaCosta also joined the mutants' hunt for Pierce. Finally, Xavier and the young mutants battled Pierce and his mercenaries, including a young mutant named Sam Guthrie (aka Cannonball) at Pierces headquarters. Guthrie refused to kill the young mutants, and Xavier defeated Pierce.
The five young mutants became the first members of Xavier's new team, the New Mutants. Xavier taught them how to cope with their superhuman powers so they would not endanger either themselves or others, but did not intend to endanger them himself by sending them out on missions to battle criminal mutants and other menaces. Nevertheless, although the New Mutants do not seek out danger, they have continually found themselves in situations in which they end up fighting superhuman menaces. The team has gained other members since it's beginning: Magma, Magik, Cypher, and even an extraterrestrial being, Warlock. Karma was the original deputy leader of the team, and now Mirage and Cannonball serve jointly as deputy leaders.
Recently Xavier was mortally injured and asked his former adversary, Magneto, to take over his school and the training of the New Mutants for him in his absence. Xavier's lover, the Shi'ar princess Lilandra and his friend Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, teleported Xavier off Earth. Xavier's injuries were healed aboard the Starjammers' starship in the Shi'ar Galaxy, but so far he has been unable to return to Earth. In the meantime, Magneto runs Xavier's school and serves as teacher to the New Mutants, who have accepted him as their new mentor. As head of the school Magneto has assumed the public cover identity of Michael Xavier, Charles' fictional cousin. Recently, the New Mutants were obliterated from existence, and subsequently recreated by the virtually omnipotent Beyonder. In being recreated, the New Mutants somehow lost much of the skill they had gained in using their powers through Xavier's training. Thus, the New Mutants virtually had to begin their training all over again, but this time with Magneto as their in instructor.
After Magneto, who ran the school in Xavier's absence, disappeared, the New Mutants were commandeered by the mysterious mutant known as Cable, who reorganized them into the proactive team, X-Force.
Recently, the concept of the New Mutants was revived as one of several teams of students at the expanded Xavier Institute for Higher Learning where they not only learn to master their powers, but are also given the chance to receive a full education. The current incarnation of the team was formed when Professor X enlisted the aid of Danielle Moonstar in recruiting several new students for the school, including the wind-manipulating Sofia Mantega, the organic-decaying Kevin Ford, the skill-mimicking David Alleyne, and healer Josh Foley. Along with the pheromone generating Laurie Collins and the electrically charged Noriko Ashida, the sextet became the new New Mutants squad with Moonstar as their faculty advisor. Other former New Mutants who came to join the school as faculty were Xi’an Coy Manh and Rahne Sinclair.
Other squads of students were also formed, each with their own advisor, including Cyclops' team the Corsairs, Northstar's Alpha Squadron, Iceman's Excelsiors, Beast's Exemplars, Wolfsbane's Paragons, and Emma Frost's Hellions. Julian Keller (Hellion) was assigned as the latter's team leader; other members included Cessily Kincaid (Mercury), Santo Vaccarro (Rockslide), Brian Cruz (Tag), Jay Guthrie (Icarus), and Sooraya Qadir (Dust). The New Mutants quickly found themselves at odds with the Hellions and were assigned to work off their hostilities by competing against each other in the school's first Field Day training exercise. The Hellions emerged triumphant, much to the New Mutants' chagrin. The two teams soon clashed again after the FBI arrived to arrest Kevin Ford for the murder of his father. Julian sought to rescue Kevin and enlisted Sofia's aid. The New Mutants, with the help of Jay Guthrie, managed to prevent the Hellions from further exacerbating the already tense situation. The charges against Kevin were ultimately dismissed; afterwards he opted to transfer to the Hellions while Jay became a New Mutant like his older brother Sam before him.
Later, the New Mutants teamed up with Julian and Moonstar to investigate supernatural happenings in the mansion. Together, they discovered that a mutant ghost named Jeffrey Garrett was responsible and were able to pacify him after performing a séance. Soon after, Jeffrey joined the Institute's Lower School for younger students. Subsequently, following a Field Day exercise against the Paragons that the New Mutants won, relationships between the students became strained after a brief affair between Josh and Rahne was made public. Rahne left the school as a result just as Sean Garrison arrived to take up the position of school counselor. Garrison had initially declined the offer, but upon discovering that his estranged daughter, Laurie Collins, was a student at the school, he decided to accept in the hope of winning her back. |
