The New Mutants (person)

In the early 1980's, Marvel Comics decided to cash in on the runaway success of their superhero team The X-men. The premise in the comic was that Charles Xavier, the leader of the X-men, gathered his original team together to teach them to use their amazing powers. As the new X-men were older and more experienced, the idea of Xavier as a teacher had gone more by the wayside. So in an effort to renew this storyline, Marvel Comics came up with the New Mutants.

First appearing in one of Marvel Comics graphic novels, the New Mutants was made up of a group of young teens who powers had just appeared. With the exception of one character, all of the members were brand new characters offering the writers and the fans new characters to explore.

The storyline of the original graphic novel involved the Hellfire Club, a perennial X-Men enemy, pursuing these young mutants. Xavier sought to outrace the Hellfire Club contingent, lead by cyborg Donald Pierce. In the end, Xavier had brought five youngsters into his care: Mirage, Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, and Karma.

Mirage was a young Native American girl name Danielle Moonstar. She possessed the ability to telepathically communicate with animals and to draw from the mind of those around her their greatest desire or their greatest fear. Cannonball was a teenager name Sam Guthrie from Kentucky. Sam had the ability to fly while surrounded by an invicible force field. Wolfsbane was a young Scots girl named Rahne Sinclair. Rahne had the ability to change into a wolf or midway to a werewolf-like form. While in her wolf form, Rhane could communicate telepathically with Mirage. Sunspot was a Brazilian boy name Roberto DeCosta. He possessed superhuman strength by metabolizing sunlight. He absorbed light while using his power, so he would turn black during those times. Finally, Karma was a Vietnamese girl named Xian Coy Manh. She had the ability to possess others telepathically. She was the only New Mutant to have appeared before in a comic, having appeared in a Spider-Man annual some years earlier.

The team became the focus of its own monthly comic in the early 1980's. The group's membership varied over the years, adding a number of interesting characters like the living machine Warlock.

Toward the end of the 1980's, the New Mutants underwent a radical change. The team gained a new leader, the mysterious Cable and became an edgier group, having lost their direction of a good number of years. Finally, the title itself folded with the characters from the book becoming a new team X-Force.