When the New X-Men season was announced, those who aren't intimately familiar with Marvel Comics may have been left a little confused. Why isn't it called New Mutants? Why do some of these X-Men not look especially young, while others do?
I looked on Marvel Unlimited and found multiple series called New X-Men—which series is this based on? Why are we getting a Rockslide variant in the season pass? Why are people giggling about Xorn’s ability? What is “kick” and why would anyone bogart it? We'll answer all of those questions and more! Welcome to your New X-Men reading guide!
Morrison's New X-Men
The first time a comic bore the title New X-Men, it was when Grant Morrison kicked off their seminal run with Marvel's mutants. It somewhat confusingly starts with issue #114 because it was a renumbering of the X-Men series that started with Jim Lee and Chris Claremont in 1991. However, you don't need to read any of what preceded this run to dive in. By 2001 Grant Morrison had already achieved legendary status as a comic writer having written beloved indie favorites and had also recently revitalized the Justice League at DC.
Morrison coming over to the X-Men was a massive deal at the time and was seen as an attempt to return the X-Men to prominence after a disappointing downturn in the second half of the 1990s. Morrison brought along one of his personal favorite artists, Frank Quitely, who was an underground comics god before he ever did any mainstream comics. Both Quitely’s art and Morrison's writing already had reputations as being bizarre and experimental and they immediately lived up to that on New X-Men.
It's hard to express how much of a surprise it was at that time that Marvel would turn one of their most valuable properties over to the pair of far-out Scottish artists. Marvel, and especially the X-desk, had a reputation of editorial meddling and playing it safe.
Morrison and Quitely leaned into the idea that mutants were meant to be weird. Would the world really hate and fear a bunch of people that looked and acted like Cyclops and Jean Grey? This run introduced a lot characters that future creators would return to time and again, many of which are delightfully bizarre including Cassandra Nova, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, the delightful Stepford Cuckoos (including Esme), Quentin Quire (Kid Omega), Xorn, Beak, Fantomex, Glob Herman, Cerebella, Dust, and Jumbo Carnation.
They also introduced the drug kick that boosts super powers. The series was a mashup of high concept mutant stories grounded in a familiar contemporary learning environment at Xavier's Academy for Gifted Youngsters. The entirely silent issue with Cassandra Nova’s totally insane origin is a personal favorite.
Morrison's New X-Men is often cited as the starting point for “modern X-Men” and I highly recommend reading it if you haven't yet. It does feel more impactful as a response to classic X-Men so it's good to have at least some prior familiarity with the main characters like Cyclops, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Magneto, Wolverine, Beast, and Professor X, but it's not strictly necessary.
Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men
Before Morrison wrapped up his run on New X-Men at issue #156, Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon was tapped to be his successor. The transition didn't go as smoothly as that due to scheduling issues, but eventually Whedon was given the new title of Astonishing X-Men and did, in fact, use it as a direct continuation of Morrison's New X-Men, so while the title is different, this can be read immediately after Morrison as another fully self-contained run.
Whedon was lucky enough to be paired with the wonderful John Cassaday whose art is a major highlight of this run. Whedon was the first (of several) Marvel writers that was perhaps a little too obsessed with Kitty Pryde. As a huge Kitty Pryde fan myself, I will always have a soft spot for this run. The interplay between Emma and Kitty is pretty delightful. This series is often cited as one of the most accessible X-Men starting points for new readers, so despite being a continuation of Morrison's New X-Men, the whole 24-issue run plus one Annual can be read entirely on its own.
New X-Men: Academy X
Beginning at the same time as Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, Marvel launched the second series to bear the name New X-Men, written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. A lot of the characters and themes that Second Dinner is drawing on are from Morrison's run, but about as much comes from this series as well! It's actually very interesting that they've decided to draw simultaneously from two largely unrelated series that share a name.
Much of the same feelings and themes of the Morrison plotlines that center around the school are found in this series, including weird young mutants like Elixir, Prodigy, Surge, Mercury, Anole, Pixie, and Rockslide with Mirage (Dani Moonstar) and Emma Frost as rival mentors. There's also a fun little mini-series by DeFilippis and Weir that spins out of this called New X-Men: Hellions, if you're craving more Rockslide (in his Hellions uniform from the season pass variant), Mercury, or Hellion (who is datamined and presumably coming as a Series 4 card in a later season).
Kyle and Yost’s New X-Men
Starting with issue #20 Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost (with some early Mark Brooks art!) took over the series and began a much celebrated run that I highly recommend. Kyle and Yost had created the character of X-23, Laura Kinney, during their time as writers on the X-Men: Evolution TV series and they used her heavily in this series. It's no exaggeration to say the character would never have been successful if they hadn't decided to pull her into the series here. Also during this run, Illyana Rasputin finally returned as Magik after being killed off in the early 90s. Kyle and Yost went on to write more fan-favorite comics including a well-received X-Force run starting in 2008.
What's the deal with Xorn?
XORN SPOILERS BELOW
Xorn was introduced by Morrison in the New X-Men Annual 2001 as a prisoner of the Chinese government who has a star in his brain that is only contained by his special mask. One of the big moments of the Morrison run is the reveal that Xorn was actually Magneto the whole time! It's a revelation for which Morrison laid bread crumbs throughout and is a pretty surprising and fun payoff. In a nice marriage of lore and card design, Xorn as Magneto is the reason Xorn’s Marcel Snap card mirrors Magneto. So is Xorn technically another repeat Snap character like Iron Patriot (Norman Osborne) and Symbiote Spider-Man (Peter Parker)?
Sadly, the meddling editorial team at Marvel that had done a surprisingly good job of staying out of Morrison's way liked Xorn enough to retcon the reveal and make another, real Xorn, undercutting the writer's vision. Personally, I choose to just ignore it and few subsequent writers seem to be very interested in this new “real” Xorn. Retcons were also made to one of my favorite Morrison creations, the Stepford Cuckoos. They were made Weapon Plus clones of Emma Frost as opposed to just a weird group of quintuplets that Emma took a shine to. I prefer the simpler, Morrison concept, but, hey, that's comics!
XORN SPOILERS ABOVE
Hit the comments to let me know if you've read any of these stories or if you're planning to! Are these stories too weird for you? Nostalgic favorites? Come find me on social media for more Snap and Comic talk!