New X-Men: Academy X (later just called New X-Men) is a comic series published by Marvel Comics as part of the X-Men series in 2004.
The series originally began life as the second volume of the New Mutants series. This volume, launched in 2003 and written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, featured another group of teenaged mutants - air-controlling Wind Dancer, skill-copying Prodigy, super-fast energetic Surge, healer Elixir, emotion-controlling Wallflower, and flying Icarus - but unlike the original New Mutants, they were only part of a huge cast of students at the Xavier Institute. At first they were notable for their drive to become superheroes, but soon rival groups played a large role in the series. The main cast of original New Mutants had become teachers at Xavier's Institute and had problems coming to terms with the fact they were now the "old guard” in the eyes of the new generation.
In 2004 the comic was relaunched as New X-Men: Academy X, after which the central group was formally dubbed "The New Mutants". They quickly found rivals in a team supervised by Emma Frost – new Hellions – that included arrogant telekinetic Hellion, made-of rocks Dumb Muscle Rockslide, human sandstorm Dust, Walking Wasteland Wither, fear-inspiring Tag and shape-changing "living metal" person Mercury.
The series focused strongly on relationships and personal issues instead of supervillain battles, which was a negative for some but a strength for others, who appreciated the deep characterization and optimistic feel.
In 2005 the series was taken over by X-Men: Evolution writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, who changed the series to a new Darker and Edgier status quo. In the wake of the House of M event, most of the mutants on Earth had lost their powers, including several students at Academy X, and the title quickly killed off a large number of characters in controversial C-List Fodder style. All of the training squads were disbanded and the students with the most offensive capabilities – Hellion, Surge, Dust, Mercury, Rockslide, Elixir and Canon Immigrant X-23 were formed into a New X-Men team, whose purpose was protecting students in case the adult X-Men failed to do so. Later the reptilian Anole, flying illusionist Pixie, super-strong Gentle, and depowered Prodigy, who still retained all his copied knowledge and skills, were added to the team. Despite being strongly criticized for the grim tone, Kyle and Yost managed to provide a lot of consistent stories, exploring the characters' lives, relationships and realization that they may be not only the youngest generation of mutants, but the last.
After the Messiah Complex event, New X-Men was canceled and replaced with a new series, Young X-Men, written by Marc Guggenheim. The short-lived series featured a random collection of characters from New X-Men, along with other young mutant characters like Blindfold and Wolfcub, from Astonishing X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. Finally, three new characters were introduced – Ink, Graymalkin and Cipher, though only Graymalkin had any staying power. The series ended after 12 issues.
Despite a short run, being overshadowed by the main X-Men team, and going through a complete tonal shift, the New X-Men series remains something of a Cult Classic. Despite the fandom demand, most of the characters found themselves in Comic-Book Limbo after the series ended in 2008. After the X-Men: Schism event, most of the kids ended up as background extras for Wolverine and the X-Men (Marvel Comics) while both authors mainly developed original characters or their pets. Prodigy fared a bit better, ending up on the roster for the Young Avengers, and Gentle has joined the cast of X-Men: Red alongside fellow New X-Men alum X-23, who is the Breakout Character and most successful of the group. Dust eventually joined the Champions.
See also New Mutants and Generation X and Wolverine and the X-Men (Marvel Comics) for more young X-Men teams. Also see Young Avengers for another Marvel spinoff young team.
Definitely not to be confused for Grant Morrison's New X-Men.
Tropes in this series include:
- Aborted Arc: M-Day and a change of creative team in New X-Men led to the dropping of a number of arcs in that series. Most notably, Wither was attending counseling sessions with Wallflower's father, Sean Garrison (unknowingly), who was planning to take advantage of this connection to gain access to the school and take his daughter back. Although Garrison played a key role during House of M, once the normal universe was restored (and Kyle and Yost took over writing duties) he was never so much as mentioned again, Kevin went through his Face–Heel Turn, and Laurie had a bridge dropped on her.
- Aesop Enforcer: Emma Frost and Dani Moonstar teamed up to show Prodigy a possible future where the mental blocks on his powers are removed, allowing him to keep all the knowledge his powers absorb from others. In this future, he becomes a genocidal dictator, creating a utopia at the cost of thousands of lives, including all the X-Men. After seeing this telepathic illusion, Prodigy decides to keep his mental blocks in place.
- An Arm and a Leg: Anole loses an arm in Limbo. It's quickly replaced by a larger, stronger arm. After everything's over, X-23 suggests seeing if his other limbs will grow back. (He decides he'd rather not try it.)
- Anyone Can Die: New X-Men, which under Christopher Yost, slaughtered countless characters left and right. The kick off of this trend began with blowing up a bus full of depowered former cast-members. Later, Icarus and Wallflower, two of the central characters, died on different circumstances.
- Berserk Button: As Emma Frost admits, she may not like X-23, but mess with her, and you'll wish you were dead, as Kimura finds out the hard way.
- Big Bad: Sean Garrison, though due to DeFilippis and Weir being fired he didn't really get to do much. The follow-up Kyle/Yost run had William Stryker, Doctor Zander Rice, and Belasco as the main villains of individual arcs.
- Body Horror: The first time Mercury's powers activated, she collapsed into a pile of goo on her bathroom floor.
- Break the Cutie: Mercury came pre-broken, what with the traumatic way her X-gene activated, her parents basically abandoning her, and then what the Institute did to her.
- C-List Fodder: Craig Kyle and Chris Yost kicked off their run with an arc where a whole bunch of classmates of the protagonists whom it would probably be generous to call C-list get blown up by the Purifiers. The least obscure character to die in this scene was Tag, who was The Generic Guy in the Jerkass posse. Another character, DJ, got last words that were the only thing he has ever said in any comic ever. Kyle and Yost would go on to kill two main characters (main for this title, anyway) and were responsible for the aforementioned Necrosha, so at least that's something.
- Chick Magnet: Hellion is always being described as good looking, and before his Jerkass personality comes out, he is genuinely charming and charismatic.
- Cure for Cancer: Prodigy is shown a vision of what would happen if he has the mental block preventing him from permanently gaining the knowledge he absorbs removed. The first thing he does after he leaves the school is work with his old roommate, Elixir, and he creates a cure for both cancer and AIDS (with the promise of curing every major disease on the planet) that he distributes around the world for free... at the cost of Elixir's life, since Prodigy created the cure by cutting his friend up too much.
- Darker and Edgier: Post House of M New X-Men.
- Defeat by Modesty: When the New Mutants and the Hellions were rival squads, Wind Dancer of the New Mutants dispatched Dust of the Hellions during a melee by using wind to scatter her sand form, and accidentally blew her Muslim niqab to who-knows-where, leaving Dust unable to find where it went. She was forced to hide in a bush lest she accidentally run into any of the boys. Icarus suggested for Surge to get another one from the girls' shared room; once Surge located her, it raised a bit of a conversation about their contrasting views of decency; Surge notes she wouldn't mind being a Shameless Fanservice Girl if the occasion arose.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: A telekinesis version in the case of Hellion. After the battle against Nimrod when he asks Emma Frost to unlock his powers' full potential so he can get X-23 back to Elixir to save her life, he suddenly loses all fine control of his powers. When Beast asks him to move a paperclip he instead blows out an entire wall.
- For Want Of A Nail: Stryker attempts to invoke this: Taking advantage of knowledge of the future provided by Nimrod, he specifically targets Wallflower and Dust for assassination because, in what he was shown, first Laurie and then, after she is murdered Sooraya single-handedly defeated his attack on the school. It might have worked if not for X-23 taking Dust's place.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Kimura was born to an abusive alcoholic father and a negligent mother. Her school life was similar, as she was abused and tormented by her peers. Through unspecified means at some point in time, Kimura's grandmother became her caregiver. At once, her grandmother tried to heal the emotional damage inflicted upon Kimura through nurturing, love, and understanding. However, by that point the emotional scars were permanent and her grandmother's attempts to reach her were futile. After her grandmother's fatal heart attack, Kimura took off, eventually coming into contact with the Facility. She then underwent some unspecified procedure that granted her physical invulnerability, density control, and reconstruction. She then exacted revenge against those in her past who had wronged her. During her time at the Facility, Kimura eventually assumed the same abusive role as the people who victimized her in the past, particularly to Laura. When Emma Frost learns of this by reading her mind, she admits that her past was horrible and no child deserves the life she was born into. However, Emma is not sympathetic with her, and is in fact deeply disgusted with her, pointing out she is a bully plain and simple. She became the very person she hated and feared growing up. She made Laura into her victim and gave her the same horrible life she lived through and didn't care because even though she knew all too well the pain Laura suffered, and she enjoyed inflicting it. Emma doesn't hesitate to mind-wipe her, making her forget about her grandmother — the only influential positive person in her life — creating "a deep void that will cause [her] pain for a lifetime."Emma Frost: You are a bully plain and simple. A product from your past... Being kicked around your whole life an alcoholic father and uncaring mother at home, only to find the same waiting for you from your peers in the schoolyard, day in and day out. You were born into a life you did not deserve... A life no child deserves. Someone needs to fill the role of the victim and you played that part for so many until your grandmother came to your rescue. She called you her "sweet child." She did everything she could to undo the damage everyone else had done. But sadly she came too late, all that hope and good you held onto was beaten out long ago. After your grandmother's heart attack, you found your way to the Facility to the men that could give what you wanted badly... Revenge. A hollow prize, but one you begged for. And once you'd gotten the best of those who wronged you, you became the very person you hated and feared growing up. And X-23 played the role of your victim. Like you, Laura didn't deserve that horrible life, no child does remember? But you didn't care. Even though you knew all too well the pain she suffered, you enjoyed inflicting it. You still enjoy it. That's why you're a bully.
- Genre Blindness: The O*N*E staff who set up camp on the Xavier Institute after M-Day. Bad enough they're using Sentinels to protect Mutants, but when the students go missing they interrogate Anole, who lists all the possible ways they could've gone missing, and promptly refuse to believe him.
- Hufflepuff House: obviously, main plot was rivalry between the New Mutants and Hellions. Good luck tracking other squads membership.
- I'm Having Soul Pains: Pixie received one of these injuries during their trip to Limbo. It acts up specifically around demons and beings with darkness in them.
- Idiot Ball: Wallflower's death is largely dependent on both Wolverine and Elixir grabbing hold of this hard. Yes, Logan, when someone's been shot on your watch, the sensible thing to do is obviously to restrain the healer for no apparent reason. And Josh, when your girlfriend is bleeding out, it's probably best to actually use your nigh-omnipotent healing powers instead of just doing the Pietà Plagiarism thing. Also, the adults catch it frequently, most notably by denying Nimrod could have possibly returned (in a comic book), in order to allow the kids to save the day.
- The Juggernaut: Nimrod, whom the New X-Men hold their own against, without so much as a single casualty (barely).
- Magic Is Feminine: Pixie learned a Teleportation spell from Illyana and wields a magic dagger that can harm astral beings. She is a teenage girl with pink hair and the only mystic character among the cast.
- Messianic Archetype: Sam Guthrie a.k.a Cannonball was destined to lead the Mutant race by combining Magneto, Xavier and Cable's dreams into something better. It didn't take once the "External/High Lord" thing ran its course and got tired during a change in the creative team.
- Mushroom Samba: Pixie's other superpower, spraying hallucinogenic dust on people that makes them see cutsey things (teddy bears, unicorns, the like). It even works on demons. And Wolverine.
- Playing with Fire: Benjamin Hamill, or Match, has a less powerful version of Johnny Storm's powers. Apparently when they first started up he torched an entire park.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Mercury is made of up non-organic liquid metal and Dust turns into a sandstorm. While their powers render them nude when they retake human form, Dust can reform in her clothes, although if she can't find them it's even more awkward as she wears a niqab in public as part of her Muslim faith.
- Shout-Out: Santo suggests they need Patricia Arquette's character from Medium or even Jessica Fletcher to solve the mystery of how Nimrod is now with Forge.
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: In a less-antagonistic sense, in Academy X both Icarus and Wither were latest additions to Hellions and New Mutants, but after incident with FBI Jay found his teammates idiots and Kevin realized Emma's students showed him more friendship than Dani and her pupils, so they switched teams.
- Spanner in the Works: X-23 becomes this for Stryker's plans to attack the school by taking Dust's place when Jay unwittingly lures her into an ambush, and it's ultimately Laura's arrival at the school during the attack and not Wallflower and Dust that foils him.
- Superhero Team Uniform: In New Mutants, the team started off with yellow and white outfits, mostly with a yellow upper torso with a blue X-Men logo in the centre, and a larger yellow X on the lower torso, before moving to the classic X-Men training uniform in Academy X. Other "squads" of the Xavier Institute student body had their own uniforms, most notably the Hellions, who wore red and white.
- Took a Level in Badass: Most of the New X-Men cast, after Decimation. Just not by choice.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Surge, due to Anger Born of Worry.
- Trauma Conga Line: Par the course for mutants, as most of them were disowned by their parents, but starting with M-Day, they got it worse than any generation before them. They had to watch their friends lose their powers, after which most of the deported students were killed by the Purifiers. Then they were subject to attacks from said Purifiers picking off some of the remaining students. Most of them go through personal traumas, from people kidnapping them for one reason or another, or their past coming back to haunt them. They are dropped in Limbo and narrowly survive that experience. A monster who feeds on mutants comes right to their door as many of them are injured and the X-mansion is destroyed for the second time in their tenure there. They are duped by Donald Pierce, losing another of their own. When they move to San Francisco, they are attacked by Norman Osborn. They are subsequently attacked by an army of Vampires, undead mutants, and then a Nimrod army which kills or maims even more of them. When they finally settle back into school life in Westchester, they have to deal with the ramifications of the squabbling of their Staff and then M-Pox, which they have to move temporarily back to Limbo to avoid.
