New Mutants #11 is the penultimate issue of the series, since it's about to be relaunched as the new New X-Men (if that makes any sense).  That means they've still got to get another issue out in the course of April, but then these things happen when you demand radical rewrites to storylines in progress, I suppose.

I see that we've now disposed of the multiple inkers altogether in favour of shooting direct from pencils and letting Avalon Studios do the

Ah, it's a recap of the origin of Wolfsbane.  Well, fair enough, I suppose.  It's been a good few years since she was a regular cast member anywhere, so it's as well to re-establish the concept for the regulars.  Artist Carlo Barberi immediately gets in my good books by depicting a version of the north of Scotland where people wear normal clothes and where the buildings are larger than sheds.  Well done, Carlo!  Unfortunately, on the next page he chooses to dress Rahne as Cinderella.  Oops.

Clothes for Rahne as a teenager are off as well - they used to make a big deal about the fact that she was very religious and introverted and wouldn't wear anything tight-fitting.  And, unfortunately, history still demands that Rahne's origin is stuck with that ridiculous torch-bearing lynchmob scene from Marvel Graphic Novel #4.  Still, at least we've got rid of the bit where they all go home because Moira is the local laird and must be obeyed.  (Come to think of it, I'd have got rid of the torches as well.  I mean, really.)

Mind you, DeFilippis and Weir have set themselves a difficult task here.  They've tried to interweave Rahne's back story with Laurie Collins', the only regular character whose story hasn't been established so far.  It's pretty much as you'd expect - when she discovers that everyone responds to her pheromones, she no longer trusts anyone's reaction to her, and starts panicking.  The big new addition here is to establish that her father had the same powers and seduced her mother by the same means, which effectively makes her a child of rape.

The common thread here seems to be that Rahne and Laurie were both withdrawn and shy at some point, but this rather gets obscured when the story has to try and jabber away about Rahne's time as a Genoshan mutate, her time in X-Factor and so forth.

Oh yeah, and they've also killed off Josh.  It seems he's surplus to requirements in the brave new post-Reload world.  I find myself strangely unmoved.  There were some interesting ideas in there, but I never really cared that much about him.  Or maybe it's just the fact that he dies, apparently as an afterthought, after an entire issue devoted to origin recaps.

Irrelevant Cover Watch: this issue's cover is a pin-up Noriko Ashida.  Noriko does not appear in the issue at all, bringing the ICW count to 2/2 for the week.

Rating: B

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