Issue #4, and New Mutants is still in its recruitment storyline.  As you'd imagine, there's a definite risk of this initial run degenerating into formula, and while they changed the format slightly in issue #2 by focussing on a character who was already in the school, that feeling of formula is definitely back in effect here.

This month's newcomer is David Alleyne, who has one of those low-key powers that's obviously very useful without immediately lending itself to superhero stories.  But then, New Mutants isn't really a superhero book - at least, it certainly hasn't been thus far - so that's not necessarily a problem.  David has the power to know everything that the people around him know, although this seems to be restricted to learning, talent and general knowledge rather than details of their personal lives.  Which begs a practical question of where exactly you draw the line, but I suppose it's a workable distinction for most purposes. 

Frankly, David's origin story isn't all that dramatic.  He's a diligent student, because if he doesn't learn things properly, the knowledge fades again.  The anti-mutant thugs find out where he lives, so he changes his mind and goes off to join the school.  And that's really it.  Fortunately, David's been located in Chicago, which means that Dani also gets to drop in on Karma and bring her back to the school.  The issue does rather better when it's focussing on that side of the plot, and it helps that DeFilippis and Weir are the first writers in years to give Karma's siblings any sort of personality.  Their made-up game is set up entertainingly enough that it doesn't read like a set-up, which makes for a fun pay-off at the end.

This being 2003, we're now allowed to just come out and say that Karma's a lesbian, without having to drop heavy-handed hints by relocating her to Greenwich Village and giving her a makeover.  The script takes a rather more circuitous approach to suggesting that Karma is attracted to Kitty Pryde - an odd idea to include given that Kitty's been assigned to the supporting cast of X-Treme X-Men, so there's no real prospect of following it up.  She's not even in this issue, presumably because she's meant to be off appearing in that book's recent "God Loves Man Kills II" storyline.

DeFilippis and Weir seem to have a decent handle on Karma's character, and I'm happy to see her being brought back into a regular cast.  Unless I'm very much mistaken, Karma hasn't been on the core cast of any X-book since she quit the original New Mutants, and that was about 15 years ago.  I'm less sold on David, who seems a rather bland character so far - he's a nice enough guy, but with no real points that hold my interest for the future.

Artist Keron Grant is moving on at the end of the storyline, which is good news all round.  He always seems at his happiest when he's drawing dynamic action sequences.  This is a conversation book, and quite honestly, Grant seems bored out of his mind.  For the most part, he's not that great at the more subtle character work which is necessarily to breathe visual life into the story, and the result is a very bland looking comic.  Nor is he getting much opportunity to show off his strengths.  This seems to have been a horrible piece of miscasting.

Overall, an okay issue - but this set-up phase is really going on for longer than it should.

Rating: B

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