New Mutants 53 page 18 by Rick Leonardi & Terry Austin

I have very fond memories of the various fill-ins Rick Leonardi drew on the X-titles during the 80s.

Here we have a very nice page of New Mutants meddling with the Hellfire club. Leonardi’s natural storytelling flows very well on this page with nice bits of facial expressions and body language. Doug Ramsey’s getting more confident at the table. Leonardi did a fantastic job at conveying the atmosphere of a high stakes card games, specially the winning part which is excellent. I also love how the cards & the chips spot a hellfire club logo on the back. All those details show how thoughtful a storyteller Leonardi is.

To top it all, this issue was inked by Terry Austin who I always thought works very well on Leonardi’s pencils and probably is my inker of choice for him.