X-Books: New Mutants #5 (2009) 'Debrief'

These pages were featured on the CAF+ YouTube channel on August 21, 2023.

2009 was a complicated time. Marvel was doing everything it could to boost the visibility of the Avengers (for which it owned film rights) at the expense of X-Men (for which it did not). The 2005 "House of M" event had de-powered most mutants; the survivors huddled on their Utopia enclave in the San Francisco harbor. The Marvel-wide event "Dark Reign" cast Norman Osborne as a mastermind controlling America for his own benefit. S.H.I.E.L.D. was replaced by H.A.M.M.E.R.

Zeb Wells' run brought the McLeod era New Mutants (now hardly "new") back together: Illyana, Dani, Sam, Bobby, Xi'an, and Amara, all now young adults. (Rahne was busy in X-Force.) The first four issues returned Legion to their lives. In this issue which comes immediately after that arc, they debrief at headquarters. While the X-Club scientists try to help David Haller's many dissociated identities, Dani (who has lost her powers) and Sam settle the debate as to which of them is going to call the shots -- and take some shots at each other in the process. Will Sam let her remain part of the team? Meanwhile, Lockheed visits the empty tomb of Doug Ramsey, which foreshadows the X-Necrosha event.

Art comes from Zachary Baldus. He's not well known in comics, and looking at his pages, it's obvious why; his work is so beautifully rendered, a monthly book would be impossible. He used friends to model the characters, resulting in astonishingly lifelike results that could be colored straight from his pencils. I'm proud to present this book in its entirety, lacking only the Andy Kubert cover. I also commissioned Baldus for a Kitty Pryde painting, seen elsewhere in my gallery.