The stretch from New Mutants #55 through #73 changes the class in ways that cannot be explained by swapping a few names on a roster. The friendships are still there, but the fam…

The stretch from New Mutants #55 through #73 changes the class in ways that cannot be explained by swapping a few names on a roster. The friendships are still there, but the familiar school arrangement is coming apart around them. Magma moves toward the Hellions. Sunspot and Warlock have their separate Fallen Angels experience before returning. Bird-Brain brings the team into contact with the Ani-Mator’s experiments. Doug Ramsey dies. Later, Gosamyr and the rescue of Lila Cheney take the group into space, while Illyana’s struggle with Limbo grows into the New Mutants’ part of Inferno. This thread follows that changing ensemble rather than pretending all of those people joined one permanent lineup. Sam, Dani, Rahne, Roberto, Doug, Warlock and Illyana each have a place in the story, but Doug’s death is an actual endpoint within it. Amara gets a departure post. Bird-Brain and Gosamyr have their own roles, without being folded into the founding class. Magneto remains the headmaster, increasingly separated from what the children are doing and experiencing. The losses have consequences between battles. People blame themselves, argue about what could have been different and try to recover something that cannot be put back exactly as it was. New adventures do not simply clear that away. By #73, the young X-Terminators are fighting beside the New Mutants, and Illyana’s situation has changed completely. The next chapter will build on those connections. This one deserves to be understood on its own terms: a group of young people trying to keep helping others while their own support system is taking damage, and while several of their powers bring dangers that their teachers cannot easily contain.