Cable's arrival in New Mutants #87 does not instantly produce the group on the final issue's cover. The familiar kids are still there, friendships are still pulling in different…

Cable's arrival in New Mutants #87 does not instantly produce the group on the final issue's cover. The familiar kids are still there, friendships are still pulling in different directions, and several of the people associated with the coming team have not arrived yet. The opening issue is crowded with unfinished business. Dani stays in Asgard. Rusty and Skids are taken out of government custody by the Mutant Liberation Front. Cable enters the story pursuing that organization, and his connection to the New Mutants develops over the following issues, becoming a mentoring arrangement around #89. For a while, his students include Cannonball, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Warlock, Boom-Boom and Rictor. The book gives that combination adventures of its own, including the Morlock tunnels and the pursuit of the MLF in Madripoor. Reading straight from Cable's debut to the final recruits skips a substantial part of what happens. Then X-Tinction Agenda tears through the group. Warlock dies in #95. Rahne's Genoshan ordeal leads to her staying behind in #97. Rictor leaves in #98, and Roberto follows a different path in #99 after his father's death. The arrivals cluster at the end. Domino appears in #98 as Cable's experienced associate. James Proudstar is recruited in #99, while Shatterstar and Feral enter across #99–100. Their reasons for being there are very different. This thread treats that whole shifting ensemble as the era, including the people whose departures shape it. It stops at #100. Cable's background, Domino's introduction and the team's future are discussed only as this stretch presents them, without borrowing answers from the later ongoing series.