I vote Sunspot.

Rusty. I dont even know him.

That's right! I dictate the threads now!!

No, seriously though, my least favorite was always Moonstar. Not only was she a marriage of two bad Claremont tropes in being a bad stereotype and strong female leader, but her personality never really seemed to be consistent and it always seemed like writers never knew what to do with her powers.

She was still great though, and New Mutants 41 is still one of the best stories of the original series.

P.S.-- While Rusty and Skids were factually members of the New Mutants, they spent the majority of their time as X-Factor wards and were abducted by Stryfe's henchmen like 10 issues after joining the NM....so, I don't know, I don't really count them.

Kitty pride?!lol

I have to agree with Cattle. Mirage/Moonstar always felt like a dud for me.

As always my question becomes..."who even cares about Rusty"

Indeed. Does he even have a fan?

@koays: Rusty was pretty generic, but eh, at least his powers was kind of useful destructively.

He had some pretty decent moments in X-Factor with Skids and the rest of the "X-Factor kids". Don't you always claim to like that series?? Or did you just look at the panels with Cyclops ;)

@cattlebattle: I deny nothing....the X-factor kids (minus leech and eventually boomboom) are painfully forgettable.

What about Rictor??

Alas, the X-Terminator kids were pretty wank when compared to their New Mutant counterparts, especially the Asian kid in the wheelchair. Poor guy. Rusty was very much the stand out and main focus of the bunch throughout his tenure though as well as just a main character in the 80s X-Factor series altogether. Shame nothing much ever came of Skids, at least her power was somewhat unique for the time.

Warlock.

@cattlebattle: ok I'll give you Rictor too...easily the one who did best all things considered.

Honestly the X-factor kids remind me alot of the JGS Era X-men kids. Where the students are there and have personal things going on alongside the adult cast. But the main thing your going to remember about them when recalling the series is "and the kids did stuff too". Which is a shame considering the push given to them which seems almost like an attempt to flesh them out as the other half of the "New Mutant" generation.

Rictor became popular and likable upon seeing his series 2 trading card.

I remember that although the New Mutants had some really dark beginnings involving murder, rape, and child abuse, most of them went on to just feel like goodie goods after a while, except of course for Magik and Sunspot, who were supposed to wind up as villains anyways I think. The X-Factor kids always felt more realistic and tragic in many ways. Rusty accidentally burned a hooker half to death while manifesting his abilities, as you do, Skids' father beat her mother to death in front of her, and her abilities prevented her from helping her mother, Boom Boom was white trash and a criminal who also had a criminal father that abused her, possibly sexually, Rictor was involved with Mexican Cartel violence. They all maintained a very "gray area" throughout their existence as well.

I don't know, I just feel like a lot the New Mutants characters had backgrounds that are very anachronistic, while the X-Factor kids could still be prevalent to this day. Kind of an overlooked component of the X-Factor series, I think.

I'd say Magma has the weakest backstory and is difficult for writers to utilize as she wields so much power.

Skids and Rusty....eh, I don't really count them as New Mutants.

This might just be me, but I voted Magik... chiefly because she's become this deus ex thing that can do pretty much whatever a writer needs, and I find that pretty dull when there doesn't appear to be any cost or consequence to any of it. And despite how vast her powers are, when it all comes and goes at a drop of a hat (as it often does) it gets boring.

@cattlebattle: Your right about the backgrounds and I think that's more reflective of the overall style (and a very common critique) of the book. X-Factor so often in its earlier issues dealt more with a grounded setting. It's like every idea was 2 parts grounded in reality mixed with 1 part of the fantastical (compared to the reverse in the main series). But when it comes to the kids, looking back on them after their introductions it seemed more like a new mutants expansion pack line up. "Come check out our new members to the X-kids Boom-Boom and Rusty...now with petty theft and hooker burning action!". Simonsons use of them as very much supporting characters kept them from developing very far from their roots, keeping alot of their backstory very fresh in their characters but I could easily see Boom-Boom and Rictor joining the New Mutants at the time and being as much of the teeth rotteningly pure(*) good-guys that they were.

Granted it's an interesting concept to even consider what would've changed were some of the Factor kids switched with the New Mutant kids, because even though the New Mutants come from ancient evil ancestors and haunted tribes of native americans....if you were to switch Xhan and Boom-Boom or Rictor and Sunspot the New Mutants characters would come out fitting into their new teams almost as well as the factor kids would naturally slide into the new mutants.

I don't know if I agree with that. The 6th issue of X-Factor has them tangle with Apocalypse, a giant purple and green monster man with wires coming out of his body, lol.

Well, yeah, I believe at the time when X-Factor came out New Mutants was selling nearly as well as the X-Men book was, so, there was likely some sort of mandate to include mutant teens, likely because the core audience of comic readers were teens. I think the fundamental difference was Claremont was good at writing characters and was able to have the New Mutant kids "come of age" where Simonson's characters just seemed like edgy douche bags a lot of the time because she couldn't write growth as well, I mean, when she took over New Mutants the quality of the book took a drastic dive along with the sales.

Some of the New Mutants had more grounded origins, most of them did in fact, they weren't all abducted and abused by demon lords. I always enjoyed the idea of the New Mutants absorbing more characters as time went on. They were supposed to be a body of students for a mutant school after all.

I happen to love Moonstar. And the other original New Mutants who I consider to be :Karma, Sunspot, Cannonball, and Rahne.

My least favorite and least awesome is Cypher. Imo he should never have even really been made into a mutant anyway. I would have just had him as a young genius with a knack learning and understanding languages. Let him have an idetic memory or whatever but be a baseline human who because of his genius and being considered different and weird, identifies with mutants more.

Probably Magma. I sometimes liked the way her personality played off the others, but her centric stories are usually boring for me.

Sunspot was an asshole.

Cypher. If i was a mutant and that was my power I'd.......do something besides translate languages.

Cypher.

It's an extremely common thing to see Cypher on lists that denote "who is the lamest mutant of all??" or "what is the lamest mutant power??" I feel however it's more of a peripheral assumption than it is based on anything.

Cypher was one of the most endearing characters of the original New Mutants, as well as the stereotypical "brains" of the group that is a common trope with every super hero team. His powers usually often served as the lynchpin to victories as his understanding of languages would help the New Mutants when they were off world, which happened quite often. He was also able to use his power to decipher the differences in Legion's personalities which lead to the success of "defeating" his evil, dominant personality when they first encountered him. His power also allowed him to understand Warlock's binary code and merge with him at the risk of being "assimilated", which always seemed to be impending. So, in some ways, Cypher was the most powerful New Mutant oddly enough as his powers were usually plot deviced in some way or another, the explanations Claremont gave of how his power was working always made at least a little bit of sense though.

He was also quite the ladies man as Kitty Pryde, Psylocke, and Tarot were all into him at some point in his short existence. He also got drunk at a party one time and hooked up with Roulette before slapping that hoe for being a duplicitous thot.

Doug Ramsey=under rated character.

That word wasn't even in your vocabulary a year ago. You're letting them assimilate you.

@cattlebattle: damn my reading comprehension! I thought this was powers only

My virgin eyes have gazed into the abyss, and it looked back. I have been corrupted.

Still though, his powers do reach beyond just translating languages. He is able to do all sorts of random, complex things due to his understanding of code, structure, crunching numbers, statistical data etc. it's just that the language thing is off shoot of that. Though it's not the most violent power it would be probably pretty cool to have in real life, and I feel like people over look that in favor of something weird and stupid, like shooting lasers out of your face.

I like this concept a lot.

@cattlebattle: very true been awhile since I’ve read anything with him