Issue(s): New Mutants #39
Cover Date: May 86
Title: "Pawns of the White Queen"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Keith Pollard - Penciler
Dell Barras - Inker
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
The New Mutants have joined Emma Frost's school, but despite a warm welcome from at least some of the Hellions...

...they are still traumatized over having been killed and resurrected by the Beyonder.

It's to the point where Empath can't even have fun manipulating the girls, and i do love this scene of Magik coming back from Limbo and terrifying him.

Magik continues to spend more time in Limbo.

Meanwhile, Magneto is in a downward spiral.

Dani tells him that she and Magik wound up in "a future" (Marvel kids are so casual about alternate future realities!) where they saw the New Mutants and the Hellions on one team. She thought they avoided that future, but thanks to Magneto, there's a chance it will come to pass again.

The White Queen starts to use her powers to ease her new student's trauma and also subtly instill loyalty to her.

Meanwhile, naked Magneto.

His shower is interrupted by the return of Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander.

Last issue Empath made them succumb to lust for each other, but they haven't just been out on the lawn passionately doin' it. They've apparently been out on the town getting leather outfits and nose rings, "demanding more and more stimulus to satisfy our craving". They seem to have eventually fought their way past Empath's manipulations, but when Magneto learns what happened to them and who was responsible, he realizes that he was a victim of Empath as well, and heads out to the White Queen's school to get his students back. Emma, sensing this and deciding that her students aren't enough to fight Magneto, and that calling in the rest of the Hellfire Club would result in a "possibly irredeemable... loss of status", calls the police instead, asking them to alert the proper authorities, and the next issue blurb says "Avengers Assemble!".

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• The New Mutants first met the Hellions in New Mutants #15-17.
  
• The New Mutants were traumatized thanks to their experiences with the Beyonder in New Mutants #36, Secret Wars II #8, New Mutants #37, and Secret Wars II #9.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

And the first thing Magneto uses against intruders is a razor instead of his own magnetism, even though he had no problem using it against would-be rapists a few issues back?

My no-prize explanation is that Mags was keeping in character as Michael Xavier.

That Tom and Sharon stuff is the most Claremontian thing ever.

More Claremontian than Empath making a visit to the girls' locker room? I guess he had to do something when Firestar wasn't around, and ogling the hot teacher wasn't enough.

It sucks to be Tom and Sharon, but they're very minor characters and this was probably more screen time than they'd gotten since their first appearance in the "Demon Bear" saga. They got over that experience quickly enough. But being on the same campus as Empath...