Escapade joins the New Mutants just in time to face down the U-Men in New Mutants #31, by writer Charlie Jane Anders, artists Alberto Alburquerque, Ro Stein, and Ted Brandt, colorists Carlos Lopez and Tamra Bonvillain, and letterer Travis Lanham. The new creative team has some big shoes to fill, and it shows, as this issue is just sort of average.

Emma Frost goes to Karma and Dani to ask about Escapade and has them assign her to a mission to New York. Meanwhile, Escapade is basically just hanging out with the Lost Club mutants, getting to know everyone. Her, Cerebella, Leo Eng, and Wolfsbane go to a rally in Washington Square Park and meet up with her friend Morgan before the U-Men attack, taking them hostage. They end up in U-Men headquarters, where they come face to face with a returned John Sublime.

Vita Ayala leaving New Mutants is a huge blow to the X-Men books. They were an amazing voice, and their New Mutants issues were wonderful edifices of story, expertly built and incorporating emotion and action perfectly. It was peak New Mutants, made all the better by Rod Reis’s artwork, which fit into the Bill Sienkiewicz mold. New Mutants was a top-tier comic, so Anders has her work cut out for her and doesn’t exactly land it in this first chapter.

This is an average comic, which is a far fall from where it was. There’s way too much exposition in places, some of the dialogue is really clunky, and it kind of meanders. It painstakingly introduces Escapade, but that’s part of the problem. Readers need to know who she is, but this book goes about it in more of a prose way than a comic way. That said, the plot is pretty good - it’s nice to see the U-Men again - and Anders does a good job capturing Cerebella’s giddiness when talking about her body.

Alburquerque’s art is good, but it’s not great. His style is cartoony, which fits sometimes but doesn’t others. Luckily, his detail is good, he has some character acting chops, and the page layouts are nice. Stein and Brandt do a Peanuts-esque strip about young Morgan and Shela that’s fun. Lopez and Bonvillain do an excellent job with the colors.

All in all, New Mutants #31 is fine. It’s average, which is a step down from what it was before. It has its moments, and Anders, Alburquerque, and company show potential. It’ll be interesting to see how this book goes in the future.

Grade: C+