Things in Carnelia go from bad to worse for the team in the New Mutants #10, by writer Ed Brisson, artist Flaviano, colorist Carlos Lopez, and letterer Travis Lanham. Reinforcements arrive and form a plan, but the government has different plans for the whole thing.

Another team of New Mutants shows up to help out. Doug is able to figure out what is happening inside the sphere- the girl is connecting everyone in the sphere with her nightmares and is expanding the field. The Prime Minister of the Carnelia prepares to make a statement on the situation. Back on Krakoa, Magik asks Glob about what happened at Beak and Angel's farm and how the cartel soldiers found their house. He tells her about the DOX website that posted their address online. In Carnelia, the team makes a plan to give the girl good dreams just as the Prime Minister goes on TV, tells everyone that the whole situation is the mutants striking at the country because they refused to sign an agreement with Krakoa and calls for their arrest. Armor, Mondo, Wildside, and Doug enter the anomaly, and just as they reach the girl and Wildside prepares to touch her, black tendrils grab Armor's shield that is protecting them, snaps their safety line, and the nightmares infect Armor.

This issue feels pretty run of the mill, even though it's trying to feel different. Brisson does a good job with the characters, but the main plot has a very cliche feel to it- a mutant with an uncontrolled power needs help, bad things are happening that humans can blame on mutants, and the whole thing is about to blow up on them. The mutant girl's nightmare black hole is novel, and Brisson builds the whole story well enough to make it hard to see how the New Mutants are going to get out of the whole thing, but other than that, this is a very cliche plot.

The most interesting thing about the issue (which includes Glob's recipe for vegetarian laksa is readers, which is both a weird addition and pretty cool honestly) is the website that has been doxing mutants. Now is a very vulnerable time for mutants- while the ones on Krakoa have power and protection, the ones elsewhere in the world are vulnerable, and a lot of humans are very mad at mutants right now. A website that exists to go after mutants makes sense because of what happens in the real world to people who piss off the majority for whatever reason. Also, the Marvel Universe people are just so very racist against mutants (as opposed to all of the other people who have superpowers, who they apparently love). It will be cool to see what Brisson does with this- who's running it, and is there only motive to screw up mutants' lives, or is there something more?

The first two pages of this book, set in the girl's nightmare black hole are the best art gets. Flaviano does a great job of capturing the otherworldliness of the thing. The rest of his art is merely okay. The second stint in the black hole doesn't look as good as the first, and his characters have a case of "same face". If two characters have the same hair color and haircut, it's hard to tell who is who.

New Mutants #10 is a good comic, but it's also pretty cliched. There are some novel parts of it, but this is very much a standard X-Men/mutant story. Brisson saves it from being bland with his characterization, so while readers have encountered this type of story before, it's still worse reading. Flaviano's art is okay. It starts off very strong, but then the quality falls a bit; it's not bad, it's just nothing special. That's New Mutants #10 in a nutshell- it's not bad, it's just nothing special.

Grade: B