"Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively"

~ Sun Tzu

The New Mutants were teenaged students of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, much like the original X-Men, who had since grown into adulthood. These students, however, rather resembled the "All-New, All-Different X-Men" in terms of ethnic diversity. The original team consisted of:
Cannonball (Samuel Guthrie), a mild-mannered 16-year-old Kentuckian and eventual co-leader, who became nigh-invulnerable when rocketing through the air.
Karma (Xi'an Coy Manh), a 19-year-old Vietnamese girl and the team's original leader, who could mentally possess other people's bodies.
Mirage (Danielle Moonstar, originally codenamed Psyche), a Cheyenne and eventual co-leader after Karma's "death," who could create visual empathic three-dimensional illusions.
Sunspot (Roberto da Costa), a 14-year-old Brazilian billionaire who gained superhuman strength fueled by sunlight and could store solar energy in his body to use his super strength during the night.
Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), a 13-year-old religious Scot who could transform into a wolf-like creature.

The team was intended to debut in their own series. However, as the first issue was nearing completion, Shooter ordered it to be reworked into a graphic novel so that Marvel Graphic Novel could make its deadline for the next issue. Thus, the New Mutants debuted in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (December 1982), which continued a plotline from Uncanny X-Men. (Despite Shooter's wheeling and dealing, however, the graphic novel missed its shipping slot by two weeks due to artist Bob McLeod's honeymoon.)

The series was originally written by Claremont and illustrated by McLeod, the team's co-creators, but McLeod soon passed artistic duties on to Sal Buscema. Claremont gave the series a darker tone, which was heightened with the arrival of artist Bill Sienkiewicz. In addition to very serious depictions of teenage angst and growing pains, the series featured themes of mysticism and psychic boundaries. The stories also relied on wilder, more far-fetched premises than were typical of X-Men at the time. Locales included demonic dimensions, alternate futures, and an ancient Roman civilization hidden within the Amazon rainforest. The New Mutants also encountered a secret society called the Hellfire Club, and began a rivalry with their young apprentices, the Hellions.

After the apparent death of Karma, Cannonball and Dani Moonstar act as co-leaders. New recruits included:
Cypher (Douglas Ramsey), an otherwise ordinary young man who could learn any language, spoken or written, at an exponential rate, whether it was human, alien, or machine, making him an unmatched computer expert.
Magik (Illyana Rasputin), sister of the Russian X-Man Colossus and long-time resident of the X-Mansion, an accomplished mystic who could open "teleportation discs" allowing travel to Limbo and from there, any point on Earth.
Magma (Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla), a fiercely tempered native of a secret Roman society in the Amazon who can control lava.
Warlock, an extraterrestrial of the techno-organic race known as the Technarchy.

In 1986, Professor X was written out of the series. Before he left, he made the X-Men's one-time nemesis, Magneto, headmaster of his school. Magneto would be the team's longest-running headmaster, holding the position from New Mutants #35 through to #75. Fiercely overprotective of his students, particularly after the events of the "Mutant Massacre" and "Fall of the Mutants", he was increasingly used as an uptight foil for the adventurous New Mutants, setting rules that they would inevitably break in the interests of helping their friends.

With Claremont taking on Wolverine and Excalibur, he left The New Mutants and the series was turned over to writer Louise Simonson and illustrator Bret Blevins with issue #55 (Sept. 1987). Simonson was intended to be only a fill-in writer for the six months Claremont needed to get the two new series launched, but he ultimately remained with his new projects, and Simonson ended up writing the series for over three years. During her run, Magma is written out of the book and Magik is de-aged back to childhood. Due to his unpopularity with New Mutants readers and artists, Cypher is killed off. Simonson recalled, "He wasn't fun to draw. He just stood around and hid behind a tree during a fight... Every artist who ever did him said 'Can't we kill this guy?' We would get letters from fans about how much they hated him." Simonson also folded the X-Terminators, a group of young wards from X-Factor, into the New Mutants.

The X-Terminators added to the team were:
Boom-Boom (Tabitha Smith), a teen runaway who could create "plasma bombs."
Rusty Collins, a pyrokinetic wanted by the U.S. government.
Rictor (Julio Richter), a young Mexican who could create shock waves.
Skids (Sally Blevins), a former Morlock who could project a frictionless force field around her body.

In 1989, Simonson crafted a saga in which the team journeyed to Asgard, the home of the gods of Norse mythology. The storyline wrote Dani Moonstar out of the series, as she joined the Norse pantheon as one of the Valkyrior. However, the most controversial issue of her run was New Mutants #64. Titled "Instant Replay!", the story deals with the New Mutants' mourning for Cypher, and includes a scene in which Warlock attempts to resurrect Cypher by taking his corpse out of its coffin and showing it to Cypher's loved ones. Simonson holds it to be her favorite New Mutants story, though she acknowledges that many readers found it too morbid.

Sales of the series had slumped for several years, but took a sharp upturn after Rob Liefeld took over the penciling and co-plotting chores at the end of 1989. A new mentor for the group, the mysterious mercenary Cable, was introduced, further helping sales. Over the next year, several longtime team members were written out or killed off. However, the relationship between Liefeld and Simonson was fraught with tension, and Simonson claims that Harras dealt with the situation by rewriting her plots and dialogue so that the characterizations did not make sense: "Although I wasn't being fired, I think I was being shoved out the door with both hands by Bob Harras. Bob was only doing what he had to do, I expect, which was make Rob Liefeld happy." Simonson eventually gave in, leaving after issue #97. When Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, who wrote dialogue based on Liefeld's plots, took over as writers of the final three issues of the series, they included several harder-edged characters:
"Domino" (Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle), Cable's pale-skinned, black-garbed mercenary lover. Actually Copycat, impersonating Domino.
Feral (Maria Callasantos), who possessed a bestial temperament and appearance.
Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven), a swashbuckling warrior from another dimension.
Warpath (James Proudstar), the younger brother of slain X-Man Thunderbird and a former Hellion, an Apache who possessed super strength and speed.

The New Mutants was cancelled in 1991 with issue #100, but the new platoon-like team formed by Cable continued in X-Force, a successful series (whose first issue sold approximately one million copies) that would continue until 2002, and feature a variety of the former New Mutants cast. [source: Wikipedia]

I remember the first superhero comic I ever bought was at a comic store at Metcalf South. The issue was from the Wolverine Mini Series, issue #2 because I liked the cover. I eventually bought the other 3 issues and started to collect his regular series when it was around issue 5. I bought back copies to fill in the blanks and to this day, Wolverine is my favorite character. My collecting days went on hiatus when the comic market got a little carried away with variants.
Flash forward to 2015 when I decided to visit the local Comic Con. I ended up buying a Wolverine 1988 series issue #1 graded CGC 9.8. I hadn’t really thought about it much up to that point, but the collecting bug was rekindled. I dug out my collection that had been stored away and decided to start submitting my back issues. I looked online to fill gaps in my various collections and thousands of dollars later I’ve acquired quite a few comics and am trying to avoid collecting too many series at a time! I also like to collect covers I find appealing (see Incredible Hulk 340) and 1st appearances here and there. It’s all a labor of love! Be sure to check out the descriptions of the individual comics as I'm investing the time to make sure they are informative and whenever possible describe the individual story lines!.