Scans_Daily

Can't deny most of those points, but I don't see them as being problems to be honest.

Yes I'd say they were created to be rivals, but aren't most villain teams that don't have an over-riding theme? (Like, say the Wrecking Crew, or the Serpent Society)

None of the Hellions had appeared before. Empath and Thunderbird would later go on to appear in an X-Men story which introduced Firestar to the MU (after her cartoon appearances) but Roulette and Empath were as new as the rest. (Even James Proudstar was a new addition, Thunderbird had never had a brother before)

Tarot's powers seemed reasonably straightforward. She creates solid projections based on the images she's pulled at random, the tarot deck is a convenient and familiar focussing device (And no one ever says her powers are truly precognitive, though she believes them to be. The "Lovers" card bit for example, never happened with any New Mutant), same way a number of, say, telekinetics, are matter-specific; Water Wizard only affecting water, Gypsy Moth only affecting soft materials like fabrics etc.

Dani hating her powers effect was a recurring character trait. If your power is basically, to scare people to the point of recurring bed-wetting, and you don't have qualms about using it, THEN I'd say she had a problem. And Claremont tended to work on the principle that any comic that you read might be your first comic. It made for some repeating tropes, but as this was my first New Mutants comic in some time (My local newsagent not having a regular pull list for American comics) it was handy for me.