New Mutants #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #21
“Krakoa Welcomes Gabby Kinney”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. Magik, Mirage and Karma confront a shadowy Wolfsbane, which doesn’t bear much resemblance to anything in the issue. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn it was based on an early version of the plot.
PAGES 2-3. Warpath takes his trainees to the moon.
The Summer House is the home of the Summers family, seen extensively in X-Men and Cable.
Warpath’s class are apparently here to look at the space slugs and, er, clean the more senior X-Men’s house. Heaven only knows where the space slugs came from; maybe someone brought them back from the Shi’ar empire, maybe they just happened to be passing and fell to the surface.
The kids in Warpath’s class today are:
- Galura. The one with wings. As with several other characters from Vita Ayala’s run, a version of her first appeared as one of the prisoners in Age of X-Man: Prisoner X, but the versions who appear on Krakoa are original characters. I believe this is the first time we’ve seen Galura in an ongoing title, but she previously appeared in a Karma story in Marvel Voices: Pride.
- Monica Sellers. The one with red hair and extendable arms. Monica mentions later that those powers would tear their suit, but maybe the idea was to figure out how to get round it in combination with someone else. (Incidentally, Leo refers to Monica as “they” in this story, which I think is the first time that’s been clarified on the page.)
- Cam Long. The one with the light bluish skin and the claws. He’s the one clawing a Brood on page 13 panel 2.
- Brutha Nature. The one with the curly hair. He controls plants. He first appeared in issue #16, as one of the bullies that Magik brought to heel.
- Leonara Eng. The one with the glasses. A telekinetic, and another of the group from issue #16.
The Brood are longstanding X-Men villains from the 80s, who you’re almost certainly well aware of. If you’re not… well, you know Alien? It’s that.
PAGE 4. Data page. Another of the journal pages by Warpath answering the questions that Mirage gave him as a writing exercise back in issue #14 (Ayala’s first issue).
When Warpath talks about continuing “without some of the people I love most”, he’s likely referring to the death of his older brother, the original Thunderbird, in X-Men vol 1 #95, and to the slaughter of his tribe by the Hellfire Club in New Mutants vol 1 #99. The death of Thunderbird was a huge influence on his life, and he spent most of the eighties wearing his brother’s old costume and brooding about avenging him.
He says in passing that “resurrection has changed some of what that means”, but by all appearances Thunderbird I has yet to be resurrected. This remains a bit weird. Emma claimed in Marauders that Cerebro wasn’t recording that far back, but that seems to have been an excuse to give to Sebastian Shaw for not resurrecting Lourdes Chantal, because we’ve seen that Petra and Sway were resurrected, and both of them died before Thunderbird. To be fair, they might have been prioritised because of their potential value in keeping their teammate Vulcan stable. Does James think his brother is still in the queue?
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. The title refers to the “Krakoa welcomes all mutants” slogan from early days of the Krakoan era, though we haven’t seen it in the actual comics in quite some time.
PAGES 6-8. Cosmar and co confront Wolfsbane.
Scout was dead by the end of the Hellfire Gala, as seen in issue #19; her body was found in issue #20.
Anole is broadly correct in what he says about the resurrection rules for clones. Scout raised this question with Magik in issue #14 and got fobbed off, apparently because Magik assumed it really was just coincidence that none of the clones had been resurrected. In fact, there is a high-profile counter-example – the Stepford Cuckoos – but it’s possible that none of these characters actually know that the Cuckoos are cloens of Emma Frost.
Havok was loudly pressing for the resurrection of Madelyne Pryor after she died in Hellions #4. The New Mutants have hitherto assumed that Madelyne was put to the back of the queue, not because she’s a clone of Jean Grey, but because she’s dangerous to have around. However, in Hellions #4, Cyclops specifically said that Madelyne wouldn’t be resurrected because she was a clone (and told Havok so), and a data page in Cable #9 confirms that this is a deliberate rule, designed to avoid “multiple versions of the same person” being produced.
Wolfsbane apparently doesn’t know any of this. The Five certainly do – we see a memo from them protesting about the rule, and signed by all five of them, on page 14. Despite this, Tempus acts surprised in this scene that Anole thinks they wouldn’t resurrect Scout.
Gabby confronted Anole and co about their experiments in issue #18. The other murder that Tempus mentions is the death of the Scarlet Witch, as seen in X-Factor #10 and followed up in X-Men: Trial of Magneto.
PAGES 9-10. Karma and Mirage.
“Everything happening in terms of Tier.” Mirage is referring to Wolfsbane’s recent discovery that her son Tier is apparently alive, and her search to find him. Mirage somewhat glosses over the fact that part of Wolfsbane’s distress comes from Mirage and Karma not being around to support her because they were off on a mission to Otherworld (which turned out to be a completely pointless wild goose chase).
“Especially when it comes to him.” The Shadow King possessed Karma for an extended period in New Mutants back in the 1980s.
“I’ve felt something is wrong through our bond.” It doesn’t come up much these days, but in early issues of New Mutants much was made of Mirage’s power to mentally link to animals, which allowed her to link with Wolfsbane when in wolf form. It was a big deal once upon a time.
“Gentleman’s agreement made law.” Mirage is referring to the amnesty for former supervillains arriving on Krakoa. The status of the amnesty is a bit obscure, really. Officially there are only three laws on Krakoa, and the amnesty isn’t one of them. It’s more of a cultural premise, if it’s meaningful to even try and analyse Krakoan society in terms of law.
PAGES 11-13. Warpath and his class fight the Brood.
“Broo has the swarm under psychic control because of the King egg, remember?” Warpath is referencing X-Men #8 from the Hickman run, in which Broo (the mutant Brood youngster) ate a “King egg” that made the Brood swarm recognise him as their leader. If Warpath seems remarkably relaxed about the sudden appearance of the Brood on the moon, we find out later on that he’s expecting Broo to show up – so presumably he just assumes the kids have stumbled upon Broo’s entourage and there’s been a misunderstanding.
The point of the rest of the scene is basically that the kids have learned the lesson about using their powers in tandem to do more than they could as individuals. I don’t think this really works, because not enough has happened on the page to make us care much about these kids – I know Ayala has detailed personalities worked out for them, but in terms of what’s actually happened in the comics, they’re really just background characters and I still have to look them up every month to remember which one is which.
PAGE 14. Data page – the memo from the Five that I mentioned earlier.
I know I’ve said before, but can we please do away with using mock-handwriting fonts for signatures? Can’t somebody just sign the names and scan them?
The Five correctly state that the original purpose of the rule was to avoid making multiples of the same person, and rightly state that a genetic duplicate is just an special type of identical twin. Nonetheless, they’re clearly aware here that the rule has been applied as banning the resurrection of clones.
Evan Sabahnur was a clone of Apocalypse, who appeared extensively in Wolverine and the X-Men. The concept of the character was that he was an innocent Apocalypse with a fresh start.
PAGES 15-18. The Five resurrect Gabby.
Note that, unusually, Hope personally uses Cerebro to restore Gabby’s mind. This function is normally performed by Professor X or one of the other main telepaths. The strong suggestion is that Hope knows perfectly well they’re not meant to be doing this, and doesn’t want to give Professor X the chance to stop it. Fundamentally, though, the Five are essential to the entire Krakoan project. If they’re not on side, it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to force their hand.
Wolfsbane is correct that the Shadow King came to her (at the start of issue #17), but he didn’t seem to be mentally controlling her in that scene. Nonetheless, he seems to have been influencing her more subtly, which would explain why she just handed Gabby over to him in issue #18. (Which is where the argument that Gabby mentions took place.)
PAGES 19-21. Warpath defeats the Brood.
He loses his cool when Monica is knocked out. Evidently this is setting up a future Brood storyline.
PAGES 22-24. Mirage, Wolfsbane, Karma and Magik plan to go after the Shadow King.
Magik references her rank as a War Captain, basically one of the top Krakoan defence officers.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: THE CHOICES WE MAKE.
Cam Long is the one who looks like a white tiger, but does appear bluish in this issue because of the helmet lighting.
I like this book. I do.
But the way most of the adult characters talk like TikTok pseudo psychological GenZ goobers is starting to wear on me.
“I recognize your deep trauma, because I too have trauma. But my trauma does not invalidate your trauma. Together we can share our emotions and engage in platonic love and friendship. Platonic love being just as important and equal to romantic love. Trauma.”
I’d tend to agree with that. There is an *awful* lot of self-help-speak in this issue, and while the basic content is perfectly in character, it does lose sight of the characters’ own voices.
“Scout raised this question with Magik in issue #14 and got fobbed off, apparently because Magik assumed it really was just coincidence that none of the clones had been resurrected. ”
I assumed that Magik was lying in that scene. She claimed that Maddie couldn’t be resurrected because she was too dangerous but it was the magic of Limbo that turned Maddie into a demon queen. So as ruler of Limbo, Illyana SHOULD be able to turn her back. But maybe we’ll get a clearer answer when Maddie is resurrected.
Oh wouldn’t that be a scene and a half! Goblin Queen rising in all her might, and Magik just clicks her fingers and turns her back into a reasonable, sane person. Cyclops pulls nervously on his collar.
After all, she did it for Man-Thing, so why not?
I just assumed it was because the current version of Magick is a raised by demons barbarian who doesn’t really think anything through and lives entirely in the moment.
Now she actually has a unique character in this book.
Mirage, Karma, Wolfie, and Warpath all sound like the same person.
I was surprised to see Hope using Cerebro to install Gabby’s memories. My understanding is that she has the power to copy and manipulate the powers of mutants in her vicinity, so she’s a better version of Mimic combined with a better version of Fabian Cortez. Unless I’m mistaken she’s not a telepath herself without copying the powers of another telepath.
I agree about the generic, expository dialogue. The Warpath diary entries are a particularly bad example of telling instead of showing.
I’m pleased to have Scout back, but this issue glosses over the very interesting questions about resurrecting clones. Maybe it’s setting up a confrontation with the Quiet Council, but I have a sinking feeling that the book isn’t going to be coming back to it.
Also, I would suggest that 8+ issues has been too long to spend on this rather dull Shadow King plot.
Overall this book isn’t bad, but it’s not really grabbing me like Children of the Atom did. I’m not that familiar with the original New Mutants, so it’s possible that I’d find it more engaging if I knew the cast better.
@Ben, I grew up with New Mutants as my favourite Marvel title, and no, this title doesn’t grab me either. As said by everyone, the characterisation is so bland and expository it doesn’t really matter if you’re not familiar with the characters. They’re not really being those characters anyway. The art probably doesn’t help in this regard, it’s difficult to make out any facial expressions or body language that might give the dialogue a bit more pep.
You go one way I’ll go the other. I loved this issue. I appreciate how they talk. They talk like they’re experienced super humans that have been abused, discriminated against, had their families destroyed. I was impressed by their language. Also, Dani, Rahne, & Karma were all teachers and investigators, they greatly understand nuance, subtlety, empathy, abuse, and gas lighting. Someone wrote them like they know what they’re talking about. I don’t think it’s ‘gen z’ or ‘tik tok’ to talk like you understand & respect folks and have processed your shit.
Yeah it’s not an objectively bad comic, it’s just one that doesn’t appeal to me personally.
The characters can be mature supportive friends while still sounding like distinct individuals with some degree of reality.
You could switch the dialogue in Mirage/Karma scene between characters without real issue.
I think Hope is using No-Girl’s powers for putting Gabby’s mind/soul back.
I seem to recall Hope previously having to help out during a mass ressurections scene when there were tons of telepath around so she presumably knows how to do it and is capable of it as long as a telepath is nearby.
Are we absolutely sure that Petra and Sway aren’t figments of Vulcan’s imagination? I can’t recall if we’ve seen them interacting with anyone else.
I am pretty sure that based on how they were written in that issue of X-Men by Hickman that Petra and Sway were hallucinations by Vulcan.
I kept wondering why everyone kept bringing up Petra and Sway and figured that I must have missed other scenes involving the two characters.
It seemed obvious that the reader wasn’t supposed to read it that Petra and Sway were actually present with Vulcan.
“I don’t think this really works, because not enough has happened on the page to make us care much about these kids – I know Ayala has detailed personalities worked out for them, but in terms of what’s actually happened in the comics, they’re really just background characters and I still have to look them up every month to remember which one is which.”
I think that’s what I’ve been struggling with these last few issues. I read “New Mutants” because I love Dani & Sam & Doug & Rahne & Bobby & Shan & Illyana & Amara & Warlock, and their various friends and hangers-on (James, Tabby, etc.). And broadly speaking, I certainly agree the kids of Krakoa needing structure and supervision is accurate, and a workable premise for the book. (I don’t LOVE the New Mutants defaulting to teaching, but in terms of direction, they seem to swing between that and “let’s just get the gang together to hang out” ever since X-Force ended, God, twenty years ago now.)
But none of the endless wave of new kids have been given a spotlight issue or anything to humanize them. So as it is, they’re just background characters hogging page time that could be going to Dani or Rahne or Gabby or Doug.
I like the art in this book, I’m invested in the Shadow King storyline, and the parts with the original Muties interacting (like the text page in the Gala issue) are great. But the kids could definitely use either personalities or banishment to crowd scenes.
Petra and Sway are definitely alive. Cyclops and Havok find Vulcan, Petra and Sway drunk in X-Men #8 page 10-11 and say “you guys are a little out of control” when there’s just the five of them in the room. There’s a cutaway to them having a conversation alone in X-Men #10, page 16, which doesn’t make sense if they’re figments of Vulcan’s imagination. And most germanely to this book, Petra’s in the group training exercise in Ayala’s first issue of New Mutants, #14, with Vulcan nowhere around, interacting with a dozen characters.
There’s also dialogue between Cyclops and Havok on page 20 (digital) of X-Men 8 regarding Petra and Sway. Cyclops asks what happened to them and Havok says that he sent them to Krakoa to help with the fight.
“I recognize your deep trauma, because I too have trauma. But my trauma does not invalidate your trauma. Together we can share our emotions and engage in platonic love and friendship. Platonic love being just as important and equal to romantic love. Trauma.”
Mostly accurate (of the tone & of the problems with Ayala’s writing tendencies), but it’s not truly Gen-Z-esque, because they’re too aphobic to find any value in platonic love (or anything even remotely connected to us). They’ll say it’s “valid” (a term that has lost all meaning except for expired coupons) but then denigrate it as lesser in the same sentence.
This series feels like the final season of Steven Universe (the Future one) – lots of Very Special Episode topics handled in as cozy & shallow a way as possible, expecting praise just for mentioning them at all. And I agree with Drew, I’d MUCH rather see more of the established characters than these new ones, because they’re less new personalities and more props for Ayala’s latest object lesson.
As someone who lives with it, I’m getting a little tired of media (not just comics) deciding that by mentioning mental illness or trauma at all, we need to take the work seriously & cannot criticize it no matter how shallowly it’s handled. Even if they don’t think they’re doing it, Ayala has been kind of leaning into the trend in their titles, especially this one.
I thought Sway and Petra were just hallucinations too, honestly. But no, other people have seen them and discussed them. They’re real.
Which means everyone is just ignoring the two teenagers getting drunk off margaritas and passing out in the Summers House, presumably since they’re having trouble living on the island that killed and ate them.
Krakoa really needs post-resurrection counseling.
“Which means everyone is just ignoring the two teenagers getting drunk off margaritas and passing out in the Summers House, presumably since they’re having trouble living on the island that killed and ate them.
Krakoa really needs post-resurrection counseling.”
You mean like a 1st step of characters acknowledging each others trauma from 35+ years of hell/abuse/genocide ?
For those that don’t like the issue, do you respect Ayalas work on New Mutants ?
Are Petra and Sway supposed to be teenagers!?
They’re drawn like 27 year old supermodels.
Maybe the Five aged them up when they resurrected them, to be better able to relate to and help Vulcan.
Like how Selene and Eli Bard (was that his name?) considerately aged Doug up when they resurrected him so he’d be the same age as the other New Mutants, instead of still a 16-year-old.
Even in Deadly Genesis they look like adults.
As a matter of fact I’m not entirely sure how old Darwin and Vulcan are supposed to be either.
If Doug is now older can he get together with Betsy?
Probably not now that he’s married. 😉 But before that, yeah, totally.
As for Petra and Sway, it’s cliched, but kids DO develop at different rates. I used to coach swimming, and we had kids who were the same age but one a head taller than the other. And some of the 16 and 17 year olds were clearly as tall and developed as they were going to get. The FACES would look younger, sure, but comics often struggle to show age in faces.
How old are Cyclops and Jean supposed to be? It’s strange that Marvel ended Spider-Man’s marriage because they were concerned it would “age the character” too much, but Cyclops and Jean are married and until recently living with one teenage son and a daughter in her early 20’s (I think that’s about where Rachel should be).
If I remember correctly, Hickman did an interview where he said that in his head Cyclops is in his mid-30s, but the X-Men editor told Hickman that Cyclops is currently around 28 years old.
Resurrection confuses the issue even more.
They can come back as 21 year olds if they want.
Bonus: they have memories of being months older than they are, due to Xavier giving them super-accelerated telepathic team training prior to sending them on their (doomed) mission to Krakoa. Had Darwin escaped the Vault, he would’ve had not one but two sets of memories that his current body has not lived through!
How long was Cyke and Jean mentally in the future raising Nathan?
I’m confused that Scout had any memories of just prior to her death — shouldn’t she have been reset to her last backup?
Agreed with Ben that 8 issues has been way too long for this Farouk storyline, and it’s really odd that we still don’t know if the Shadow King entity (as distinct from Farouk the mutant) is involved in the story in any way.
The story attempts to close that plot hole by having Tempus say that “everyone – Gabby included – was backed up before the gala”. (You’d have thought it would make more sense for Cerebro to archive different mutants in rotation rather than doing the entire global population in one go, but I think it’s been described as working this way before.)
That would still make it a remarkable coincidence for Scout to be backed up exactly as she was being killed, but all she actually says is that the last thing she remembers is something confusing involving Wolfsbane “and shadows and pain”.
It makes sense that they’d back the whole population up just before the gala. Imagine if the regular roster meant you got backed up just after the party, and you end up getting reborn with a headful of hangover and regret. Worse, what if you get backed up just when Xavier is full of hangover and regret, he’d mess your scan up for sure.
Oh how cute, Shadow King’s going to make another of his rubbish attempts to try and take over everyone. You’ve got to admire his immaterial balls for trying that while in close proximity to pretty much all the most powerful psychics in the MCU.
I missed a big chunk of the late 90s and early 00’s X-Men, but isn’t his body count broadly: Destiny (via Legion) and making lots of people feel vaguely icky for a bit?
I really hope this ends with him getting put in the Hole because it is just ridiculous that the only mutant considered bad enough to be put in there so far is Sabretooth.
Si – ‘It makes sense that they’d back the whole population up just before the gala. Imagine if the regular roster meant you got backed up just after the party, and you end up getting reborn with a headful of hangover and regret.’
Sort of the mutants’ version of Arthur Dent’s “I don’t want to die now, I’ve got a headache! I don’t want to go to heaven with a headache, I’d be all cross and wouldn’t enjoy it!”?
My theory is The Hole is a Chekov’s Gun. It was set up in the first act so that Moira can be thrown into it, and never get to die and reset, in the finale.
Loz-Sabretooth went there because he murdered some humans while on a mission for Krakoa.
It was before they passed that law, true.
Still, he seems to be the only mutant who has murdered a human without any cause while a citizen of Krakoa.
So, he’s the only one cast in to the Hole.
Shadow King’s modus operandi isn’t to kill others, but to take control of them in a collective consciousness which would eliminate all difference. There would only be the Shadow King.
It’s true that the furthest he ever got was to take control of an island.
Chris> How long [were] Cyke and Jean mentally in the future raising Nathan?
Twelve years, IIRC.
Paul> You’d have thought it would make more sense for Cerebro to archive different mutants in rotation rather than doing the entire global population in one go, but I think it’s been described as working this way before.
I’m pretty sure the data pages which initially explained it said it’s not automated at all – Xavier spends one spell of something like three hours a week doing the backup updates (and then spends around a week a year doing nothing but making *full* backups from scratch, rather than updates).
Si> My theory is The Hole is a Chekov’s Gun. It was set up in the first act so that Moira can be thrown into it, and never get to die and reset, in the finale.
That works until Krakoa gets nuked. Didn’t the Inferno promo art show Cable with Forge’s neutraliser gun?
Chris V> Still, he seems to be the only mutant who has murdered a human without any cause while a citizen of Krakoa.
As long as we ignore what Selene got up to in Coates’ Captain America.
Emma had the neutralizer gun the last time we saw it.
She had _a_ neutralizer gun, there were plenty of them (and other types of power neutralizers) around at the beginning of Dawn of X.
“Chris V> Still, he seems to be the only mutant who has murdered a human without any cause while a citizen of Krakoa.
As long as we ignore what Selene got up to in Coates’ Captain America.”
Also, what Mastermind and his daughter did in Hellions. Of course, they got away with it because Sinister blackmailed Kwannon into silence by threatening her daughter, and she just confessed, so we’ll see what happens in the future.
There’s also Maxime and Manon in New Mutants, who caused their guards to kill each other, Omega Red who killed the people who were going to kill Wolverine, and Aurora and Daken.