New Mutants #33 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #33
“The Sublime Saga, part 3: Let It Burn”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Artists: Alberto Alburquerque with Ro Stein & Ted Brandt
Colourists: Carlos Lopez with Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer & production: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Head shots of four characters who are in this issue plus three regulars who aren’t. Given the glowing eyes on the three regulars, you do have to wonder whether this cover was actually designed with a different story in mind.
This is the final issue of the current run of New Mutants. The trailer page advertises New Mutants: Lethal Legion, which is a five-issue miniseries by Charlie Jane Anders and Enid Balám, beginning in March.
PAGE 2. Stan Lee tribute page.
PAGES 3-4. Morgan and Escapade react to finding themselves in the location of Destiny’s vision.
I’ve covered this in previous issues, but in Marvel’s Voices: Pride (2022), Emma Frost and Destiny showed Escapade a vision of a future in which she uses her powers to swap places with Morgan and gets them killed. Issue #32 ended with them running onto this rooftop as they try to escape the U-Men, and finding themselves in that very recognisable location.
Morgan didn’t really seem to react at all in the previous issue, but evidently that wasn’t the idea. He makes the point, though, that it was Escapade who decided the vision was so clearly reliable that she should go to Krakoa and start training to control her powers. Her control over her powers has increased, and besides, there’s no obvious reason why she has to use her powers at all, which would be enough in itself to avert the prophecy. (In fact, that’s what Escapade was trying to do in the Voices story – just not use her powers.)
Martha yelled at Escapade last issue that she was more interested in being seen to do the right thing (by dodging responsibility) than in actually helping others. That ties back to be the prompt for Escapade to stand up to her destiny and try to meet it head on rather than trying to duck it.
PAGES 5-6. Leo and Cerebella fight the U-Men.
Like Escapade and Morgan, they decide that the best course of action is just to fight the U-Men rather than keep hiding from them – they have useful powers, after all. (Leo is a telekinetic and low level telepath, if you were wondering.)
Unfortunately, it turns out that the consequence of doing a swap within a swap – as Escapade did last issue – is not that they both wear off when the first swap runs its time, but that the second swap reverses separately on its own timescale. So Escapade and Cerebella find themselves swapping places in mid fight.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGE 8. Data page. Another of Cerebella’s diary pages, as seen in the previous two issues.
Storm‘s speech to Cerebella comes from her resurrection in issue #24. The description here is accurate, but gives the impression of a private conversation when it was more Storm making a public speech (in the way that resurrections used to be depicted in the earlier days of the Krakoan era).
Martha completely rejects the relevance of good intentions, which is understandable given her track record.
PAGES 9-12. Wolfsbane fights Sublime.
This is the same map that Wolfsbane found in the previous issue, the significance apparently being that the red dot showed Sublime’s target to be the Akademos Habitat (the teens’ home).
A rare outing here for Wolfsbane’s little used power to change into a pack of wolves, which comes from X-Men Blue #7, and has been mentioned occasionally in this book. But if you’re not going to retcon it out, I guess she probably should be using it all the time.
Kick was the drug that Sublime used to infect and control mutants during the Grant Morrison run; it was also mentioned as part of his plan last issue.
PAGES 13-15. Escapade and Leo fight the U-Men.
Turns out they’re perfectly capable of beating these bozos anyway.
Sublime is intrigued by the possibilities for abusing Escapade’s powers, in a way that very obviously parallels the apparent interest of Emma and Destiny.
PAGE 16. Data page. Shela replies to the email that appeared on a data page in the previous issue (which already mentioned the waffle iron stolen from a villain).
The crow story that Shela mentions is “The Crow and the Pitcher”, one of Aesop’s Fables. The crow reaches inaccessible water by throwing in stones to raise the water level; it’s a fairly straightforward illustration of ingenuity outdoing raw power. Crows really can work this out, apparently.
PAGES 17-19. Morgan thwarts Sublime’s plan.
By using his powers to turn the Kick supply into chocolate. It’s previously been presented as a completely useless power, but obviously it’s got plenty of useful applications. He can disable guns, force locks, sabotage machines, etc.
PAGES 20-22. The vision plays out.
Sublime gets psychically zapped while trying to bundle Escapade onto his aircraft, he leaves her behind, and she falls from the roof. This time she resists the temptation to save her life by swapping with someone nearby (which would have killed Morgan), and allows herself to die. This only really works as a sacrifice because she’s still not convinced of the genuineness of resurrection (and has a feel of a plot point that was designed without taking resurrection into account, if I’m being honest). Anyway, Leo saves her.
The art isn’t very clear about this at all, but since he’s missing in the next scene, presumably Sublime escapes on his aircraft. The idea seems to be that the blast from the engines is what sends her through the balcony but it isn’t as clearly conveyed as you’d want.
An odd feature about this is that despite being told she needed to come to Krakoa and learn about her powers, Escapade does indeed change her destiny by electing to not use them, which is what she was planning to do all along. Maybe the idea is that her greater control prevents her from lashing out instinctively. Or maybe the point is that she’s able to resist the temptation and keep her head because she’s grown as a person on Krakoa. Either way, Emma and Destiny’s account seems questionable and manipulative. Escapade certainly takes it that way. Even so, she does draw the conclusion that she needs to control her powers to prevent them being abused by others.
PAGES 22-24. The kids discuss Time Archer.
I’m not sure if Time Archer is a reference to anything in particular.
PAGES 24-25. Escapade confronts Destiny and Emma.
Yoda does indeed say “Always in motion, the future is”, in The Empire Strikes Back. Let’s assume Destiny is playing along in pretending not to know that. No doubt we’ll get back to the subplot of what they had in mind for her in the next mini.
PAGE 26. Trailers.
I looked it up up, I guess the guy can only turn organic matter into chocolate.
Which is the deeply stupid kind of power I hate.
I wanted to like this, but the art was not to my liking. Also, Raine’s wolf pack power is bonkers and I cannot get past the flying turtle – Hibbert is no Lockheed.
Hmm. I didn’t read this arc because the solicits made it sound like it’d be the new writer’s pet character guest starring the New Mutants, and that… sounds like exactly what happened? So I guess that was a good call, but I gather the sales were in the tank well before this arc.
Doubt I’ll be giving the new mini a chance, unless it’s actually focused on the New Mutants. Otherwise, I can wait until their next series, whenever that happens.
This issue is dense. Either the story arc could have used another issue to give it more room, or the book could have used an artist that would be able to make it work. I’m thinking of Leah William’s X-Factor – David Baldeon made that work, and those scripts were dense. Here, unfortunately, whole story beats seem to get lost in the confusion. The predestined fall from the rooftop was the centerpiece of the whole thing and… it doesn’t quite work.
I still liked this story much more than whatever Hickman was doing at the beginning of this series. Or Brisson, to be honest. But it’s a shame this volume was constanty ping-ponging between writers and getting revamped all the time.
I also meant to ask ‘can Marvel publish something with Lethal Legion in the title’, since I was convinced that was a DC thing. Google sorted that, though. I think I confused it with Fatal Five?
“I didn’t read this arc because the solicits made it sound like it’d be the new writer’s pet character guest starring the New Mutants, and that… sounds like exactly what happened?”
Pretty much, yeah.
“I still liked this story much more than whatever Hickman was doing at the beginning of this series. Or Brisson”
I didn’t. Regardless of who was writing the title, I enjoyed things pretty much in the first couple of years. It was probably around the Amahl Farouk story that I lost interest as that story just did nothing for me (and other than Cosmar, I really never cared much for the Lost Club and really didn’t care for the focus on them). The Limbo story after was ok at best, but barely enough to keep me interested in this title. And with this new story and final story arc…I don’t think I’m sad to see this title go. Don’t really care for Escapade or Morgan Red.
So hey, the first 20 issues or so were good. The last year or so, not so much.
While I understand not wanting to read a story because of who it stars and that’s a totally valid reaction, I’ve never liked the term “pet character.” Like “Mary Sue,” it often feels rooted in this implicit assumption that “older character = deserves better treatment” and how dare the writer not respect that rightful hierarchy.
I haven’t read the latest issue and I’m not sure I will, as I wasn’t really enjoying this arc. I’m kind of surprised as Anders has a strong rep as a prose author among people whose tastes I trust, and I’d been meaning to try some of her novels. For those of you who’ve read her prose stuff, would you say it’s substantially better than what’s on view here?
I still don’t understand the “everyone thinks she was always the person she switched with” thing. It sure seems like she just directly switches places with people and that’s it.
Well, that’s an issue with the way the power is visually depicted. On page, she switches places. In fiction, she borrows the persona – the presence – of the switched character.
Maybe it would be more in line with the fiction to draw her as the person she switched with, but then it would just Look like she was just another shapeshifter. Which she isn’t at all.
I liked the first couple chapters, but this issue was a bit of a mess. I still find Escapade’s power confusing, and the action wasn’t clear. Destiny & Emma manipulating Escapade made them look bad. Some of the character interactions were good, but that wasn’t enough to save the issue.
This was fine. I like the idea of NM as more of an anthology title cycling through the many young characters. Good to follow up on Cerebella’s development, to give Leo and these new characters from the Pride issue a spotlight. (Ayala’s run was pretty great in that regard as they struck a balance between creating new characters, checking in on under-used characters , plus the legacy teams). But still, I agree this could have benefited from another character besides Rahne to anchor it a bit in the classic team. Seems
Someone in editorial agrees because the upcoming mini looks to features these kids plus Xian and Dani. One thing I’ll give Anders at least she’s trying to come up with powers we’ve not seen before. I agree Escapade’s powers are confusing and I’ll-defined, but maybe the more we see of her the clearer it’ll become.
Lethal Legion was originally the Grim Reaper’s version of the Masters of Evil. Guys like Living Laser and Erik Josten Power Man were in it.
Fatal Five were the Legion villains lead by Tharok, including Emerlad Empress and Validus.
Escapade’s powers make sense to me. It’s just that like with Domino or Darwin, the actual results are unpredictable and all over the place (though in her case it seems more lack of experience than inherent nature, and she could in theory learn more precision.) She swaps an attribute with another person. “Attribute” being anything from powers, reputation, health condition, location, etc.
You know Sublime’s really old because he wears his trousers that high.
Poor Warpath. Joins the book under Ayala, basically does nothing, gets a one-off fill-in co-spotlight issue, and then disappears. This run squandered a bunch of good characters (hey, remember that Chamber was a regular in this book?), and James sadly joins the list.
Escapade is fine so far, but this feels like it’s the second arc focussed on her instead of the first. I feel like we needed an intro arc to really establish the baseline for her powers, so that when she begins using them in innovative ways, it pops as a moment. I always cycle back to Nightcrawler in the original Claremont run where the “rules” of his powers are set early on (needs line of sight, within a kilometre or so, only teleports himself, it tires him out), and then gradually bends or breaks those rules for dramatic moments. I don’t really understand the basic rules of Escapade’s powers so I can’t tell if anything she’s doing is supposed to be impressive or not.
Not really, I think somebody mentions the swap within a swap as something she’s done before?
Or they explicitly mention she hasn’t done that before. One or the other.
As for “this reads like a second arc” – kinda. It directly follows the short story from Marvel Pride.
Which doesn’t work if you only read New Mutants. And that short story could have used more space anyway.
It’s not remotely relevant, but I do like the Peanuts-like flashbacks.
“While I understand not wanting to read a story because of who it stars and that’s a totally valid reaction, I’ve never liked the term “pet character.” Like “Mary Sue,” it often feels rooted in this implicit assumption that “older character = deserves better treatment” and how dare the writer not respect that rightful hierarchy.”
I guess I just don’t see it the same way. To me, the term “pet character” isn’t inherently negative the way ”Mary Sue” is — Claremont has Storm (and to a lesser extent, Wolverine), Englehart had Mantis, Starlin had Thanos, Ellis had Pete Wisdom, etc. Those aren’t flawless characters who can do no wrong, the way a Mary Sue is. (Well, maybe Storm under Claremont comes close.)
But in this case, from reading Paul’s summaries, it doesn’t sound like the New Mutants had a New Mutants adventure and Escapade guest starred in it. (A longstanding superhero comics tradition, obviously.) It sounds more like Escapade had a follow-up story to their Marvel Pride story, featuring Emma Frost and Destiny, and Rahne happened to be there too. That’s great for people who liked the Pride story and wanted to read more! But it sounds like an Escapade mini mistitled as issues 31-33 of “The New Mutants.” Hence me, a New Mutants completist, feeling justified in skipping it. That’s all. 🙂
I always thought Kitty was Claremont’s pet character?
Although I guess Storm, Mirage, and Sage are on the list too.
I don’t really like the term Mary Sue — it’s been overused in amateur analysis so much as to become meaningless — but pet character isn’t necessarily “bad” to me. It just refers to a character that an author is clearly spending a lot of attention on. When it’s used derisively, it tends to just mean “the author really loves this guy but I’m not feeling it.” Kitty was Claremont’s pet character for a time, but he usually rotated his attention around.
This New Mutants arc was bizarre to me, because it really was “here’s a character I made in an anthology, now they’re the main character of New Mutants for an arc.” That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s jarring since I had never read that character’s previous appearance. I don’t think new characters are inherently worse than old, although I do wish underutilized characters from the New Mutants and Academy X lines received focus before new characters, and I think it’s great for authors to introduce new characters. But, you know, it’s a lot to have an enthusiastic new IP take the center of a book it wasn’t the center of six months ago.
This does make Emma Frost and Destiny look very manipulative – but to be fair, they are manipulative. Emma’s always been written than way, whereas it’s a newish trait for Destiny but one evident post-resurrection.
Mark Coale said: Lethal Legion was originally the Grim Reaper’s version of the Masters of Evil. Guys like Living Laser and Erik Josten Power Man were in it.
In their original versions, the two teams have slightly different core concepts.
The MoE were villains from the solo titles of the various Avengers members (and Dr./Baron Zemo, who’d been seen in an odd issue of Sgt. Fury), while the first Lethal Legion included only villains who debuted in the Avengers title itself.
This distinction didn’t stick for long, of course.
Never mind the two different LEGIONS OF THE UNLIVING
or
LEGION OF THE UNLIVINGS
One being dead guys accessed through time travel
And the other being dead guys that the Avengers fought while also dead
Oh and FACTOR THREE is a better concept than the BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS originally but doesn’t necessarily have a better line-up
I remember when each X-team had their own villain team.
I remember that when Magneto did a heel face turn MISTER SINISTER stepped in to replace him and X-Factor got APOCALYPSE