New Mutants: Lethal Legion #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #4
“When I Was A Lad”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciler: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. The New Mutants face off against Nefaria and his Lethal Legion.
PAGES 2-5. The New Mutants fail to escape and make their stand.
The Voluptuous Cherry Orchard is not real, as far as I can tell. But residents of Westchester County who are looking for cherry blossom next spring can find a list of recommended locations here.
Moonstone. Escapade describes her as “the chaotic-neutral version of Captain Marvel”, admittedly with some uncertainty. Traditionally, I wouldn’t really describe her as chaotic – she’s a meticulous planner and manipulator, if anything – though “neutral” may be fair enough when looking at her career in the round. Karla is more interested in her own personal comfort than in power or wealth as ends in themselves. She is, however, comparably powerful to Captain Marvel, and served as the Captain Marvel stand-in in a version of the Dark Avengers. As Carol’s standing has risen over the last few years, Moonstone maybe gets some spillover credibility boost as a result.
At any rate, Moonstone is certainly plenty chaotic in this issue. She seems to view herself as a hired gun who is entirely above this and is going to beat up these D-listers and go home. As pointed out later in the story, she certainly didn’t show up to audition for the Lethal Legion – she’s evidently the best muscle Nefaria could call in at short notice. (We saw him call her last issue, saying that “I shall meet your price after all.”)
Probably the best way to view her behaviour here is that since she has no wider agenda to pursue, and doesn’t perceive herself as being under threat, she simply doesn’t care about any of this.
I’m not sure why she accuses Skullbuster of stealing her look – they’re only vaguely similar in appearance, adn the two characters have no history together.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits. The title is the title of the song that Moonstone sings later in the issue.
PAGE 7. The New Mutants retreat into the woods.
“I already saw [Xuân] die once.” In the Crucible in New Mutants #18.
“He had a wall of heads!” Scout did indeed find and photograph this wall on page 19 of issue #2 and, yes, the fact that he had a monster head identical to the one in the tunnels was prominent. It still seems to be pure coincidence that Wolfsbane and Morgan stumbled across the other monster, though.
Escapade is belatedly starting to figure out that she’s alienated Morgan but doesn’t appear to fully understand why. She’s a bit slow on the uptake, since the whole plot is that she’s gone off and done Their Thing with someone else. (And Morgan’s had to help bail her out.)
PAGE 8. Data page – a parody advert for some people who have released monsters into the sewers for bad guys to hunt. One suspects Anders is not a fan of hunting. The other two semi-satisfied customers are Kraven the Hunter (presumably the current version of the legendary Spider-Man villain, who’s a clone) and Klaw (who doesn’t seem to have done much in years, perhaps because he’s a Black Panther villain who’s been left behind by the contemporary themes of that book).
PAGE 9. The New Mutants take refuge in a carpet mill.
The thing in the box was identified in the previous issue as the Weird Engine, the “last surviving artifact from the devastating Palindrome War”. It’s apparently capable of unravelling the fabric of reality itself.
PAGES 10-11. Galura and Cerebella.
We find a moment in the fight scene to pick up on the idea that Cerebella signed on for this because it seemed like a romp, and she realises it’s all gone rather badly wrong. Galura outright suggests that Cerebella is trying to imitate Escapade. I like the gag of having Nefaria show up to basically agree with the point, and basically be right, but in such an unsympathetic tone that he kicks Cerebella back into focussing on the A-plot.
PAGES 12-13. Morgan and Escapade.
“We got evicted. You weren’t there.” Morgan told Rahne about this in issue #1. Escapade really hasn’t been paying much attention to him if she managed to miss that. Morgan is understandably not impressed by what he sees as some belated attempts to win him back round.
“Our gaming club died. They put our support group on pause.” Again, Morgan mentioned both of these things to Rahne in issue #1.
“I lost track of time! I don’t even know what time zone Krakoa is in!” There is no earthly way that all the things Morgan mentions could have happened in a short enough time for this to be a decent excuse.
“You’ll never understand, because you refuse to go there.” This, on the other hand, is a better point – Morgan has made a conscious choice not to follow Escapade to Krakoa and is resentful of the fact that she’s chosen to go in a different direction. He could have made more of an effort to keep in touch with her himself.
“As soon as you didn’t have to worry any more about causing my death…” This is the main plot of the first Escapade arc, following on from a prophecy in Escapade’s Marvel Voices debut. Morgan is being unfair in suggesting that she only stuck around because of that prophecy – they were together for years before that.
PAGES 13-16. The fight continues.
“You should have listened when that scientist warned you.” I don’t think we’ve seen this – Karma appears to pick it up while controlling Nefaria, which isn’t how her powers normally work. But he’s an energy being, so maybe he’s weird.
Moonstone’s song is “When I Was A Lad” from HMS Pinafore, the 1878 comic opera by Gilbert & Sullivan. Or some selected lines from it, at any rate.
It’s the song in which the First Lord of the Admiralty introduces himself and explains the secret of his success, which is basically that he’s a plodding, talentless administrator who has been promoted over the heads of everyone who would actually have been good at the job because he was around in London to get known by the right people while they were all off at sea.
Moonstone may be mocking Nefaria – though the character in the song isn’t so much an entitled aristocrat as a jumped up middle class mediocrity.
PAGE 17. Data page – an infodump about Nefaria’s fear of ageing, jazzed up by making it a podcast transcript.
The Whizzer is a Golden Age speedster who was briefly dusted off in the 1970s when Roy Thomas decided to make him the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Obviously, that didn’t stick. Frankly, the Whizzer’s name and costume are the least of his problems. His origin story involves him getting super speed thanks to a blood transfusion from a mongoose. And his comedy sidekick Slow-Motion Jones is a racist stereotype.
The scene described here comes from Avengers #165. Nefaria is about to drop Whizzer off the top of a building, and Whizzer delivers the following speech:
My life is behind me, Nefaria! It doesn’t matter much if you kill me! Just as it doesn’t matter what else you do! Go ahead! Use your power! Conquer the world – if you can! How old are you, Nefaria? Fifty? More? You’re past your prime! You’ve acquired your strength just in time to watch it fade with the dregs of your youth! In twenty, maybe thirty years you’ll be dead – and the world will be rid of you! Count Nefaria will be a nightmare that has ended – another Hitler, scarring the pages of history.
Nefaria then declares “No! I won’t let it happen! I must never grow old and die! I give you your life, Whizzer – for you have given my power a purpose!”
Anders evidently sees this as Nefaria’s core motivation to this day.
PAGES 18-20. Escapade nearly kills Moonstone.
Wolfsbane is, of course, correct that Escapade’s original actions could be defended as self-defence, but she doesn’t have to just let Moonstone die.
“This is the worst team I’ve ever been on, and that’s saying something.” Seems a bit harsh on the Thunderbolts. She might have a point about the Dark Avengers and the Femizons, though.
“I’m going to make you my project. Knock down some walls.” It took me ages to recognise this, but this is John Sublime talking to Escapade on page 19 of New Mutants #33. In the original scene, he’s implying that he can influence and control Escapade even without using Kick.
PAGES 21-24. The Lethal Legion retrieve the Weird Engine and escape.
Straightforward, really. I’ve no idea what the Chavetz Center is – it doesn’t bring up anything on Google.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
The Javits Center is the big convention center in NYC—it’s where New York Comic-Con is held, for instance.
“who doesn’t seem to have done much in years, perhaps because he’s a Black Panther villain who’s been left behind by the contemporary themes of that book”
Klaw’s had many appearances outside of Black Panther stories. He’s often one of the Frightful Four, for example. He’s fought everyone from Dazzler to Ka-Zar. I’m not sure why he hasn’t been used much in the past few years.(Even the 2018 Black Panther film treated him like a secondary antagonist and killed him off halfway.)
Karma’s one of those curious characters whose powers haven’t expanded or strengthened in four decades. I suppose the question is, what else do you do with her? Make her a generic psychic? Have her powers grow so that any confrontation is ended instantly, as she puppeteers the bad guys into a prison? So really, any new wrinkle is welcomed.
He did show up in the Mark Russell Fantastic Four: Life Story series, but that was a flashback sub-plot. I did like how Russell updated Klaw from his original colonialist characterization. That was probably the most interesting aspect to that FF mini, but Russell barely did anything with the idea.
Whizzer getting his powers due to a blood transfusion from a mongoose is one of the classic Golden Age superhero origin stories. It’s so goofy and insane that it’s genius. Marvel has a villain called the Mongoose now (one who could stand toe-to-toe with Thor, no less). He would be the perfect antagonist for the Whizzer.
Maybe the Mongoose could incorrectly believe that they killed his father to save Whizzer’s life.
I am also reminded that there was a character named Whizzer Beaver on ALF.
Feel bad for Songbird that she’s basically the sole remaining Thunderbolt who is still good and not either reverted to evil or dead like MACH IV
Two Gilbert & Sullivan reference in one week in nerd culture.
How great
I’m having fun with this arc and I really think it makes a better introduction arc for Escapade than her actual intro arc. Straightforward story, endearing and annoying qualities in Escapade in equal measure. In retrospect, I would’ve flipped the order of the stories. Establish Escapade as fun but flawed, then dig deeper.
Part of me was thinking, hey, don’t Moonstone and Nefaria have some sort of beef? But no, that was the first (dude) Moonstone, who got ionic powers, started calling himself Nefarius and claiming to be Nefaria’s son, only to later be killed by Nefaria.
@Douglas: Thanks. Maybe it’s better known in the US?
The Whizzer was later retconned in the 1990’s/2000’s by the OHBTMU to be a latent X-gene mutant who’s powerset was only activated by the mongoose blood , when somebody in editorial realized that animal-human blood transfusion was still currently scientifically impossible , and thus too embarrassingly stupid as an origin (this was around the time that American corporate superheroes/supervillains – “cape comics” were trying too hard to be “really realistic grim-n-gritty Serious Business” (which at Marvel ultimately resulted in the Ultimate Marvel reality) LOL
@JDSM24- Actually the Whizzer was first retconned as a mutant in the 1970’s- apparently people felt the mongoose blood origin was stupid even then.
I still think it was a great rib on smart fans to cast Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaw, so we all expected him to be turned into Klaw and be motioned captured as the Master of Sound, and then just have him killed.
“Karma’s one of those curious characters whose powers haven’t expanded or strengthened in four decades.”
Ben Raab briefly expanded her powers in the New Mutants: Truth or Death mini (IIRC, she manifested a psi-shield to block Dani’s psychic arrow, and speculated that her powers were expanding), but I don’t think any other writers followed up on that later.
As you sort of alluded to, the danger is in making her just another generic telepath, when Xavier and Jean and Emma Frost and Psylocke and Betsy are all already out there. Making her a specialist avoids that, though as noted, the writer then has to come up with a reason for why she can’t just end every fight immediately by possessing the villain and making him jump into one of Magik’s portals or something.
@Allan M: totally agree. I was on the fence when NM:LL was released, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
The conflicts between Escapade, Cerebella, and Morgan felt more realized than the inter-team stuff you get in other super-hero comics. True, the timeline seems a little wonky, but I’m invested in seeing those conflicts play out and resolve. Unfortunately, there’s only one issue left in this mini-series. I haven’t read or heard that there will be another, so the character moments might get truncated and not resolved satisfactorily.
Also, I hope Karma continues to mentor or befriend Cerebella, they have a good dynamic.
Somebody must tell me more about Hibbert, the flying turtle.
Team hibbert with Blaze the Wonder Collie.
#callback