New Mutants: Lethal Legion #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #5
“Vampire Heist II”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciller: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Nefaria looms in the background while the regular cast are in the foreground. It’s a callback to the cover of issue #1, with the New Mutants looking a bit more battered and beleaguered. The title of the story, “Vampire Heist II”, also links back to issue #1’s title “Vampire Heist.”
PAGE 2. Escapade and Cerebella stake out the Chavetz Center.
According to the comments from last issue, the Chavetz Center is a conference centre in New York which is used for conventions. Karma learned last issue that Count Nefaria’s plan is “to trap a bunch of people in the Chavetz Center and use the Weird Engine [a cosmic artefact] to turn them into ionic batteries so he can restore himself.” As Karma mentions later, this is basically Nefaria’s last throw of the dice to try and restore his powers, and he’s privately aware that the more likely outcome is that he kills everyone within half a mile, including himself. The recap page clarifies that it’s serving here as the venue of the Future Expo.
With admirable efficiency, Escapade and Cerebella take a moment to talk about their character subplot, and how Escapade’s attempts to offer support to Cerebella in the only way she knows how haven’t really worked out that well for either of them. Cerebella has figured out by this point that Escapade is dangerously reckless.
“I recognise them. One of them got thrown into a dinosaur topiary next to me.” That’s Psi-Borg working the door, who we last saw auditioning for the Lethal Legion in issue #2. But Cerebella is presumably referring to one of the random guards next to Psi-Borg, who was indeed thrown into some dinosaur topiary by Scout in the same issue.
PAGE 3. Mirage and Wolfsbane ask Beatrice the dragon to help.
Beatrice ran off after hearing Nefaria’s voice in issue #3. We learned in issue #4 that Nefaria had killed her partner on a hunting expedition. Morgan plays the voice of reason, pointing out that not everyone wants to be a hero (for example, him) and that Beatrice is very much on that list.
PAGE 4. Escapade enters the convention.
During which, she and Cerebella having a bonding conversation, and envy one another’s powers.
“After Sublime got me…” In the final arc of New Mutants.
“I almost killed Moonstone…” Last issue – basically in self-defence, but she had to be persuaded by Wolfsbane to save Moonstone afterwards.
PAGE 5. Escape finds the Lethal Legion.
Nefaria’s plan is apparently to advertise his device at a convention and wait for some suckers to come in, even though he’s standing around with some B-list supervillains in broad daylight. Well, that’s Marvel New York for you.
“I’ve hooked up with two out of three Hawkeyes.” Moonstone is thinking of the original Hawkeye (Clint Barton) in Thunderbolts and the impostor Hawkeye (Bullseye) in Dark Avengers. I’m not sure if she’s ever met Kate Bishop.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits.
PAGES 7-8. Mirage announces that they’re doing a heist.
Because we did the fight last issue. The plan this time is to use the skills they’ve got more efficiently, and just sneak in to disable the Weird Engine (as explained on the data page). All they have to do is sneak in and Morgan disables the thing by turning part of it into chocolate with his powers. Simple.
PAGES 9-10. Everyone sneaks into the building.
Karma is claiming to be CEO of the Hatchi Corporation, which she was, but she claimed in issue #3 to have given it away.
In the midst of this montage, Escapade starts talking about leaving Krakoa to be together with Morgan again after all – her core relationship that she’s put in jeopardy by focussing on her new friends. Given upcoming events, getting out of Krakoa might not be the worst move in the world for her anyway.
PAGES 11-12. Mirage confronts Moonstone.
Moonstone was the Dark Captain Marvel in Dark Avengers, and sees Captain Marvel as an arch-enemy. (Writers of Captain Marvel don’t seem all that convinced.) Anders writes Moonstone as a surprisingly straight evil-but-not-that-evil henchman somewhat resigned to her position in the villain pecking order. Mirage is distracting her, but she’s also genuinely trying to persuade her to switch sides.
PAGES 13-17. The obligatory fight happens anyway.
As Escapade points out, the attempt to do things her way has gone very badly. But on the bright side, her power saves the day by swapping places with Skullbuster and getting her past the force field, and then generally confusing Moonstone and Nefaria.
We get an increasingly rare mention of Dani and Rahne’s psychic link (which, in early New Mutants, was part of Dani’s general power to form a psychic rapport with higher animals).
PAGES 18-19. Nefaria’s plan goes wrong and he gets eaten by a dragon.
I’m… not entirely sure I follow how this stops an explosion which the previous scene said was going to destroy Midtown, but maybe it’s just that Beatrice gets him far enough away from the Weird Engine before things get too bad, and the water’s able to contain most of the explosion.
PAGE 20. Data page. Escapade and Morgan are reconciled, with Morgan agreeing to visit Krakoa and Escapade renewing her focus on their relationship.
PAGES 21-23. Morgan visits Krakoa.
And we establish that Morgan is asexual, and Escapade can apparently keep that relationship and romance Cerebella at the same time, so everyone’s happy.
PAGE 24. Instead of the normal trailer page, a short farewell letter by writer Charlie Jane Anders.
I don’t think Nefaria got eaten. They said they never found his body. I think the idea is Beatrice let go of him in the explosion and he disappeared in the explosion.
Anders writes Moonstone as a surprisingly straight evil-but-not-that-evil henchman somewhat resigned to her position in the villain pecking order. Mirage is distracting her, but she’s also genuinely trying to persuade her to switch sides.
Anders might be playing off of some Fabian Nicieza Thunderbolts stories that suggested Moonstone was developing empathy and wasn’t entirely rotten.
This idea seemed to vanish once Warren Ellis took over the book, and she’s mostly been written as a sociopath ever since.
IRL it’s actually the Javits Center, but clearly Chavetz is a stand in for it, including the location in midtown close to the Hudson. I guess sometimes Marvel really is careful about real world names? Not sure what the legal issue could be, maybe Anders just likes this convention. I chuckled, anyway.
And to reiterate my nick picking from earlier in the series, re the art, does the artist think that as soon as you cross the river into New Jersey it’s suddenly the suburbs, that there’s a beach with a single family homes right on the river bank? Hoboken (the most likely place they’d come ashore from midtown) is a large city, and the same goes for north and south. Is it too much to ask to look at a map? This is NY, not Duluth or whatever. Anders seems to know this (IIRC she has Rhane say something about trying to get south of the city out into the harbour to minimize potential casualties. But overall the art was fine, and I enjoyed this series quite a bit. An improvement over the first mini, which was still fun, some good character work, especially the new characters. Also nice seeing Gaby and Jonathan get some page time. Anders really nailed Gaby’s personality.
Also Howard could take some notes from Anders about how to properly pace a mini….
“Anders might be playing off of some Fabian Nicieza Thunderbolts stories that suggested Moonstone was developing empathy and wasn’t entirely rotten.
This idea seemed to vanish once Warren Ellis took over the book, and she’s mostly been written as a sociopath ever since.”
Yeah, Ellis is obviously an extremely talented writer, but as soon as he started giving interviews about his plans for Thunderbolts, it was like, “Ah, so you don’t feel beholden *at all* to what Nicieza was doing on the book, huh?” It was clearly one of those New X-Men-style “forget about any ongoing characterizations or plotlines, we’re doing something totally different now” reboots. And much like Emma Frost, I’d imagine “unrepentant, sassy sociopath” Moonstone is more fun to write than “slowly developing a conscience, coming to grips with her actions” Moonstone.
As an aside, it’s odd that Karla and Emma have never had a significant scene together in over 4 decades of stories, considering how much they have a common. But I guess it’s one of those weird things in comics, like how the U-Foes have fought the Hulk, the Avengers, Spider-Man, etc. but never the Fantastic Four.
Good series the best of the recent slate of 5-issue X-minis (non-Sabretooth division). If Anders comes back, I’ll buy another Escapade story.
I don’t recall seeing New Mutants among the previews for post-Fall of X books. I doubt the series sells, but I hope we see more of both the older cast and the kids. I reeeeally hope they’re not cannon-fodder in future crossovers, a la non-Wolfman/Perez Titans.
I’d love to learn more about Moonstone. Do you think anyone would do a podcast the thunderbolts.
At this point, I hope the U-Foes never run into the Fantastic Four. It’s the perfect running joke. Someone should do a story where they just barely miss each other.
“we establish that Morgan is asexual, and Escapade can apparently keep that relationship and romance Cerebella at the same time, so everyone’s happy.”
feels like a cowardly way to resolve tension
ylU said: At this point, I hope the U-Foes never run into the Fantastic Four. It’s the perfect running joke. Someone should do a story where they just barely miss each other.
I feel that way too. I think the other issue is that the U-Foes are a set of nice designs, but pretty thinly defined as characters.
Their parallels to the FF are only skin-deep, for example. Vector isn’t up there with Reed Richards asa genius type, and outside of “Vapor seems to be dating Vector” and “X-Ray and Vapor occasionally remind us that they’re siblings,” the other three are mostly just generically vicious. There’s not much room for fun interactions there, since the U-Foes are written as little more than muscle.
Their abilities also tend to be played mostly as raw power and brute force, as you’d expect for Hulk villain. Even the more versatile members — Vapor and X-Ray — don’t usually do the range of things the Invisible Woman and the Human Torch do with their powers….let alone Reed Richards-esque “weaponized technobabble.”
The U-Fpes are supposed to be an ersatz FF, wannabes. If they measured up to the Fantastic Four then they wouldn’t be in-character or foils for the Hulk.
Vector is an evil genius compared to normal people but he isn’t even close to on-par with Bruce Banner or the Leader, let alone Dr Doom or Mister Fantastic.
His team is a group of malevolent idiots and bullies. A U-Foes story would never feature the FF as protagonists. And Cobalt Man should never be the villain in an Iron Man story.
Of course, the reason why the U-Foes, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes and Sharon Ventura can’t show up NOW in the Fantastic Four is because they demonstrate that Slott’s “the Overseer created the Fantastic Four” retcon makes no sense.
Michael said: Of course, the reason why the U-Foes, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes and Sharon Ventura can’t show up NOW in the Fantastic Four is because they demonstrate that Slott’s “the Overseer created the Fantastic Four” retcon makes no sense.
That does sound bad, but the JMS had gone there already with a story positing that the cosmic ray storm that empowered the FF was “a message.”
Worse, later in the story, Reed himself gets to go back to the beginning of the universe along with some kind of cosmic being, and he shapes the cosmic rays and their specific effects on the FF, which are characterized as a unique and irreproducible event.
So not only did JMS create a continuity mess (how did all those others get cosmic ray-based powers?), he also made Reed consciously, directly responsible for ensuring that Ben Grimm became the Thing.
JMS seems to like making accidental origin stories into some kind of consciously directed or destined thing: he more famously retconned Spider-Man into being a destined bearer of a spider totem.
Chris said: The U-Fpes are supposed to be an ersatz FF, wannabes. If they measured up to the Fantastic Four then they wouldn’t be in-character or foils for the Hulk.
There was a potentially interesting bit in their second storyline, where they revealed themselves to the public as the heroes who’d finally captured the Hulk. Vector even mused on continuing to play the role of heroes to get what they want, almost like a proto-Thunderbolts concept.
I kinda wish Al Ewing had kept them around as ORCHIS operatives after their turn in Immortal Hulk. They could’ve been played as conscienceless exterminators or sadistic border guards, brutalizing mutants and other posthuman or alien beings, contrasting the FF’s role as “imaginauts” opening up new frontiers.
Plus we could’ve seen ORCHIS putting out some in-universe versions of the Astounding U-Foes propaganda comic from the cover of Immortal Hulk #44.