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It’s a nightmare when the New Mutants try to continue their rescue mission for a young mutant. Also, we all learn to cook. Story by Ed Brisson, art by Flaviano, colors by Carlos Lopez, letters by VC’s Travis Lanham, and cover by Mike Del Mundo.
Liz Large: It’s been a full three months since the last time we saw the New Mutants, and unsurprisingly, they’re still in trouble. Last issue featured a Magik and Cyclops conversation, the appearance of fan favorite [Ed. note: ehh] Wildside, and a mission to Carnelia to help a new mutant in distress. This issue opens in Carnelia, where half of the team have been sucked into a nightmare.
Allison Senecal: I honestly think this was the first time in a long time I’ve been grateful as hell for the dramatis personae page in a comic. I forgot they recruited Wildside at the end of the last issue. I also forgot that pretty much everyone and their second cousin twice removed was in this series currently, which I don’t a mind a bit! I missed them all (even Glob a little, but only because he can apparently make Malaysian food).
#$%& Yeah, ART!
LL: Last issue, we talked a little about how great the art was, and it’s only gotten better. Everyone is expressive and distinct (no small feat for a book with this many characters) and the scenes that take place inside the nightmare are GORGEOUS. It’s a combination of childlike, psychedelic, and [Ed. note: lowercase s] sinister and I love it and am terrified.
AS: This Del Mundo cover is maybe my favorite of Dawn of X so far. I complain a lot about how Big 2 covers can get lost on a shelf, but let’s be real, you see this one, you’re picking the comic up. It’s even technically a team cover without looking like a Marvel movie poster. And Flaviano and Lopez…good lord. You know how people who are new to comics sometimes express disappointment when the interior art and cover art don’t match? This is about as close as I’ve seen a Marvel comic get in a good way in a long time. You open this puppy up and are hit in the eyeballs with that gorgeous zoom-in sequence.
LL: We get a good look at everyone trapped inside the nightmare (half the team, some Carnelian soldiers), and let me say: a group of possessed people speaking in unison might not be the number one creepiest thing on my list, but it’s definitely top five. That their voices are used to beg for forgiveness and help moves this from straight up horror into heartbreaking. Dani and Boom Boom need to figure out a plan, and the problem is only getting worse. Fortunately, backup is on the way.
Dougsplaning
AS: What is Doug’s kink, exactly? Amorphous hiveminds? Anyways. The backup is the rest of the new New Mutants and Wildside, brought along by Doug to show some solidarity with ex-villain mutants and because he can actually help. I’m loving the semi-focus on Dani here too, her leadership linking up well with her compassion and sense of humor. Brisson’s characterization skills are finally winning me over again. I know he has it in him but this issue and the last, something seems to have clicked in this series.
LL: I do enjoy seeing the team not get along, too—every woman in this comic tells Wildside off, and I cannot imagine how unpleasant the plane ride from Krakoa would have been. And Douglas, you sweet innocent lamb. You stupid idiot. He’s been in two pages of this comic and he’s decided to work with Wildside, antagonize Boom-Boom, and assume the Carnelian military is there to help. I know death is off the table, but: do you really want to hatch out of an egg THAT badly?
AS: Yeah, it’s nice to see across a few titles, that even with the new status quo, everyone is still getting used to the living arrangements so to say, ha.
Is Doug Ramsey a….himbo? Does he qualify? He’s literally one of the smartest mutants (booksmarts, anyways), but this is some himbo behavior.
LL: I’ll defer to you as the premier authority on X-Himbos, but in my opinion: yes, 100%. He is nice, he is SURPRISINGLY swole, and he is so, so stupid.
Also, in his rushing out to bring his backup team to assist, he brought Wildside, but didn’t wait for the team’s Russian-speaking teleporter. I know I’m harping on this, but: bring literally anyone else.
AS: Thank you for acknowledging my entirely useless doctorate in himbology. What is up with thicc-Doug? I think I must concur, he’s officially a himbo. I mean Havok almost has a PhD, so what do booksmarts really count for on Krakoa, anyways.
Shut Your Cake-Hole, Wildside
LL: We get a break from the situation in Carnelia for a quick look at Krakoa. My precious boy Glob is taking care of his chickens when Magik tracks him down for info about the New Mutants. I love that Magik gets out of her meeting with Cyclops about how the New Mutants should stop causing international problems, only to find that they’re off doing exactly that.
While the highlight for me is learning that they’re going to miss dinner—which we get a recipe for!—I think the other half of their conversation is more plot relevant.
AS: Magik and Glob discuss the anti-mutant doxxing site that led to the shootout at Angel and Beak’s place a few issues ago. Another good reminder, that even with their new sovereign mutant state, mutants are hunted, hated, and feared, and don’t owe humanity anything. On the flipside, Dani’s outlook on the situation in Carnelia shows a lot of them do in fact still give two #$%&s about human lives, even if humans don’t really deserve it. And, even if those same humans are blaming Krakoa for the literal nightmare situation unfolding in Carnelia.
LL: The team’s going to do their best—but first they need a plan. While explaining his observations, Doug notes that nightmares this severe are often a result of trauma—and Rhane also points out that she can smell something suspiciously medicinal. I am Very Worried about what’s happened to this child. We also get some less useful ideas from Boom-Boom, who is doing her best. When your powers are bombs, every problem looks bomb-able.
Fortunately, Dani’s got a functional plan, and we get to see the team prep in the background as the Carnelian prime minister blames mutants for the trouble in a news interview. This issue is giving me a lot of homework—cooking, watching Poltergeist.
AS: Yeah, I had to go back to make sure I remembered correctly, but this young mutant’s parents were found dead when she went missing, so I’m wondering now if they tried to drug her or something like that. I’m pretty sure the Poltergeist reference is just about the rope tethering the mission team to the real world while they enter the nightmare, but I am also due for a re-watch… [Ed. note: I, like Liz, have not watched Poltergeist]
The mission sequence is also beautifully terrifying. The child’s nightmare is dark and full of terrors, and Armor’s armor really POPS in such a setting.
LL: I know we already raved about the art, but this scene is SO. GOOD. As the mission slowly goes off the rails (and to be fair: if I woke up from a nightmare to a scary Wolverine knockoff trying to inject me, I’d also lash out), the art gets creepier and creepier and the dream veers hard into nightmare territory. We end on Armor seeing her dead mother and brother—hallucinations? manifestations from the nightmare?—as the inside team gets absorbed. And yet, I’m still more concerned about whatever shenanigans the Carnelian government and the Dox Mutants site are plotting. Overall, this issue packed a lot in, but the moving parts are connecting and I’m intrigued!
AS: I am finally loving this series, and super relieved that that seems likely to remain the case. Just. mwah!
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Can we get one issue where nothing bad happens and we can see a tour of the island? Between last issue’s trip to the MLF’s area and this week’s chicken coop/Glob’s kitchen, I need to see how everyone else is living.
- Speaking of kink, remember that time Alex offered to pee on Bobby? Sorry, the group chat is re-living Chuckles Austen.
- Glob took care of chickens in Brisson and Excalibur artist Marcus To’s Age Of X-Man: NextGen, and it’s nice to see he found a hoby.
- Krakoan reads “ADRIFT”
Allison Senecal buys books professionally and comics unprofessionally.
Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.
