The Kids Ain’t Alright in New Mutants #15, from Vita Ayala, Rod Reis, and Travis Lanham.
Stephanie Burt: Hi Liz! Here’s another issue that’s mostly slice-of-life, mostly setup for future conflicts, mostly ways to place Chekhov’s guns on walls so they can go off later, and I love it. I love it so much. I’ve been waiting for a book about life on Krakoa when nobody’s fighting external foes and nobody’s yelling at Quiet Council meetings, and I’ve also been wondering “What about the children?” since HoXPoX. This creative team has made New Mutants that book. It’s a book with several slow-burn subplots too. It’s Claremontastic.
Liz Large: It really is! After I finished reading this issue, I had to head back to the beginning and count every page– I was positive it had to be a double-size issue, and was shocked when it wasn’t. For a standard-length issue, we had so many moving parts and pieces. It’s amazing, especially in a book with this many possible cast members, to feel like everyone is getting the attention they deserve.
Take A Look At This Book
SB: Since we’re gonna spend the next thousand-odd words mostly talking about Vita Ayala’s words I want to start by making a lot of squee sounds over Rod Reis’s art: he’s absolutely the right fit for this book. Lines expressionistic, a bit shaky, choosing emotion over action, making the characters stand out, drawing teens and tweens who look like teens and tweens (not chibi, not sexy adults).
LL: Absolutely! I also really like the way the lines are almost de-emphasized in favor of a lot of color, it works really well for this book. There’s a few moments where Reis uses color to emphasize emotions here that really stood out to me. In an emotional moment (which I’m sure we’ll get to later), he draws Rahne alone, the only color in a room that’s gone totally grey once her friends leave, and it just about killed me.
SB: Reis keeps A-list mutants like Dani and Rahne recognizably themselves, though if that’s Quentin Quire he looks way too young to have been the guy in West Coast Avengers (if it’s somebody else he should lose the pink mohawk). He’s got Illyana right in her teacher-rage stance (she’s also got a save-the-world rage stance, and a who-drank-my-coffee rage stance, all of which involve her sword). Reis also lets the weird-looking, non-passing ones look weird without tipping over into monster territory, except maybe Cosmar. Cosmar doesn’t look all that scary to me, a comics reader reading a comic, but she looks like somebody who might scare her friends. Or herself. Her reality-warping nightmare power reminds me of Dani’s, but also of Proteus’s. And you don’t want to remind yourself of Proteus, if you’ve got a choice.
LL: I love Cosmar so much. Reis’s depictions of her powers are so fun, and they really give me “kid doodling in their school notebook” vibes. There’s a lot of fun stars, ribbons, flowers, and other psychedelic shapes that surround her when she uses her powers, and it’s just cute and fun. It does a great double duty of showing her powers–vital in a comic book!–and also reminding us that even though she looks very different, she’s just a tween-aged girl. Reis is such a good fit for the young mutant book.
SB: Also to Reis’s credit: in a cast full of nonwhite heroes, nobody’s whitewashed. Not even Gabby, who looks– as in early appearances of Laura Kinney– like somebody who might well be Latina. The same guy who made the line art did the colors here, and it shows, and it helps.
We Need an Adult (Not That One)
SB: How do I love this issue? Let me count the subplots. There’s the clique of young mutants who are training with, or being groomed by, the Shadow King. Did they burn the Fort down? If not, who did? What does the Shadow King want with his misfit gang anyway?
LL: This is probably the most ominous part of the book, to me. We get a data page that’s a few excerpts from Amahl Farouk’s journals, and it shows how the Shadow King groomed him into being a host. The entries start off with the young and excited Farouk, learning to use his powers and wishing his father could see his progress. By the end, his only thoughts are about the King, and he’s even forgotten what his father looked like. In and of itself, this is a big enough problem, but what else do we have?
SB: There’s Gabby Kinney, a.k.a. Scout, who just wants adults to pay attention to her, and try to have fun with her, the way Laura did. I never thought I’d say this in any connection, but: where’s Deadpool when you need him? Gabby may still be wondering whether Krakoa hates clones: she worried about that last issue…
LL: Poor Gabby. She’s going through a lot and she’s putting in the effort to ask adults for help, and she’s just not getting seen. I don’t think this is necessarily Akihiro’s fault, considering his relationships to adults/family in the past, plus the fact that his own team is dealing with a lot (go read X-Factor!). But that doesn’t change that Gabby needs some attention and guidance– and OOF, Warpath telling her that she was “indoctrinated by humans to serve their purpose” was brutal. It’s true, but c’mon!
Again, this would be a problem on its own. But in full on infomercial style, just wait, there’s more!
SB: There’s Cosmar, who wants to go through the Crucible– that is, to have someone kill her– not in order to get her powers back (she’s got her powers) but in order to revert to her original, human-passing appearance, rather than keep the nightmare face she acquired when her powers went kablooey in New Mutants #9. (“Cosmar” means “nightmare” in Romanian.) Likely the Shadow King suggested it. Jerk.
LL: This is definitely the Shadow King’s doing. Not that I don’t believe that a mutant with a physical mutation would want to change things, considering the last fifty-plus years of comics. But THIS idea of what to do about it? Presented by a “kind” adult who’s essentially grooming a kid? And considering the journal data page? Yeah, this has Shadow King plot written all over it.
SB: There’s Rahne, who wants her half-Asgardian son [Ed. note: Tier, who was killed in X-Factor #256, and who tempted Rahne with death in War Of The Realms: Uncanny X-Men] to come back through the resurrection protocol. But he’s not even in the queue, and the Five don’t normally make exceptions on the basis of red hair or tragic backstory. Josh and Rahne have some history, come to think of it, but that subplot may never come up.
LL: From the perspective of someone who wants to like her, I hope that Josh and Rahne can be one of the stories we all politely pretend doesn’t exist. [Ed. note: She was his teacher and also Dani Moonstar’s foster son. Rahne and him hooked up. It was bad bad.]
Reading the letter with that context–Elixir saying that he won’t break the rules for her, but he cares about her and wants her to be happy– is making me deeply uncomfortable. It’s definitely an interesting compare and contrast with the other storyline, for sure.
SB: What do these threads share? They’re questions about what kind of wishes Krakoa can accommodate, and what desires the land of mutant wish-fulfillment considers a bridge too far. No clones, no self-harm for what looks like cosmetic reasons, no half-Asgardians brought back to mutant life.
LL: It ties in with Illyana’s scene in the opening of this issue: how to deal with destruction on an island with only three laws? She says that destroying the Fort can be linked into respecting the land, but her second point– that even if it’s not illegal it’s “not what we do here”– is what’s underpinning a lot of Krakoa right now. They’re trying to establish a society with a lot of shared values, but when you’ve got people who disagree, it’s going to be messy as you figure out how it works. Who can decide whether or not Cosmar is allowed to use the Crucible? The unelected Council, where the majority of members don’t have physical mutations?
SB: Cosmar’s goal raises really deep real-world analogies with plastic surgery and other corrective, or “corrective,” procedures for disabled folks. And for trans folks. “There is nothing wrong with your body or with you” reflects Dani’s genuine beliefs, but it doesn’t reflect Cosmar’s mental state, and it may never. No wonder the word balloon fades to white: Cosmar’s not listening. I think a procedure is cosmetic, you think it’s medically necessary for mental health reasons, and who gets to decide? If it’s your body, you should decide, right? But what if you’re a minor? And what if the procedure includes: we kill you?
LL: I like that Anole is the one to go after Cosmar to comfort her. With his mutation, he can understand where Cosmar’s coming from in a way that Dani, who’s generally portrayed as a beautiful human woman, can’t necessarily reach. Even with the timeline mess that is comic books, he’s also younger than Dani, which fits in with this issue’s theme of adults just not cutting it.
SB: All the threads except for Rahne’s show kids asking adults for more attention, and for more than the adults can give. Gabby’s the star in this analogy: we see her needs and then we see her get hit with a power move called “nightmare evolution mode,” in which her friends and peers forget she exists.
Speaking of mutants in danger of being forgotten, I hope we get a story that centers Rain Boy. I’m willing to wait. (This comic already has a lot on a plate.)
A Safe Place For Mutant Children
SB: While all these kids are asking for attention, Rahne is asking adults… for her kid. In the issue’s visual high point, Wolfsbane squints and scowls in pain over the memory of her lost son. And yet she’s the same Rahne we remember as happy from her first Krakoan resurrection. She’s finally seen a place where mutants can experience a happy childhood. Of course she wants that for Tier.
LL: This scene stood out as heart wrenching in an issue full of sadness. Rahne is furious and devastated all at once, and of course she goes to Dani for comfort. Watching Dani and Rahne here really shows the depth of their relationship. Dani immediately jumps to using “we” when talking about solving the resurrection issue, because they’re partners in a way that goes beyond even the rest of the New Mutants. We see that when Karma shows up, they don’t get into details– and Karma accepts that sometimes, you need to take time to have a moment with your feelings. I said it last week and I’ll say it again: this team is trying so hard to be emotionally healthy and I love them for it.
SB: Her full-page panel– Rahne herself, knees to chest, distraught, at center, Tier as a cub-baby, Tier getting killed, at the edge– strikes me as a callback to the last time a mutant belatedly realized that she was missing her baby in an otherwise perfect world: Jubilee’s pain near the end of Age of X-Man: X-Tremists when she remembered than she had a kid.
LL: It serves as a good reminder to the readers as well– it’s been less than ten years since Tier died, but an eternity of stories have happened in that time. We don’t need the nitty gritty details to get the visceral sense of Rahne’s pain and fury, and the images we do see are more than enough.
SB: Reis’s painted backgrounds have always excelled, and here the landscapes make me want to visit Krakoa as much as I ever have. Check out the green shrouded hill of the Sextant. Then check out Dani’s room, with its big white bed and its irregular cavelike walls. I believe that’s where she would sleep.
LL: Reis’s art is just so great for this area of Krakoa. The standard housing there is sort of organic geodesic domes, and it looks amazing and lush. When can I move in?
SB: I want to attend a wedding that looks like Doug’s wedding. I’d probably end up like Warlock, though, wondering why more people weren’t having more fun. Ayala understands Bobby so well– the braggadocio, the ridiculousness, the good heart.
LL: This party– capping off an issue that took us through the emotional wringer– is such a fun time. We get a lot of small moments of different people dancing and enjoying themselves, but the highlight is watching the New Mutants just hang out as friends. Watching them try to make Bei feel included was really sweet, and I’m not sure which I loved more: Bobby dancing with her or Illyana, mid-giving Doug a noogie, solemnly telling Bei that Doug is hers to noogie now. I love watching them all together.
SB: So do I. And they brought Warlock! This scene is so great. It’s like picking “Slumber Party” [Ed. note: OG New Mutants #21] up off the spinner rack at the drugstore– which I actually did! (I’m old!)– except that this time I’m old enough to understand more about why it works so well. This series is the first one entitled New Mutants to focus as much on the teachers as on the students. If it follows previous New Mutants arcs, the kids are going to have to set out on their own. Let’s hope that this time Doug Ramsey survives the experience.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Is the exchange between Cam and Gabby the first unambiguous confirmation since HoXPoX that everybody remembers Age of X-Man? “What we have is beautiful,” Dani says, “but it doesn’t erase the pain of what we have faced before.” Sure doesn’t.
- It’s really interesting that Age of X-Man incorporated mutants who were dead at the time, almost as filler/NPC characters with no agency, and who now don’t even have memories of the events (since, presumably, it took place between their last Cerebro backups).
- Is Cam the only young mutant so far who takes they/them pronouns? Or the second? Or the third?
- Whatever you do when you reread, don’t miss Warlock’s John Travolta/ Saturday Night Fever pose on the last illustrated page. And don’t miss Illyana dancing– and enjoying the dance– with Xi’an. What do we think they’re hearing? “Stayin’ Alive”?
- I am personally very grateful that James is still wearing his short-shorts gym outfit. I know this is the era of mutant clothes being a variety of X-uniforms, but this is delightful.
- Maybe every issue of New Mutants should end with a party, just to take our minds off of all of the terrible things that are happening below the surface.
- Rain Boy and Shark Girl’s synergy move is literally a Sharknado. The fastball special is old news now: this is the only mutant synergy I need.
- Krakoan reads “ANOTHER WORLD”
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.
