Can Krakoa’s kids bring back their just-killed best clone friend? Where in the South Atlantic is Tristan da Cunha? And is anyone– anyone?– listening to Rahne? It’s time for plots, heists, and tears, so many tears, in New Mutants #20, from Vita Ayala, Alex Lins, Matt Milla and Travis Lanham.
Liz Large: The Hellfire Gala is over, and like the morning after any party, it’s time to clean up all the messes from the night before. Unfortunately for our teenage protagonists, this isn’t the spilled beer and unclaimed clothing left after a normal party.
Brainstorming
Liz: We open where the last issue left off— Rain Boy, Cosmar, Anole, and No-Girl moments after they found Gabby’s body. They’re such teenagers here, almost panicking, despite all of the horrors they’ve seen in their time as mutants. Reading these panels, it’s easy to imagine them all shouting the dialogue at each other as the tension ratchets up.
Stephanie Burt: They really don’t know what to do. (I imagined them shouting too.)
Liz: This scene really brings these kids’ storyline to a boil. They’ve spent the series being manipulated and disappointed by the adults at every turn, and now in their time of crisis they have a serious dilemma. Gabby has been murdered, but what are their next steps? Go to the adults who dismissed their problems?
Stephanie: Not only do the kids think the adults aren’t taking their problems seriously, but the story clearly agrees with the kids. Even leaving aside the trans allegory once the resurrection protocol can be used for giving powers back and de-possessing Karma there’s no reason it shouldn’t be used for restoring (that’s how Cosmar would put it) Cosmar’s appearance. No reason, except that adults are jerks.
Liz: Adults are jerks is really the most timeless New Mutants plotline.
Stephanie: Agreed. The Shadow King is also an adult, and definitely a jerk. And a manipulative killer. Get ready for another kind of manipulation, starting right now….
Liz: As they bicker, Gabby’s body suddenly moves—not because she’s healing and coming back to life, but because No-Girl is taking over her body to better make her case.
Stephanie: I was shocked. This is great. No-Girl hasn’t had much to do so far– she hasn’t had much to do since the Morrison run!– and she’s exactly the kind of pissed-off, formerly friendless nerdy kid who talks like a book. Who delivers oratory when she talks at all. We’re also seeing a low-key three-way parallel among the Shadow King’s powers (possesses people low-key, manipulates feelings, maybe reads minds, mega-jerk), Karma’s powers (possesses people, sometimes intuits their feelings telepathically, tries not to be a jerk), and No-Girl’s powers (manipulates objects, including dead bodies, with no mind-reading involved).
Liz: No-Girl’s anguish is evident. I love how this scene acknowledges what happens in a comic book: the main characters get the attention, the plot lines, and quick access to the benefits of resurrection. No-Girl is a memorable but less popular character, and I’ll be honest: I had forgotten that being in a floating jar wasn’t because of her powers, but because an anti-mutant group removed her brain from her body to use her. Why on earth wasn’t she given an opportunity to come back in her earlier form, since she so clearly wants that?
Stephanie: Maybe because she still has her powers and you don’t get the Crucible unless you’ve lost your powers? Those are terrible rules. Adults are terrible.
Liz: The team does a great job here of bouncing ideas off of each other to come up with a plan. They’re unsure if Gabby would even be resurrected, since she never got answers to her clone question, so they decide to bring her back themselves. This seems like a big escalation in their power combos, but they’ve got a solid plan.
Stephanie: If I knew what the kids knew, and only what the kids knew, I’d definitely sign on to that plan. –I’d also sign on to Alex Lins’s and Matt Milla’s art. They’re more conventional, less Sienkiewicesque, less painterly, than the great Rod Reyes, but they’re also more comfortable with action: not necessarily fights, but action. Lots of people moving around and trying to get things done.
Liz: At the Green Lagoon, we see a completely different type of morning after: the kind with fighting over who your friends are spending time with. The conversation between Xi’an and Rahne has been a while coming, and it is rough.
It’s a question of forgiveness, and who’s entitled to it, and who can give it. The promise of Krakoa means everyone gets a chance to redeem themselves (in theory), but does that mean “forgive and forget”, or just “forgive”? Xi’an is a lot more calm than I would be in her shoes. She’s talking with one of her oldest friends, who’s making efforts to befriend the man who abused her.
Stephanie: Yeah. I’d worry about Rahne too. (Xi’an needs to talk to Dani. And she will.) Lins and Milla’s body language for Rahne here just blew me away. I’m not sure Lins’s Karma is my Karma– she seems too slight, and de-aged– but Lins’s Rahne is 100% my Rahne.
Liz: Rahne thinks it’s hypocritical to try and warn her off of socializing with the Shadow King when Xi’an herself has brought a former villain to the island: her brother. Tran wasn’t a great guy before he was somewhat merged with Xi’an, and he also used his powers to possess people.
Stephanie: Theme alert: who gets to decide what you do with your body? Who possesses– who owns– your body? What if you’re dead? What if you’re a kid?
Liz: Of course, this isn’t just about reforming villains. Rahne throws one final dig on her way out, telling Xi’an to “stop pretending to care about anyone else”. This is what’s at the heart of the fight, and Rahne’s desire to seek out the Shadow King in the first place. Her friends have been prioritizing everything in their lives above her, at a time when she needed them the most.
Rescue Mission
Liz: A new mutant (lowercase) has manifested, and the New Mutants (capitalized) have been sent out to clean up the mess. It’s nice to see that Magik and Warpath are still working on training their students.
Stephanie: It is. I love it when X-books show the Normal Operation of the Team, not just an exception or an emergency, and in a school book that means a training mission. However…
Liz: I love seeing the kids working together. It lets us see them as a team, and there are some fun uses of mutant synergy here. We also get a really fun “RUMBLE!” sound effect here that works really well to show the oncoming earthquake.
Stephanie: Sure. That said, this one-twist B-plot felt maybe too normal? Almost like a quickly plotted fill-in? It looks great but the writing could have taken just one page. It’s more like a Guggenheim X-Men: Gold story than like a Vita Ayala character jam.
Liz: That’s a good point. It’s a bit of a diversion and tonal shift from everything else this book has been building up to.
Stephanie: Tristan da Cuhna is one heck of a choice. It’s the most remote populated place on earth! And on our earth it’s got just 243 residents. And a de facto communist economy. Despite being British territory. It makes sense that they’d want to protect their own.
Liz: Seeing the townspeople take up weapons to protect the new mutant was a twist I didn’t see coming. And seeing the conflict resolved by actually listening to what the people were saying and explaining what the mutants can do and how they’ll help, with the consent of everyone involved? Maybe Warpath could also do a leadership class for some of the adult mutants.
Weekend at Bernie’s
Liz: The plan to resurrect Gabby has a lot of moving pieces, and crucially depends on these kids evading suspicion. Good thing Gabby, whose body is being piloted by Martha, isn’t known for having family with enhanced senses who are actually pretty worried about her. Oh, wait.
Stephanie: Oh no. In another timeline Martha and Daken get to sit down and talk about how they handle near-constant, potentially murderous anger. In this one Martha’s putting her feelings– about being neglected and disembodied and used as a tool– into Gabby’s voice.
Liz: I have to say, this scene felt like a gut punch. Akihiro’s recent arcs have been about how he isn’t the same man he was before, a killer who wasn’t exactly interested in healthy romantic relationships. Watching “Gabby” tear into him and hit on all of his insecurities was pretty awful, especially since as far as he knows, this is really her.
The cruelty is effective though, as it gets him to step back. And there’s a sort of friendship that comes through here—Martha knows that Gabby’s been trying to get more time with her family and been brushed off. While her methods aren’t great, she’s trying to stick up for her friend.
Stephanie: Classic. Also No-Girl would like Daken to go away: as far as she knows, she’s saying what Gabby would say in order to cause Akihiro to leave. It’s all part of the heist plan. Don’t look too close.
Liz: I have to say, I love a heist! Although the kids aren’t exactly pulling an Ocean’s 11 here, since it seems like just walking around the back is enough to evade the security. We get a beautiful panel showing the almost cathedral-like space where the eggs are kept, and it’s a cool look at this area from a new perspective. The kids haven’t been here before, and they want to stop and look at things.
Stephanie: Note Rahne’s conversation partner before the kids walk in: it’s Joshua Foley, demonstrating that you can resume a friendship with someone you treated very badly, in one of the worst decisions you’ve made.
Liz: I got misty eyed when the other kids spoke about Gabby. We’ve spent the last few issues seeing them fight over the Shadow King, and seeing them all reminisce about why they’re her friends was really sweet. Their compliments also really run the gamut of teen interactions in a way that I really liked. She picks Rain Boy first in gym class and spends time practicing with him privately so he isn’t embarrassed! She had a sleepover with Cosmar and painted her nails!
Stephanie: I teared up too! We did mention the trans allegory… –Anyway Gabby is the Best Kid. And the chances she’s going to stay dead for long seem near zero. I wish she could hear all the good things the kids have been saying about her. (Maybe when her personality comes back online, somehow, she will.)
I love everything about this comic right now. And about Gabby, whom this comic (temporarily?) killed off. Comics are weird like that.
Liz: We end on Rahne, as it feels we often do. She’s managed to walk in on the kids mid-mission, and I’m sure that will spiral out of control next issue. But we’ve finally reached the tipping point: Xi’an approaches Dani, and tells her they need to talk about Rahne.
Stephanie: They sure do.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- I loved all the sound effects in this issue. They worked so well every time ,and were the highlight of this issue’s art.
- Lins’s line-work on the kids, especially Cosmar and No-Girl and Rain Boy. And the chamber-of-eggs reveal.
- Eggs. So many eggs. Krakoa’s a good place for eggs…
- Krakoan reads: WOLF AND SHEEP
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.
