New Mutants #24: Welcome to the Second Chance Lagoon

It’s time for some forgiveness, some reunions, and some intriguing proposals in New Mutants #24, from Vita Ayala, Danilo Beyruth, Dan Brown, and Travis Lanham. 

Liz Large: It’s been more than two months since we last saw our New Mutants, and oh, I have missed them. When we left off, the team had finally defeated the Shadow King, freed Amahl Farouk from his control, and ensured that everyone on the island was free of SK’s influence. Honestly, they deserved the rest after a task like that so that I won’t hold it against them. 

Stephanie Burt: They deserve the very best. After two months without speaking roles, they’ve got a lot to say. I’m completely into this comic—and I suspect that various fans will be, too— but wow, it’s a talker and kind of an 80s throwback. Have you ever seen a comic this good use so many words, so consistently, other than Claremont’s? Or so many mutants— especially Dani and Rahne— who looked so much like elves from Elfquest?

You’ve Always Been Enough

Liz: This issue does rely on words and opens with an unexpected pairing: Magik and Rictor at the Green Lagoon. The two of them don’t strike me as a pair we’ve seen as friends before, but it makes sense. They’re both mutants who learned magic under the tutelage of varyingly-awful men, and they’ve got all the typical baggage that goes along with being in an X-book. I like these two conversing about mutants and magic over a few drinks.

Stephanie: I’m buying. I dig the background at the bar, too. It’s like they have something in common they can’t reasonably state. Something…. quiet? Quickening? No, that’s not it. At least one of them misses a partner who lives far away. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Liz: The two of them start talking about communication and all the ways it can go wrong. They float the idea of a mutant language to try and eliminate misunderstandings, but even within the same language, there’s still potential for so many problems. I think it’s interesting for these two to be having this conversation since they both speak more than one language. The pair of them understand that just because you comprehend the words someone is saying doesn’t mean you know what they mean.

Stephanie: Illyana certainly speaks magic languages. They both want a way to connect their magic to a welcoming community. That said, only Rictor the druid has. The dialogue goes on one page past the scene because Rictor and Magik can’t stop talking about their new, special stretch goals. They cherish their community so much they want to make new community symbols, while mutants like Rahne don’t feel welcome in that community, or not yet.

Liz: Rahne may be free of the Shadow King’s influence, but she’s still dealing with the after-effects. She sits alone, crying and reliving some of her more traumatic moments. It’s such a counterpoint to the way we saw her early in the run: sitting alone but surrounded by Krakoa’s beautiful nature, enjoying this new world. Fortunately, Dani is here, reaching out to help her.

Stephanie: About time. If you haven’t read our colleague Nola’s “Adoption Papers for Rahne Sinclair” over at WWAC, I recommend it. Artist Danilo Beyruth and colorist Dan Brown are new to the series, no? They are Just So Elfquest. They’re quite a shift from anyone we’ve seen before, especially from Rod Reis. The Beyruth elf-mutants may never become my favorites, but they’re expressive, consistent, and right for this scene.

Liz: I don’t love this art style. I may be spoiled by the success of the past Ayala/Reis combo. This kind of conversation would lend itself better to a different style of facial expressions, especially one that’s such a punch in the gut. Rahne feels so awful about everything she’s been a part of she wants to push Dani’s comfort away. She honestly doesn’t think she deserves comfort. She believes Dani shouldn’t be here wasting her time. The scene is a realistic portrayal of depression, at least in my experience. Rahne doesn’t think she’s worthy of love, and the love people offer her is another way she will make herself feel bad. Other people deserve more, deserve better than loving and supporting her. She feels guilt that they’re doing so. 

Stephanie: You called it. Moreover, Dani knows she screwed up. She failed Rahne, Cosmar, and her team. Dani kept expecting people to be as functional as she is when they weren’t and couldn’t be. She treated her team the way Cyclops treated his: set expectations high, and the people who work alongside you will level up. That’s superheroing, maybe, but it’s not teaching. Nor is it being a soul mate or good friend. Dani’s repentance feels proper and real. “Dani’s repentance,” or “Dani fixes everything,” feels like a through-line for the issue. And it’s a good one.

Liz: Dani is doing her best to reassure Rahne and calls her her “soul mate.” While yes, this is a standard and canonically accurate description of their friendship….come on. Come ON. You are killing me here. Please, my skin is a mess, and my crops are dying.

Stephanie: “We will be together always,” they say, bopping foreheads and holding hands. The only way that Ayala and Beyruth could go further would be to have Dani hold up a paper sign saying, “DISNEY WON’T LET US.” And then have a mariachi band pop in with a reprise of “De contrabando.” If you think we’ve got it rough, think of the writers.

Liz: They’re doing their best! Rahne and Dani are united in feeling guilt for how they’ve treated the other. After Rahne’s death, Dani was so hurt and traumatized she closed herself off, afraid of the pain that would come if she opened herself up again. Rahne has also been holding back. She’s so full of anger at herself and at everything else that’s happened. She doesn’t think she deserves love after failing to protect her son and the other kids. Dani points out that Rahne isn’t to blame for any of this. Rahne saw Tier die, and there was no way she could know he might not be dead. As for the Lost Club, while Rahne did hurt them, she was being manipulated by the Shadow King, who has literal centuries of experience at manipulation under his belt. Rahne has done nothing to make her undeserving of love, and Dani is going to keep telling her this until she accepts it. 

Stephanie: Exactly. And if Rahne can accept it from anyone, she can accept it from Dani. That’s how soul mates work. Not to leave these beautiful panels on a sour note, but did somebody de-age Xi’an? Is that the Crucible at work? Because she looks wrong to me. I don’t think she’d want to come back as her teenage self when she could look like an adult. I wonder if someone forgot to tell Beyruth that she’s the oldest New Mutant. At least they all remember she’s gay.

Cosmar and effect

Liz: In Madripoor, it’s time for another conversation. The New Mutants have taken Cosmar and the other members of the Lost Club to the Moira MacTaggert Memorial hospital. Dani and Xi’an have to have a serious talk with Cosmar. They failed her, and they wanted to apologize and make sure she knew how wrong they were. When Cosmar asked to be put into the Crucible (in New Mutants #18), Dani refused because she assumed that Cosmar could simply learn to appreciate and love her mutant gifts the way Dani had. But Cosmar isn’t Dani, and what worked for her won’t work for everyone. Cosmar’s mutation was a source of such horror and trauma she worries she’s a monster, even now that she has the support and love of her friends on Krakoa. Dani’s method wasn’t going to work for her.

Stephanie: Bingo. And since Cosmar’s ask was such a good trans allegory earlier, it makes all kinds of sense that now, while Dani’s trying to fix her former mistakes, she gets Cosmar a medical solution. That’s what some of us need.

Liz: It’s heartbreaking to see Cosmar unload all of the fear and sadness she’s been dealing with since her powers manifested. Cosmar’s powers trapped her in a nightmare. Literally in that, it trapped her and others in a vortex of horrible imagery and figuratively as it killed her parents, exiled her, and changed her body into one she doesn’t recognize. There’s a part of her that’s taken this event, which she didn’t want or have control of, as evidence that she’s a monster and deserved it. She’s just a child, and she’s finally going to get the adult help she needs.

Stephanie: “Cosmar” is Romanian for “nightmare”! I wonder if she’s next in the queue for a name change.” You are who you decide to be,” says Dani, “and it’s my job to help you get there.” Take note of parents and allo-parents for trans kids and other kids with medical needs. Liz, what do you think of the art here? I’m carried away by the tender realist panels in the hospital, but not so much by the nightmare-dream parts. Maybe the other New Mutants artists have spoiled me.

Liz: I think it’s a little hard to judge anyone following up what I believe will be an iconic writer and artist team-up.  

Dani should have listened to Cosmar and Rahne. While we sometimes have experience and knowledge our friends lack, it’s also important to listen to what they’re saying and understand what they mean by it. The New Mutants have learned this the hard way. Now they’re ready to be there for whatever Cosmar needs. If that means taking her for weekly visits to Masque, who can help her reshape her body? That’s what they’ll do.

Stephanie: I hope Masque is up for it. He was such a terrible dude until a few issues ago.

Liz: His bedside manner was surprisingly sweet here! Also, sweet, our first data page is a page from Warpath’s journal. He described one of his favorite memories when his brother took him fishing. Not because he enjoyed learning to fish, but because when he fell overboard, his brother saved him, and he knew he would always be safe. Does anyone else have horrible allergies right now? Just me?

Stephanie: I got you a handkerchief. And an entire box of Krakoanex. They’re like Kleenex, but for mutants. Claremont says somewhere (might be in the audio here) that a great comics writer knows never to give the fans just what we want. At this point in the comic all about aftermath and redemption, making up and making good, I started to wonder if the great Vita Ayala was giving us just what we wanted and whether or not they had gone overboard. So many of these scenes feel almost like top-quality fan fiction. There are quiet moments in which characters make up, get closer, fix mistakes, figure out what they want, and hold hands. It’s 75% wonderfully overdue, sweet and long-awaited, and 25% too good to be true. (We love you, Vita, Please stay.)

Liz: Yes! I love all these small moments that don’t appear in the typical issue of a team book, like James stress-assembling furniture while he waits for the newly-resurrected John to appear (fresh from Trial of Magneto #5). There’s immediately some tension because James didn’t greet his brother at his resurrection, and John had to track him down. John’s not buying any of his bullshit excuses, and then it comes out that James feels like he’s failed John by not avenging him in his absence. It must have been easy for James to push any of those feelings down when he thought he wouldn’t have to see John again, but it’s clear that now he’s overwhelmed with guilt. John points out that in his absence, James has done so much. He’s fought and bled to protect others, and he’s so proud of his brother. There’s nothing to apologize for. I like this moment! 

Stephanie: It’s okay, but it didn’t hit me the way the Cosmar and Rahne reconciliations hit me, likely because I never got attached to the initial arcs featuring James’s obsession with a vengeance for his brother. I get the fear of seeing someone you loved and haven’t seen for decades, though. I see the avoidance potential in that. What do you think of the art here? It’s so retro, but not in the same way as Dani’s scenes. In their Western wear, these highly muscled men embrace and look lovely. They’re together, seen from behind, on a white page, magnificently sculptural. That said: “square-jawed Native American man cries a single tear in close-up” creates an unintentional overlap with an image that’s become an offensive cliche. Ideally, an editor would have noticed.

Sometimes It’s #%$@# Impossible.

Liz: After all of those feelings, we’re back to the bar, where we are still talking about feelings. Fred Dukes makes the extremely valid point that, of course, Magik is traumatized. She has PTSD. And that they all have PTSD here because of everything that happened in their lives until extremely recently (like what, five days ago in the sliding timescale?). They’ve all had such a rough time, and dealing with all of that to try and move forward is more complicated than Magik hoped it would be.

Stephanie: This panel (top left, Magik giving a speech with a #$@% in it). I would follow this panel into battle. And Illyana’s becoming talkative! Not just a combat leader: a leader.

 Liz: Magik seems to think that solving years of trauma would be possible just by working together and communicating. As Rictor says, there’s no magic bullet. They all need to trust each other. That’s a lot of work when many of them can’t even communicate. As New Mutants #24 shows, even literal soul mates have trouble understanding what each other needs.

Stephanie: Dani and Rahne would not be my example for that failure– they understand each other quite well, even if some of their understanding has to take place just off-panel. But more generally: bingo. This issue looks at how we fix things, how we use the quiet moments and epilogue days when we’re lucky enough to get them, and we have to talk, but we can’t just stop there: we talk about what we can do to fix the things we broke and the things that got broken in us. Sometimes we have to travel, build something, give No-Girl a new body, or come up with a new kind of magic that’s going to get co-opted by Malice if we’re not careful. Sorry, did I go too far?

Liz: We are getting a lot of old villains making appearances, so Malice would fit right in! As we move to the end of the issue, we get an apology and a celebration. Storm takes the stage at Arbor Magna and acknowledges that the leaders and adults on this island have failed one of their own: Martha Johnson. She was a victim of the humans, and while she wasn’t dead, she was suffering. But even when they had a way to help her, they didn’t even think of it until she pushed for it. This acknowledgment feels big. Dani and Xi’an privately apologizing to Cosmar, is more of a personal failing and only seems to say something about those specific New Mutants. Storm apologizing in front of this crowd is admitting that Krakoa and its leadership failed, that this is a significant problem even if it only hurt one girl. 

Stephanie: That’s exactly right. And suppose Dani’s apology undid her earlier ill-treatment of Cosmar at the Hellfire Gala. In that case, this campfire gathering undoes, well, two years (in our world) when everyone overlooked No-Girl’s biggest problem. Does anyone else remember the Generation Hope series from the early 2010s, in which No-Girl let Kenji build her a body? She’s wanted a body for a long time. Oh, and she’s no longer No-Girl: she’s…

Liz: Cerebella! Her new form looks a lot like the version we saw of her in the Shadow King’s realm: a human girl with her brain visible through a clear skull. We see her embrace Gabby and Cosmar, and she’s just so happy. The Lost Club is reunited and seemingly more content than they’ve ever been in this series. I’m glad for them!

Stephanie: I know! That’s what I mean about giving the fans what we want: quiet moments, apologies, reconciliation, bar scenes, kisses.

Liz: It’s everything we need! We listen in on a conversation between Magik and Rictor as we see some of the characters having a good time. Cosmar is enjoying her new body, Xi’an and her girlfriend are kissing, the Proudstars are spending time together, and Alex Summers and his Goblin Queen are doing the same. Magik wants to teach magic to the kids on Krakoa, and she wants Rictor to help. Magic itself isn’t evil, even if the person who taught her was, and when she reclaimed that for herself, she felt in control and connected to herself. I love the idea of her taking what was a horrible experience and offering it to these kids without the trauma.

Stephanie: That’s what we do. That’s what we all want to do. Illyana doesn’t just want to teach the kids magic: she wants to co-create a new kind of magic designed for mutant use. Dr. Strange can’t help her do that, especially not if he’s dead: she’ll need help from mutant magic users, which means Rictor and Maddy Pryor. Who could be bad news? Illyana keeps speaking her subtexts, saying what we know she means or what we hope she’s thinking: “I get to tell my own story.” This writing gets to the edge of cheese but never falls in. As for Xi’an, I love to see her happy, but I keep trying to remember her girlfriend’s name, and I think it’s DisneyWontLetUsMakeExistingCharactersGay. Diswont, for short? Code name: Lettuce?

Liz: One last loose end to tie up before we finish, and that’s the fate of Amahl Farouk. Newly free of the Shadow King, he plans to go through rehabilitation before returning to Krakoa and assisting David Haller with his work. The New Mutants want to support him and say as much in their after-action report. More importantly, they come to see him off to the next step. We get to see this from two different perspectives. Rahne forgives him for what happened, and I feel as though it’s a step on the way to her forgiving herself. Xi’an doesn’t forgive him, but she wishes him well and says she hopes he gets what he deserves— a second chance.

I like that not all of them are willing to put this behind them so quickly. There’s often a priority of forgiveness given right after an apology. It is as though once someone has apologized, the other person can turn off all the hurt and turn it into forgiveness. It’s about making the person who has apologized feel better, but it’s not about them. It’s about the person who was hurt, and they don’t have to pretty up their feelings for others’ comfort. 

Stephanie: That’s how apologies work. Also, how many plots do we get in this issue? Each one’s an aftermath moment from the big Shadow King arc, but we’ve just got so many. And yet it never feels rushed, crammed, or drawn-out. Pacing this good means a writer who can write for this artist and an artist who gets it. Mostly: bravo.

Liz: And finally, in one last moment, Magik approaches Madelyne Pryor with an offer to get everything she’s ever wanted. An amazing ending. Perfect. No notes. I cannot wait to see these two work together. 

Stephanie: Almost everything in this issue worked out, or seems likely to work out, exactly the way that our well-meaning New Mutants wanted. The team-up with Madelyne to create new mutant magic, though? I fear for how that’s going to go.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Krakoan reads THE LABORS OF MAGIK 
• The covers for this week’s issue are amazing. I love the fun, chutes-and-ladders style cover from Martin Simmonds, and Peach Momoko’s Dani Moonstar variant is gorgeous. 
• Gabby’s reunion with her brother and sister is such a delightful little moment. Laura says that she’s “genetically predisposed to being a $@$#%&” is perfect.

Stephanie Burt

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

Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.