Our heroes have barely escaped Count Nefaria’s villain-team tryouts; their covers are thoroughly blown, but they’ve got the suitcase with the Weird Engine, and the Count would like it back. Will he catch them? Will they escape him for good? Will the story conclude? Don’t count on any of those events in the pulse-pounding, sparklingly comedic chase scenes and emotional turnabouts that make up New Mutants: Lethal Legion #4, written by Charlie Jane Anders, drawn by Enid Balam, inked by Elisabetta D’Amico, colored by Matt Milla and lettered by Travis Lanham.
Some comics need to exist for the sake of the plot: They contain setup, climax or conclusion. Some comics don’t: They open up like an accordion, lending color and texture and personality to a story that could go faster or hold fewer beats. Those comics that don’t need to exist can become fan favorites, if the feelings and the banter work well enough: That’s one of the insights Chris Claremont more or less brought to mainstream hero comics. And those comics might be, as Claremontians like to say, quiet issues. But they might also be 22-page chase scenes. That’s what we get here, and it’s worth every panel and every word in every balloon.
And I do mean every word: We’ve got a lot of them, because these mutants banter. Even more than they did before. Their enemies banter, too. Dani gives mid-fight motivational speeches: “The time for regrets is over. … If we face this as a team we can win.” The villains, on the other hand … well, let me quote them:
“Kill!”
“Actually killing’s a waste of time. They respawn.”
“It’s just my catch phrase!”
“Your catch phrase is one syllable?”
“Screw you! My catch phrase is mellifluous and distinctive!”
Darkseid, or even the Shadow King, they’re not. Nor should they be: The real drama here emerges from the developing romance (if that’s what it is) between Escapade and Cerebella, and the unstable are-they-still-besties friendship between Morgan and Escapade. Morgan rejects Krakoa and mutant nationalism; Escapade’s willing to try it, for now. (Just under the wire, if the Fall of X promos are any guide, though that’s another — perhaps sadder — story.)
This series has done well to keep its art team united — if you’ve read 1990s comics you know what happens when a miniseries switches artists midstream. Balam has to draw a lot of pursuits and fights here, though, a lot of multi-character full-body panels, and the linework can feel a bit rushed compared to prior issues. No big deal, but the entertainment here lies primarily in Anders’ witty writing, not just in dialogue but in the data pages and the quotations.
First there’s a flier for a Sewer Safari, in which Count Nefaria promises to lead any willing amoral gazillionaires on a quest for “the Most Dangerous Game” — that is, revived dinosaurs and monster-movie beasties — under New York City. It’s such a bad idea that Kraven the Hunter rates it a “Meh,” though Ulysses Klaw gives it a testimonial (sort of). Then there’s a running joke in which supervillain Moonstone — “the chaotic neutral version of Captain Marvel,” per Escapade’s description — tries to torch the New Mutants while singing “When I was a lad” from HMS Pinafore. In other words, we’re fighting Gilbert and Sullivan-level villains: Anders’ serious intent lies elsewhere.
And her jokes … they don’t lie at all: The award for text or data page of the year goes to a transcript from the in-universe podcast “Superbad Guys with Erin and Fred,” which gives Marvel villains (who are real, to the podcasters) the full BotA treatment. How did Count Nefaria get so upset, so unstable and so hungry for power? He lost a fight with a Golden Age superhero called the Whizzer.
“Erin: Please tell me the Whizzer didn’t dress entirely in bright yellow.”
“Fred: It was a simpler time.”
You see, the Whizzer lied to Count Nefaria about how the Count’s ionic powers would age him prematurely, which “got in his head and freaked him out.”
“Erin: Because he’d already been sprayed by the Whizzer.”
“Fred: Please stop.”
“Erin: The Whizzer had already marked him.”
“Fred: Seriously. Please.”
“Erin: The Whizzer had already told him, ‘urine trouble!’”
Are you not entertained? I am. I truly am.
You know who’s not entertained, though? Morgan Red, who feels abandoned and betrayed. In among the yuks we’ve got a tough set of teenage choices that Escapade might have to make, and an equally tough one for Cerebella, who might fall for the wrong girl. This blend of teen soap opera, non-combat decisions that seem as serious as they can be, at least in the moment, to the young people involved, with superhero fights of varying silliness feels like something we should have seen, but maybe never quite saw, in the great OG 1980s New Mutants books, because the villains were never that goofy: It’s more of a Spider-vibe, if Spider-books could somehow become team books, with a side of recent West Coast Avengers. And I’d love to see more of it. (Anyone want Charlie Jane Anders involved in Fall of X? Anyone? Anyone?)
Anyway Escapade, having thrown herself into the superhero team life, almost kills Moonstone by borrowing her powers and hitting her with her own energy blast. In front of Morgan. And Cerebella. And Dani. And Rahne. It’s not great, and it brings Escapade to a realization: “I’m … not okay.”
No, you’re not. Maybe none of us are. Maybe just trying to thrive in a world that keeps trying to kill us, or make us invisible, or take away our bodies, or turn us into someone else, makes us inevitably not okay, and we have to (or get to) find the friends and find the team that will let us grow instead. Maybe Escapade has found that team: She all but says so in the comic’s last panel. Maybe Morgan can join that team. Maybe not.
For now, though, Morgan’s on the temporary team or non-team that has to retool the ion enhancer suitcase bomb called the Weird Engine — a pile of technobabble around a macguffin — before the Count can set it off. Has Morgan failed? Will the Count set the device off at a convention, thus stealing the life-energy of the convention-goers? Will our team get to midtown Manhattan in time to stop him? Will the Unicorn recover from his resentment at being the only member of the Count’s away team who doesn’t sing, dance or crack his own jokes? Will Xuan ever again get to star in a comic, rather than bopping around in somebody else’s story?
We won’t get the answer to that last question next issue. But we’ll answer all the others. I’ll be there.
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.
