{"id":4911,"date":"2019-12-12T20:41:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T20:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4911"},"modified":"2019-12-12T20:41:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T20:41:30","slug":"new-mutants-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4911","title":{"rendered":"New Mutants #3 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As always, page numbers go by the digital edition, and this post contains spoilers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 1 \/ COVER:<\/strong> Armor, Glob Herman, Maxine and Manon arrive at Beak and Angel’s door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-3.<\/strong> Armor is troubled by the mutants who aren’t on Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two issues of the New Mutants in space, this issue returns to Krakoa for a story about some of the mutants for later generations of trainees – and by a different creative team, at that. No doubt it’ll all come together down the line…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armor.<\/strong> Hisako Ichiki was introduced in Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men <\/em>run in 2004. She’s another character who made it to main-team level for a while before drifting back into comparative obscurity – though she was used quite prominently in the Age of X-Man: NextGen<\/em> miniseries, alongside her co-star Glob Herman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Glob Herman.<\/strong> Glob was introduced in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men <\/em>run in 2001, originally as one of Kid Omega’s hangers on. His memorable character design made him a recurring background character, and he’s been used increasingly often in recent years, often as a gentle character quietly yearning for a relationship. (He’ll start harmlessly pining for Pixie later in this issue on the basis that she danced with him for one panel.) Writer Ed Brisson has taken a particular liking to Glob – as well as NextGen<\/em>, he also features as a major supporting character in Brisson’s Old Man Logan<\/em> run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mutants at the party.<\/strong> Krakoa really does seem to be in permanent party mode, and once again it’s being laid on so heavily that you have to wonder if something’s going on here. Most of the partygoers seem to be generics, but visible among the group are three of the Stepford Cuckoos, Pixie (with the insect wings), Anole (talking to her) and Rockslide (the big… well, rock guy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 4-5.<\/strong> Recap page and credits. This is “To the Grave” by Ed Brisson and Flaviano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the X-books have kept their credit-page small print the same from issue to issue. But previous issues of New Mutants<\/em> had “Let’s go to space, good times in space”, which obviously wouldn’t fit this. Instead, New Mutants<\/em> #3 gets “Search, find – Krakoa is calling – answer?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first glance, the common theme of the two storylines – other than the fact that they feature training-level characters – is that they both involve looking for missing colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 6-8.<\/strong> Armor starts looking for missing mutants to investigate, and settles on Beak.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sage<\/strong> is running the Krakoan computers here, but we’ve discussed her before, and she’s really just serving as a generic mid-level Krakoan authority figure here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krakoan records. <\/strong>If those books that Hisako is working through are an official Krakoan record then apparently they’re keeping records in hard copy – which seems odd but might fit with the general hostility to technology. Then again, Hisako does seem to have some form of internet access in her home, which is the first time we’ve had it confirmed that the people on Krakoa can access outside media. It’s a not a conventional laptop, though, but some sort of projection from Krakoa itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bishop<\/strong> is “accounted for” because he’s in the cast of Marauders<\/em>, even though he’s not on Krakoa itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dazzler<\/strong> is indeed on the island; we’ve seen her before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beak<\/strong> (Barnell Bohusk) is another Morrison-era character, introduced in New X-Men<\/em> #117 (2001). He was a likeable student of somewhat inhuman appearance, whose mutant powers were of no real practical use – he’s a bit bird-like but he can’t really fly very well. In Morrison’s run, he winds up having kids with fellow student Angel Salvadore (we’ll see her later). Beak went on to have a stint in the Exiles, before getting depowered on M-Day, along with his wife and all but one of his kids. That led to a period where he looks human and joins a bunch of depowered mutant tech-users in a best-forgotten incarnation of the New Warriors. Beak got his powers back – if “powers” is the word – in X-Men: Blue<\/em> #26, when the Mothervine scheme caused widespread mutations throughout the USA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beak was indeed previously established as coming from the Netherlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angel Salvadore<\/strong> debuted in the issue after Beak, New X-Men<\/em> #118, and she’s got insect powers which are rather more useful. She was in the depowered New Warriors incarnation too, but presumably she (and the kids) got their powers back in the same way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sage seems to have no particular interest in tracking down either of these minor characters, and largely regards them as busy work to keep Armor off her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 9-10.<\/strong> A very bored Boom-Boom signs on for a trip to Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boom-Boom<\/strong> (Tabitha Smith) started off as a supporting character in Secret Wars II<\/em> (1985) before being added to the cast of trainees in X-Factor<\/em>, from where she wound up becoming a tail-end member of the New Mutants. (Yes, one of them is actually in this issue.) She went on to a long stint in X-Force, calling herself Boomer and Meltdown. Boom-Boom was always somewhat flaky and reckless, but those traits have really been played up heavily since her period in Nextwave<\/em>, a more-or-less parody book (its overhaul of Machine Man stuck too). The recent New Mutants<\/em> miniseries suggested that her behaviour was partly attributable to heavy drinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that while Boom-Boom apparently helps Armor to get the pharmaceuticals to help Beak’s father, Armor doesn’t bring her along to Nebraska – or Boom-Boom finds something shinier to look at instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunspot’s room<\/strong> has two pictures of himself looking businesslike, a tennis racket, and a set of golf clubs. Presumably that’s a huge TV opposite the bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 11.<\/strong> A data page on MMD.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A page of text about a variant of dementia – which as far as I can tell is entirely fictional. “Munus motricium<\/em>” is just Latin for “motor function”. Basically, it’s a real-world-sounding disease that the Krakoan drugs can be allowed to cure without opening up a can of worms by curing anything really high profile. The name of celebrity sufferer “Taylor Ellis” doesn’t seem to have any particular significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 12-13.<\/strong> Maxime and Manon insist on tagging along to Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maxime <\/strong>and Manon<\/strong> are psychic twins who were introduced in the Extermination<\/em> miniseries (2018), the deck-clearing exercise that preceded the Hickman relaunch. Extermination <\/em>was also written by Brisson. In that miniseries, they’re basically mind-controlled pawns of Ahab, and something of a plot device, so it’s interesting to see them sticking around. Extermination<\/em>‘s time-travel plot logic is not exactly easy to follow, but they appear to come from a near-future timeline which would, a few years after their abduction by Ahab, have collapsed into a dystopia if the original X-Men hadn’t set the timeline right by returning home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extermination <\/em>#5 mentions that Maxime and Manon are the children of other X-Men students, but the identities of their parents – who may well already be on the island – haven’t been revealed. Without Ahab’s influence, they seem to be well meaning, but remain vaguely creepy through their failure to properly grasp boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 14-19.<\/strong> Armor, Glob, Maxime and Manon visit Beak and Angel and provide Krakoan drugs to cure Beak’s father’s dementia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilger, Nebraska.<\/strong> This is a genuine Nebraskan village. It’s a couple of hours drive from Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kids.<\/strong> As in previous stories, they’re all combinations of Angel and Beak’s character designs, in different proportions. Not all of them have been named; the ones that have are Axel, Kara and Tito.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles and Kathy Bohusk.<\/strong> Believe it or not, we have <\/em>seen these two before (with those names and basically these character designs), in a flashback in Exiles<\/em> vol 1 #69 (2005). It shows them as supportive parents enrolling Beak in the X-Men’s school – which probably fits with the idea that they came to the US to get him help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 20.<\/strong> A data page on the Akademos Habitat, the buildings where the “younger generation of mutants” live – apparently meaning members of the established training teams. Most of them are called things like “Sigma House” or “Delta House”, with obvious fraternity overtones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akademos<\/strong> was a hero of Greek mythology. His main claim to fame was saving the city of Attica by telling the invaders Castor and Pollux where they could find their sister Helen. But he’s better known because a grove outside Athens, supposedly his burial site, was named after him. Those are the “groves of Academe”, where Plato set up as a teacher, hence the name “Academy.” So basically it’s a very roundabout way of saying that this is a place of study, though of a very communal, mutually-reinforcing sort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pods are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n