{"id":6795,"date":"2021-06-18T19:26:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T18:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6795"},"modified":"2021-06-18T19:26:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T18:26:40","slug":"new-mutants-19-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6795","title":{"rendered":"New Mutants #19 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #19
\n<\/strong>” Party of the Century”
\nby Vita Ayala, Alex Lins & Matt Milla<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> The New Mutants arrive at the Hellfire Gala, presumably to be greeted by Emma Frost.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Warlock arrives at the Hellfire Gala.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a “green carpet”, presumably because of the plant-themed nature of Krakoa. The rope and bollards seem to be made of Krakoan plants too.<\/p>\n

The guy with the beard is named later in the issue as\u00a0Barry thee Artist<\/strong>, and he’s a new character. Presumably he’s one of the celebrities who was invited to the event.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits. As with most books this month, the layout is altered to suggest a Hellfire Gala invitation.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong> Warlock & Mirage mingle with the guests.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve no idea what Captain Marvel is referring to when she mentions Dani owing her a game of pool.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nightcrawler was also drunk in\u00a0Hellions<\/em>, so this is clearly in the overall plan. We’ve yet to reach his own tie-in issue,\u00a0Way of X<\/em> #3. In characteristically philosophical mode, he is keen to discuss “the veil between life and death”. This topic would have been of interest to Nightcrawler at any time (especially after he got resurrected himself back in the pre-Krakoan era), but it’s a more pressing question in the Krakoan era where the mechanics of resurrection are a little more troubling.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-7.<\/strong>\u00a0Mirage and Wolfsbane.<\/i><\/p>\n

Wolfsbane<\/strong> has come in her regular costume, claiming to have no interest in getting dressed up for the occasion. She claims that this is all a show for the humans, and has no interest in participating in it. Dani frames it as a mutant pride speech, but in terms of Emma’s apparent goals in organising this event, Rahne is basically right.<\/p>\n

Rahne proceeds to bring Dani up to speed on what X-Factor told her about Tier in issue #16. She tried to go to Dani for support about that at the time, but by that time Dani was off trying to retrieve a mutant teenager from Otherworld in issues #17-18. That mission turned out to be largely a waste of time, as he was perfectly fine. Rahne’s comment – “I’m glad you were there for the bairn when he needed you” – is at least partly ironic. A big part of her distress in issue #16 was the thought that if Tier was alive, yet not contacting her, something terrible must be happening to him. She doesn’t spell that out in terms to Dani.<\/p>\n

Quite why Dani has been unable to speak to Rahne before now is less than clear. She’s been back on Krakoa since the end of issue #17, and there were opportunities during issue #18.<\/p>\n

The scene ends by leading into the announcement of the new X-Men team, as shown in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #21.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Data page. The original New Mutants’ group chat, though Magik has changed Cannonball’s screen name.<\/p>\n

Note that this group has only\u00a0eight members – the entire classic New Mutants line-up, minus Warlock. It’s\u00a0possible<\/em> that Warlock isn’t in this group because he was thought to share a common account with Cypher, but it does fit into the sense of Warlock being marginalised.<\/p>\n

In keeping with his Hickman-era persona, Sunspot is outraged at not being popular enough to get onto the team.<\/p>\n

“5 to 1 odds that Sunfire quits the first day anyway.”<\/strong>\u00a0Sunfire quit the X-Men after one issue way back in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #94.<\/p>\n

“Amara, your upbringing included extensive training in oration and political dynamics, yes?”<\/strong> Amara’s quasi-Roman-Empire classical education in Nova Roma would indeed have covered that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

The way the election is described here makes it seem much more of a conventional election than what was described in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #21, where it was more of a consensus building thing. Here, the New Mutants talk as if it’s a conventional secret ballot. Some of the New Mutants’ choices are fairly random – you can see why Magik would be amused by trying to get Marrow onto the team, but why would Cypher be keen to see Tempo there…?<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0Laura looks for Gabby.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aurora and Daken<\/strong> are a couple over in\u00a0X-Factor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-14.<\/strong>\u00a0Karma deals with Barry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, this doesn’t work.\u00a0Barry’s a one-dimensional straw man character who exists solely to be humiliated by the regular cast, and there’s really not enough to him to merit devoting this much space to it. On top of that, he’s surely correct that Karma using her mind-control powers on a celebrity guest is a bigger deal than anything he’s actually done here. As for the claim that a diplomat behaving in this way would face consequences, I’m not convinced that you can run that line at the same time as having Coven Akkaba try to disrupt proceedings over in Excalibur\u00a0<\/em>– though they do at least maintain a veneer of civility.\u00a0Why did this guy even get invited to the Gala in the first place, if he’s just a celebrity artist of no interest?<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.<\/strong>\u00a0Warlock talks to Warpath.<\/em><\/p>\n

This echoes the way Scout was seeking advice from Warpath in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-18.<\/strong>\u00a0Warlock approaches Doug and Bei, while Amahl Farouk talks.<\/em><\/p>\n

The art here basically shows Bei accepting Warlock as a friend. Meanwhile, in narration, Farouk addresses Gabrielle directly. This\u00a0finally<\/em> gives us a clear explanation of his status on Krakoa: for some unclear reason, Krakoa keeps the Shadow King persona \/ entity restrained, and so we’re dealing with (more or less) the real Amahl Farouk. Quite why this wasn’t spelled out at an earlier stage is difficult to follow, since there’s been no previous mention of it and it’s essential information in order for other characters’ treatment of him to make sense.<\/p>\n

Essentially, the Shadow King claims that he knows Krakoa will eventually fall, and he has to train some of the kids to be ruthless enough to deal with it; therefore, Gabby can’t be allowed to stop him.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-20.<\/strong>\u00a0The New Mutants share a drink after the party.<\/em><\/p>\n

They’re on Mars, which was terraformed in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1. Rahne remains detached from the rest of the team.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.<\/strong>\u00a0Laura receives Gabby’s letter, while Cosmar & co find Gabby’s body.<\/em><\/p>\n

The letter is delivered by Gabby and Laura’s pet wolverine Jonathan, and we’ll see it on page 23. Laura promptly takes it to her half-brother Daken.<\/p>\n

The dialogue in the previous scene clearly implies that Farouk has killed Gabby. This normally wouldn’t be very effective to get her off his back, because of resurrection, but Gabby has made the point several times in recent issues that there seems to be a policy against resurrecting clones (like her). This is clearly heading somewhere: the no-clones policy hasn’t been expressly stated to the Krakoan people, and Havok has already been complaining about the failure to revive Madelyne Pryor over in\u00a0Hellions<\/em>. But nobody else much cares about Maddie. A refusal to resurrect the beloved Gabby, in the normal way, would be much more of a political issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong> Gabby’s letter.<\/p>\n

“…since you got back… You don’t remember being gone.”<\/strong> This refers to the Children of the Vault arc from\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #5, #18 and #19, where Laura spent an extended period (from Gabby’s point of view) and an outrageously long period (from her own point of view) trapped in the Children of the Vault’s time-dilated city. She died as soon as she escaped the city, and without a backup of her time there, and so she doesn’t remember any of that.<\/p>\n

“The rules are always shifting (except the Big Three…)”<\/strong> Gabby makes the point that, aside from the three laws of Krakoa, the Krakoan authorities (such as they are) are just making up the rules as they go along. There’s no predictability here, no transparency, and part of that (for Gabby) is the fact that she can’t get a clear answer about the position on resurrecting clones.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to go back to what my life was before I met you…”<\/strong> She was a lab-grown assassin, basically.<\/p>\n

“…but I miss knowing who I was and what I was expected to do.”<\/strong> This has echoes of Nightcrawler’s concerns about social directionlessness over in\u00a0Way of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What’s abundantly obvious is that this is not in any way, shape or form a suicide note.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: ONE OF A KIND. Which, of course, Gabby isn’t.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #19 ” Party of the Century” by Vita Ayala, Alex Lins & Matt Milla COVER \/ PAGE 1: The New Mutants arrive at the Hellfire Gala, presumably to be greeted by Emma Frost. PAGE 2.\u00a0Warlock arrives at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6798,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6795\/revisions\/6798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}