{"id":8295,"date":"2022-09-23T23:30:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T22:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8295"},"modified":"2022-09-23T23:30:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T22:30:42","slug":"new-mutants-30-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8295","title":{"rendered":"New Mutants #30 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 #30<\/strong>
\n“Still Classic”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Vita Ayala<\/strong>
\nFraming story art: Alex Lins &\u00a0Bryan Valenza<\/strong>
\nMoonstar art: Justin Mason & Bryan Valenza
\n<\/strong>Karma art: Jason Loo<\/strong>
\nWolfsbane story art: Emma Kubert, Roberto Poggi & Antonio Fabela
\nLetterer: Travis Lanham<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Members of the cast pose – specifically, that’s Galura behind the logo; Warpath, Magik and Karma in the top tier; X-23, Anole and Dani Moonstar in the middle tier; and Cosmar, Wolfsbane and Sunspot at the bottom.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Letter from the author. This issue is an anthology special celebrating the 40th anniversary of the New Mutants’ debut. It’s not connected to wider storylines and I wouldn’t have done annotations for it if it had been a one-shot, but it’s part of the regular series, so we’ll run through it quickly.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a04.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Sunspot invites us to the 40th anniversary\u00a0celebration (or whatever it is in continuity).<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong> Sunspot is unhappy about the preparations for his party.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Cidade do Para\u00edso<\/em>.”\u00a0<\/strong>“Paradise City.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Leo<\/strong> Eng<\/strong> is what you might call a recognisable background character in this series; Sunspot has evidently taken a\u00a0very<\/em> expansive view of who he’s inviting to the New Mutants’ anniversary party, since even the likes of Anole, also present here, were never actually\u00a0in<\/em> the New Mutants.<\/p>\n

“How long have you been friends?”<\/strong> The running joke is that because of Marvel’s sliding timeline, nobody will give us a straight answer.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-13.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Dani’s story.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since Karma isn’t around and Magma hasn’t joined yet, we’re in the gap\u00a0between\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> vol 1 #6-7 (1983). However, at that point in history, Kitty shouldn’t be on good terms with the New Mutants – they were still barely speaking to one another as of New Mutants<\/em> #13.<\/p>\n

Dani’s belt.\u00a0<\/strong>Dani’s belt was a plot point in the early issues of\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> – she insisted on customising her uniform and asserting her Cheyenne identity. Professor X eventually had to back down on it. She was the only team member who refused to just wear the regular outfit.<\/p>\n

“My grandfather’s memory.”<\/strong> Dani’s grandfather, Black Eagle, was murdered by Donald Pierce’s men in her debut,\u00a0Marvel Graphic Novel<\/em> #4.<\/p>\n

Stevie Hunter<\/strong>, for any newcomers, was Kitty’s dance teacher and a recurring supporting character in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Kitty Pryde.\u00a0<\/strong>Her Star of David necklace\u00a0was present from her earliest appearances, though it wasn’t usually drawn quite this large.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15.<\/strong>\u00a0Shatterstar and Rictor arrive, and Karma begins her story.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shatterstar has Liefeld-style pouches on his speedos. Of course he does.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-22.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Karma changes her look and meets a girl at a music festival.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a prequel to X-Force<\/em> vol 1 #75, where Karma debuted with the look seen here – not strictly an issue of New Mutants<\/em>, but a New Mutants reunion story. Shatterstar wasn’t in X-Force at the time – he quit in issue #70, planning to Mexico with Rictor. So quite what he’s doing with Karma at a music festival is less than clear. The only Karma gives for her new look in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #75 is that a doctor who was treating her siblings “convinced me to try to reclaim my life.”<\/p>\n

Echidna Faire<\/strong> is a thinly disguised Lilith Fair. Echidna is the mother of all monsters in Greek mythology; Lilith is sometimes billed as the mother of all demons. I assume “Sharon Corvid” is probably a reference to a songwriter I don’t recognise.<\/p>\n

Colossal Exploding Man<\/strong> was the music festival in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #75 – well, “Exploding Colossal Man Shindig and Hullaballoo”, but close enough. It’s Burning Man, obviously. The two women with Karma in the final panel are identified in that story as “my girlfriends Simone and Jessikah [who] are documentary filmmakers”.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.<\/strong>\u00a0The introduction to Wolfsbane’s story.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Blob is presumably here as the barman.<\/p>\n

PAGES 25-32.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Wolfsbane takes Warlock shopping.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is tricky to place. I’m not sure why Warlock is shown here speaking in pictograms – he\u00a0could speak broken English from his first appearance, and everyone else seems to understand him. It may\u00a0just be an attempt to make his overly familiar speech tics seem alien again. If so, I can see the idea, but it absolutely kills the story for me – it turns the most basic dialogue into a cryptic slog and I still can’t decipher the speech that Wolfsbane describes as “beautiful”.<\/p>\n

PAGES 33-34.<\/strong>\u00a0Sunspot addresses the party.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 35-37.\u00a0<\/strong>Letters from creators.<\/p>\n

PAGES 38-46\u00a0<\/strong>are a back-up story serving as a trailer for November’s\u00a0Deadpool<\/em> #1, in which the New Mutants kick Deadpool off the island for letting kids play with grenades. Seems an odd way to write him out of\u00a0X-Force<\/em>, so I suspect that won’t stick. Anyway,\u00a0Deadpool<\/em> isn’t an X-book and this isn’t an X-story.<\/p>\n

PAGE 47.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #30 “Still Classic” Writer: Vita Ayala Framing story art: Alex Lins &\u00a0Bryan Valenza Moonstar art: Justin Mason & Bryan Valenza Karma art: Jason Loo Wolfsbane story art: Emma Kubert, Roberto Poggi & Antonio Fabela Letterer: Travis Lanham […]<\/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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8295","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=8295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8297,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8295\/revisions\/8297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}