{"id":9265,"date":"2023-07-21T22:34:10","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T21:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9265"},"modified":"2023-07-21T22:34:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T21:34:10","slug":"new-mutants-lethal-legion-5-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9265","title":{"rendered":"New Mutants: Lethal Legion #5 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #5<\/strong>
\n“Vampire Heist II”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Charlie Jane Anders<\/strong>
\nPenciller: Enid Bal\u00e1m<\/strong>
\nInker: Elisabetta D’Amico<\/strong>
\nColourist: Matt Milla<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Travis Lanham<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Nefaria looms in the background while the regular cast are in the foreground. It’s a callback to the cover of issue #1, with the New Mutants looking a bit more battered and beleaguered. The title of the story, “Vampire Heist II”, also links back to issue #1’s title “Vampire Heist.”<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Escapade and Cerebella stake out the Chavetz Center.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the comments from last issue, the Chavetz Center is a conference centre in New York which is used for conventions. Karma learned last issue that Count Nefaria’s plan is “to trap a bunch of people in the Chavetz Center and use the Weird Engine [a cosmic artefact] to turn them into ionic batteries so he can restore himself.” As Karma mentions later, this is basically Nefaria’s last throw of the dice to try and restore his powers, and he’s privately aware that the more likely outcome is that he kills everyone within half a mile, including himself. The recap page clarifies that it’s serving here as the venue of the Future Expo.<\/p>\n

With admirable efficiency, Escapade and Cerebella take a moment to talk about their character subplot, and how Escapade’s attempts to offer support to Cerebella in the only way she knows how haven’t really worked out that well for either of them. Cerebella has figured out by this point that Escapade is dangerously reckless.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I recognise them. One of them got thrown into a dinosaur topiary next to me.”<\/strong> That’s Psi-Borg working the door, who we last saw auditioning for the Lethal Legion in issue #2. But Cerebella is presumably referring to one of the random guards next to Psi-Borg, who was indeed thrown into some dinosaur topiary by Scout in the same issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Mirage and Wolfsbane ask Beatrice the dragon to help.<\/em><\/p>\n

Beatrice ran off after hearing Nefaria’s voice in issue #3. We learned in issue #4 that Nefaria had killed her partner on a hunting expedition. Morgan plays the voice of reason, pointing out that not everyone wants to be a hero (for example, him) and that Beatrice is very much on that list.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Escapade enters the convention.<\/em><\/p>\n

During which, she and Cerebella having a bonding conversation, and envy one another’s powers.<\/p>\n

“After Sublime got me…”<\/strong> In the final arc of\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“I almost killed Moonstone…”<\/strong> Last issue – basically in self-defence, but she had to be persuaded by Wolfsbane to save Moonstone afterwards.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Escape finds the Lethal Legion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nefaria’s plan is apparently to advertise his device at a convention and wait for some suckers to come in, even though he’s standing around with some B-list supervillains in broad daylight. Well, that’s Marvel New York for you.<\/p>\n

“I’ve hooked up with two out of three Hawkeyes.”<\/strong> Moonstone is thinking of the original Hawkeye (Clint Barton) in Thunderbolts<\/em> and the impostor Hawkeye (Bullseye) in\u00a0Dark Avengers<\/em>. I’m not sure if she’s ever met Kate Bishop.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong>\u00a07-8.<\/strong>\u00a0Mirage announces that they’re doing a heist.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because we did the fight last issue. The plan this time is to use the skills they’ve got more efficiently, and just sneak in to disable the Weird Engine (as explained on the data page). All they have to do is sneak in and Morgan disables the thing by turning part of it into chocolate with his powers. Simple.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-10. <\/strong>Everyone sneaks into the building.<\/em><\/p>\n

Karma is claiming to be CEO of the Hatchi Corporation, which she\u00a0was<\/em>, but she claimed in issue #3 to have given it away.<\/p>\n

In the midst of this montage, Escapade starts talking about leaving Krakoa to be together with Morgan again after all – her core relationship that she’s put in jeopardy by focussing on her new friends. Given upcoming events, getting out of Krakoa might not be the worst move in the world for her anyway.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.<\/strong> Mirage confronts Moonstone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Moonstone was the Dark Captain Marvel in Dark Avengers, and sees Captain Marvel as an arch-enemy. (Writers of\u00a0Captain Marvel<\/em> don’t seem all that convinced.) Anders writes Moonstone as a surprisingly straight evil-but-not-that<\/em>-evil henchman somewhat resigned to her position in the villain pecking order. Mirage is distracting her, but she’s also genuinely trying to persuade her to switch sides.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-17.<\/strong> The obligatory fight happens anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Escapade points out, the attempt to do things her way has gone very badly. But on the bright side, her power saves the day by swapping places with Skullbuster and getting her past the force field, and then generally confusing Moonstone and Nefaria.<\/p>\n

We get an increasingly rare mention of Dani and Rahne’s psychic link (which, in early\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>, was part of Dani’s general power to form a psychic rapport with higher animals).<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19.\u00a0<\/strong>Nefaria’s plan goes wrong and he gets eaten by a dragon.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m… not entirely sure I follow how this stops an explosion which the previous scene said was going to destroy Midtown, but maybe it’s just that Beatrice gets him far enough away from the Weird Engine before things get too bad, and the water’s able to contain most of the explosion.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Escapade and Morgan are reconciled, with Morgan agreeing to visit Krakoa and Escapade renewing her focus on their relationship.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-23. <\/strong>Morgan visits Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n

And we establish that Morgan is asexual, and Escapade can apparently keep that relationship\u00a0and<\/em> romance Cerebella at the same time, so everyone’s happy.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Instead of the normal trailer page, a short farewell letter by writer Charlie Jane Anders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #5 “Vampire Heist II” Writer: Charlie Jane Anders Penciller: Enid Bal\u00e1m Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico Colourist: Matt Milla Letterer: Travis Lanham Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1. Nefaria looms in the […]<\/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-9265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9265","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=9265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9268,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9265\/revisions\/9268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}