New Mutants Special Edition

#1

Release: Sep 17, 1985

Cover: Dec 1985

Creators

Writer	Chris Claremont
Cover Artist	Arthur Adams
Cover Inker	Terry Austin
Penciller	Arthur Adams
Inker	Terry Austin
Colorist	Christie Scheele
Letterer	L. Lois Buhalis, Tom Orzechowski
Editor	Ann Nocenti, Jim Shooter

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Thee, dummy.

One of the things that made it challenging to buy any given series regularly was that I didn’t always get to decide what comics I got.

If, for some reason, my mom did our weekly grocery shopping outside of the usual circumstances – Friday evening after my dad got home from work – and I wasn’t along for the ride, she would just grab some comics for me.

She didn’t really pay that much attention to what comics I read, so it was always something of a crapshoot as to whether or not she’d get something I wanted, though in fairness, while I did have some books that I liked more than others, I wasn’t really that picky. My view of comics back then was pretty much like the common thought about sex and pizza: even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good.

Really, the typical worst-case scenario wasn’t so much that she bought me a comic I didn’t like, it was that she bought me a comic I already had.

In any case, I recall that I got this comic as the result of one of those non-standard shopping trips and that overall, she did a great job of randomly picking comics, as each one was a winner, but even if this had been the only good one it would have been a fantastic haul.

This issue – the first part of a two-part storyline – is a personal favorite and is also much beloved by countless other fans.

A large part of that is due to the art of Arthur Adams, who, early in his career here was already a fan-favorite, but I think it’s also because of the kind of story it is, one of young people whisked away to a land of enchantment, in the spirit of the Chronicles of Narnia or, as was a bit more contemporary with the comic, the animated Dungeons & Dragons.

I feel like experiencing something like that is a common daydream among young people. I know I certainly fantasized about finding myself in a magical world filled with excitement and yes, danger, too, the way the kids in the New Mutants did in this story.

So, what is the story?

While bored one day in Asgard, Loki, God of Mischief, is pondering his orb and observing recent events on Midgard (Earth), events that had been detailed in the legendary run of Walter Simonson – friend and colleague of Chris Claremont – of Thor, during which the armies of Surtur had battled the heroes of Midgard.

He’s focused – quite sensibly – on one particular hero: Ororo Munroe AKA Storm of the X-Men.

At this point, Storm had recently lost her mutant ability to control the weather, so Loki is especially impressed by this powerless mortal fighting so fiercely and passionately which leads him to develop a bit of a crush.

He’s also angry at the other X-Men because of a recent encounter with them (and Alpha Flight), but he’s sworn to not, personally, get revenge on them.

So, to accomplish two goals – kidnapping Ororo and hurting the X-Men – he summons Amora the Enchantress and sends her to do his bidding. The Enchantress doesn’t like being bossed around, but she also sees the benefit of being in Loki’s good graces, so she agrees, leaving Loki to monologue about how the X-Men are doomed and Ororo will be his girlfriend and help him become ruler of Asgard.

As for Ororo, she’s on a Mediterranean island with the students of the Xavier school known as the New Mutants. Most of the kids are off having fun at the beach, but Ororo is tending to Xi’an (Shan) Coy Manh, AKA Karma.

Shan – evidently, in the years since I last read any X-books, they’ve changed her name to Xuân (Swun) Cao Mạnh, but here she’s known as Shan – was a founding member of the New Mutants, but disappeared at some point and was presumed dead.

However, she was actually being possessed by the spirit of a man known as the Shadow King. There’s an irony in that, given that her own mutant power allows her to possess others, taking completely control of their minds.

While she was eventually rescued and freed from the Shadow King’s control by her teammates, no one could save her from the damage done to Shan by the Shadow King indulging his every appetite.

The other kids, meanwhile, are having fun in the sun. At least until Danielle Moonstar AKA Psyche Mirage uses her illusion-casting abilities to trick them into thinking they’re being attacked by a giant sea serpent, partially as a prank and partially as a training exercise.

The team argues about it for a bit before being interrupted by a strange formation of clouds in the sky, out of which ride Asgardian warriors who manage to take out the whole team very quickly. (Dani was right; they do need to work on their combat skills.)

Ororo is transported to Loki, who magically changes her clothes and seals her in a crystal cocoon, and the kids end up in the presence of the Enchantress. The Enchantress realizes that the kids aren’t the X-Men, but she’s ready to kill them anyway if that’s what Loki wants.

Illyana Rasputin AKA Magik, uses her teleportation ability to try to escape with her friends, but while the rest of them disappear, Illyana herself is left behind, as if she hit some sort of barrier, and finds herself imprisoned by the Enchantress.

The thing about Illyana’s teleportation ability is that it allows her to move not only through space, but also time. When Illyana bumped up against the magical barrier the Enchantress put in place, the rest of the kids were sent to different locations at different times.

Shan was sent to some sort of barren desert, where she decides to just lie down and die.

Doug Ramsey AKA Cypher was sent to an Asgardian meadhall run by a guy who looks a lot like Popeye, gets his butt kicked by a serving wench – the average Asgardian is many, many times stronger than the average Midgardian – and is forced into servitude in the kitchen.

Rahne Sinclair AKA Wolfsbane is in a forest where she finds herself being chased by giants, one of whom looks and speaks a lot like Ed Grimley, but is saved by a boy wolf – Rahne has the ability to transform into a wolf, as well as a transitional humanoid wolf form – and though she needs to find her friends, she opts to follow the (handsome) wolf.

Warlock AKA Warlock, a techno-organic alien, finds himself in Hel where he consumes the lifeforce of a dragon, and then makes a meta-joke that he couldn’t possibly know to make.

After a brief encounter with Hela, Warlock turns into a rocket and flies away to try to find his friends.

Roberto “Bobby” da Costa AKA Sunspot is in a tavern where things are actually going pretty great for him. Bobby has the ability to absorb energy from the sun and use it exhibit superhuman strength – he turns completely black when he does so – and it seems that Asgard’s sun really amps things up, making him much stronger than he is on Earth, and stronger than even the strongest Asgardian warrior he encounters. His strength, good looks, and charm, make him a hit with the ladies.

He also manages to beat up all the warriors who take issue with that, which lands him a job as a bouncer.

Despite having earlier been reading stories about fairies, Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla AKA Magma makes the rookie mistake of eating and drinking the food and beverages offered to her by the fair folk.

Sam Guthrie AKA Cannonball finds himself in Nidavellir, the realm of the dwarfs and ends up helping them fend off a troll invasion, though not before getting stabbed in the back with a spear.

Dani is alone in a field where she finds a winged horse tangled in barbed ropes drowning in a bog. She saves the horse only to find herself facing down the hunters who were after the horse. She manages to take one of them out, then uses her ability to manifest someone’s greatest fear as an illusion, conjures up the image of Hela. This almost scares them off, but one realizes it must be a trick, given that they’re doing Hela’s bidding.

He throws an axe at Dani, but she’s saved by the intervention of a Valkyrie named Mist, who catches the axe and scares the riders away.

Mist is impressed that the winged horse has taken a liking to Dani even though she’s a mortal from Midgard, and invites Dani to join up with her and her sisters nearby.

And that brings us back to Illyana, who’s being tortured by the Enchantress, who senses the darkness in Illyana’s soul as well as her considerable magical abilities. The Enchantress pulls that darkness out and gives it physical form, tasking this dark version of Illyana with leading the hunt for Illyana’s friends.

In the desert, Shan is awoken by the sound of screaming and sees a young girl being chased by a giant sand worm. The worm has enough of a mind for Shan to possess it and send it on its way, and now that she has this young girl to care for – a girl who reminds her of her younger siblings – she realizes that she has to go on living for the girl’s sake.

Back at the meadhall, Doug is getting picked on by a guy who looks like Bluto (or Brutus) whose girlfriend looks like Olive Oyl, but that’s interrupted by Dark Illyana and her demon riders bursting in to capture him.

He dives out the window while the evil forces slaughter the warriors inside and runs into Warlock, who fends off Dark Illyana and then rockets himself and Doug away.

Rahne’s wolf boyfriend demonstrates that he can also take on a humanoid form – though he can’t become fully human – and he starts to put the moves on her. However, Rahne tends to think that everything is a sin, and though she wants to give in to his nuzzling, she suddenly remembers that she needs to find her friends and runs off, despite wanting to stay.

Bobby has a fun encounter with the Warriors Three. Pretty much everything is coming up roses for him.

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Sam is recuperating in the home of Eitri, where Eitri’s daughter has taken a shine to him, but the happy little scene is in interrupted by the fiery entrance of Amara, who has been transformed into a dark elf, but retains her mutant abilities.

With Sam’s help, the dwarfs defeat the invaders and take Amara into custoy.

Dani has been enjoying her time among the Valkryior – mostly flying around on the horse she’s named Brightwind – but she overhears a conversation the others are having about her in which they state that despite being an outsider and a mortal to boot, Dani’s fate is entwined with theirs, and the bound must be sealed in blood, which causes her to nope out of there.

We check in with Shan and find that just barely surviving in the desert has helped melt away the pounds and inches, and then move on to Illyana’s next target, Bobby. This time around she’s successful in capturing her prey, whom she encases in armor that binds him to, like Illyana herself, do the bidding of the Enchantress.

We finally check in on Ororo who is with Loki as he shows up at Eitri’s place. She’s out of the cocoon, but is basically catatonic, and Loki isn’t ready to let anyone see her yet, so he puts Freya’s Cloak of Feathers on her, which turns her into a falcon.

Loki’s there to commission the forging of a new hammer the equal of Mjolnir to be given to Asgard’s new thunder god. While Eitri is more than a little snarky with him, Loki is more concerned about the presence of Sam, who is a bit on the tall side for a dwarf. In exchange for Loki sparing Sam’s life, Eitri agrees to forge the hammer for Loki.

After Loki leaves, Eitri notes that the falcon wasn’t really a falcon and comments on its coloration. Sam intuits that it may be Ororo. And while Eitri has agreed to do as Loki demands, he’s pissed about Loki’s behavior and tells Sam he will do whatever he can to help him save his friends.

We see Rahne get caught just like Bobby – and so does her wolf beau – then check in on Shan who has reached both the end of the desert and her original weight. She’s immediately found by Doug and Warlock, and they realize that Shan must have been sent much further back in time, as it’s only been a week for the two of them, but it would have taken months for Shan to lose all that weight.

In the excitement, it takes Shan a moment to realize that the little girl she’d been protecting – and who had given her a reason to go on – has disappeared. She finds herself holding a mysterious white string.

Before she can even try to figure out what it means, Illyana – with evil Bobby and Rahne in tow – shows up.

Doug isn’t much good in a fight – his mutant ability gives him a command of languages – so Warlock becomes a suit of armor around him, marking the first appearance of what Doug will come to call the “team supreme.”

Fortunately, more help shows up in the form of Sam and Amara and Dani, who arrive just in the nick of time.

Observing from afar, the Enchantress notes that Dani has become a Valkyrie, and as such is immune to her enchantments, so rather than attempting to take control of her, she instructs Illyana to kill Dani. However, Amora’s scrying crystal is shattered when Shan attempts to take possession of Illyana.

Still, everything seems to have worked out for the, er, worst given that Illyana shows up the next morning with all of the New Mutants in her custody, except, surprise! It’s a trick!

While the rest of them duke it out with the Enchantress and her goons, Shan, still in possession of Illyana’s dark soul, goes off in search of the actual Illyana, and finds that while the evil being they’ve been fighting has been impervious to harm, everything that was done to her actually happened to Illyana herself.

Reuniting her with her soul undoes the damage, but she’s not free for long before the Enchantress shows up and blasts her.

However, the rest of the team shows ups and they’re able to distract her long enough for Shan to possess her. While she’s too strong for Shan to fully control, she’s able to force her to take down all of her magical wards, which allows Illyana to transport them all to Limbo, the magical dimension where Illyana spent much of her childhood and where she reigns supreme.

In a scene that, at the time I didn’t recognize as being as horrific as it is, Illyana opts to not personally get revenge on the Enchantress, leaving that instead to the demon that had tormented Illyana as a child before she took control of Limbo.

Looking at it now, the implications are obvious in a way that they were not when I was thirteen, especially given that later readings of the story of Illyana’s youth led me to recognize that it was very clear that S’ym’s torment of young Illyana went beyond what we saw on the page.

With that out of the way, the kids need to decide on their next move. The obvious thing is to return home and recruit the X-Men to help rescue Ororo from Loki, but not all of them are on board with the idea, believing that they’re up to the task on their own, and beyond that, they aren’t even sure they want to go home.

After all, Bobby’s life in Asgard is great, Dani’s got a flying horse, Rahne would like to see her prince again, Amara has lost her humanity, and Shan has come to realize that it was then Norns who helped her survive in the desert, and she would like to know why. Even Doug’s life as a thrall was more interesting than his life on Earth, and at the very least they aren’t feared and hated and feared for being mutants in Asgard.

Sam is the only one who objects, but decides to table it while they focus on rescuing Ororo.

The issue ends there, but the story continues in Uncanny X-Men Annual #9…which means that this is part one of the first-ever two-part Unbagging, as I will cover that issue in the next day or two.

I absolutely adored this issue back then and I still love it now, even though with adult eyes I see some of the more problematic parts – yikes, Illyana, and also yikes to the fatphobia – and, as I said, a big part of that was the art.

Seeing art by Art always made me happy, as I loved his stylized anatomy that was a mix of realistic and cartoony, and in particular as a pubescent boy I was especially fond of the way he drew the female form, with those impossibly long and slender limbs and ample curves.

And the girls all spent a lot of time in swimsuits. Hell, actual Illyana was in a bikini throughout, though she didn’t always look her best after the beating her soul took.

Speaking of which, the way Adams depicted that looked so painful. You could almost get sympathy pains from the way he drew the Enchantress raking her nails across Illyana’s face.

Beyond the cheesecake appeal, he had a lot of fun designs for characters, costumes, and backgrounds, and as was typical, slipped in a lot of Easter Eggs, such as the Popeye and Ed Grimley references, and of course this moment:

As for the story, like I said, ending up in a place like Asgard that is at least not as boring as wherever home may be that has a certain allure despite the danger was a dream that spoke to young Jon, and is one that resonates with children across generations and around the world.

Still, as the title says, “Home is where the heart is,” so there is a great deal of internal conflict for each of the teens, and Claremont – in his often-heavy-handed way and with his usual dialogue tics – drives that conflict, er, home, for each of them, with each member giving different weight to either side of the argument for their own unique reasons.

What each of them would choose depends very much on their specific circumstances and on who they are at their core, with no easy answer about what to do no matter how obvious the answer may seem to the reader.

So, what will they choose? Check back soon for the next Unbagging to find out!

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