Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: marvel, new mutants, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

New Mutants #11 – Is This Storyline Finally Over Now? [XH]

Published Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:30:24 -0500

Hi, and welcome to X-ual Healing, the number one sex-themed weekly X-Men recap column on the web. Marvel somehow found the time to squeeze out five X-books last week, so let's get right down to business and recap New Mutants #11. Oh, and by the way, in a new feature, down at the bottom of this week's articles, you'll find a table of contents linking to all the X-ual Healing recaps of the week. Go ahead. Scroll down and see.

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

NEW MUTANTS #11
MAR200909
(W) Ed Brisson (A) Flaviano (CA) Michael Del Mundo
Helping young mutants in crisis ain't all sunshine and rainbows – and recently, it's been downright nightmarish. But maybe the NEW MUTANTS' luck is changing…
Rated T+
In Shops: Jul 22, 2020
SRP: $3.99

New Mutants #11 Recap

New Mutants #11 is the third installment of a story about a new mutant emerging in the mutant-hostile nation of Carnelia, which should have been finished in one issue. When we last checked in, all of the New Mutants except Wolfsbane, Boom-Boom, and Mirage had been sucked into this teenage's nightmare bubble or had entered it on purpose to save the rest of them and the president of Carnelia. The army was on the scene trying to exterminate the mutants in some kind political analogy that is undoubtedly a reference to Donald Trump.

Inside the bubble, Armor's dead parents are trying to entice her to join the nightmare hive mind or whatever is going on here. That causes her to drop her armor, leaving the rest of the team helpless. Only Mondo and Wildside can save the day.

Outside, the remaining New Mutants get into a scuffle with the army while the evil president encourages news cameras to film the violence and present it as anti-mutant propaganda. Inside the bubbly, Mondo manages to get Wildside close enough to use his pheromone powers to turn this kid's nightmares into pleasant dreams. She wakes up. All the mutants are freed.

As the team recovers, the army totally surrounds them. Dani orders the team to surrender as the only viable option. But Magik shows up, lectures the soldiers in Russian, and then teleports all the mutants away. We see an article from the anti-mutant propaganda website Dox about the Carnelian incident, along with some screencaps of the Bleeding Cool comment section.

The next day on Krakoa, the New Mutants recover from their adventure, and we learn the mutant they brought back with them is named Cosmar. Healer is going to examine chemicals in the blood of everyone who entered the bubble to see if he can learn how she works. Wildside ditches these losers, who have not been grateful enough about him saving the day on the mission. Armor cries about seeing her dead parents. A page from Boom Boom's diary shows all of the happenings in recent issues of New Mutants is bumming her out.

Cosmar is being kept in a protective glass cage to prevent her powers going out of control again. Maxime and Manon are there visiting along with Mirage. They offer to remove Cosmar's memories of killing her parents, but Dani doesn't think they should do that. Instead, she wants them to hang around and use their powers to keep her calm.

Later, Magik talks to Dani and Doug about the Dox website. If you were wondering how this whole Dox plotline was going to eventually turn into a way to complain about comics journalism, here's the payoff:

The three of them agree that the New Mutants need to go after Dox and put a stop to them. Glob Herman is in, having read previous reviews of New Mutants. He's made sandwiches.

I was tired of this storyline after the first issue, so I'm glad they finally wrapped it up. Unnecessary decompression aside, New Mutants is a fun book with probably the most interesting roster of any of the X-books, so I'm looking forward to what's to come in a storyline labeled "Mutants vs. The Media." And by looking forward to it, I mean, I'm looking forward to Marvel totally screwing it up. I mean, honestly, does anyone trust comic book creators, who already have a generally adversarial attitude toward the comics press unless it's kissing their ass, to successfully collaborate with Marvel, which has its own generally adversarial attitude toward the comics press unless it's kissing their ass, to tactfully handle a storyline titled "Mutants vs. the Media?" Yeah. It's gonna be a trainwreck, and I'm here for it.