Issue(s): New Mutants #63
Cover Date: May 88
Title: "Redemption"
Credits:
Louise Simonson - Script
Chris Claremont - Plot
Bo Hampton - Penciler
Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
It seems this issue was commissioned a while back but was only getting published now. Chris Claremont wrote the plot, and the story drawn by Bo Hampton - while mostly a dream/flashback - has a framing sequence that looks like it was intended to take place when Kitty Pryde was still with the X-Men and Colossus was still alive. But instead of just putting a note in the front saying this took place before the Mutant Massacre, Louise Simonson writes the script in such a way that even the framing sequence is actually a dream.

The story has Kitty noticing a space suit in Illyana's closest and asking about it, and Illyana tells the story of how she got it. It happened when Warlock first landed on Earth. Magik encountered him in the kitchen and got infected by his transmode virus...

...so she teleported into Limbo to try to get rid of it. In Limbo, she gets attacked by Groot.

Ok, it's not really Groot. It's a demon named Skunge that wants to take over Limbo. But he gets infected by the transmode virus himself.

Magik then uses her Soulsword to remove the virus from her arm, and she passes out from the pain and wakes up in her and Kitty's bedroom, except it's set up the way Kitty had it before she moved in. And when Kitty finds her, she doesn't recognize her and brings her to the X-Men, who are wearing older versions of their costumes.

Cyclops is apparently a jerk in any reality.

Magik flees the X-Men and finds out that she's actually on a spaceship. The X-Men have been infected with Brood eggs and are under the impression that the Brood Queen is Professor Xavier. Kitty flees the sleazoid, who has a vomit-attack that i'm unfamiliar with.

And acquires the space suit and gun from the deceased original owner of the ship.

This isn't necessarily an alternate reality. The idea is that the Brood collected samples of the X-Men when they were on their planet, and they've now cloned them for the purpose of laying eggs in them. But the X-Clones eventually find out what's going on and rebel.

Note also that Simonson has put in a line about Forge, anticipating the next story arc in New Mutants.

Magik then takes the X-Clones back to Limbo where she uses her Soulsword to remove the Brood eggs. She then sends them back to the ship so they can protect the rest of the crew, who are in cold storage, and she casts a spell so that over time the clones will grow into something different than the X-Men, so that they can have their own unique lives.

Since this is a dream within a dream within a dream, it doesn't seem like any of it is meant to have actually happened, as opposed to Magik dreaming that she was telling Kitty about an actual event. The space armor in this issue was first seen in New Mutants #21, after Magik returns from Limbo after getting infected by Warlock. But at the very end here, Magik confirms that the whole thing was a dream, comparing how she was able to save the X-Men in her dreams to the reality, where they are really dead and "Forge roams free".

Note that on the cover (a Carl Potts painting), it's Kitty Pryde in the space suit, in space, but in the comic it's Illyana who wears the costume until Kitty tries it on at the very end. Also note that the costume on the cover is a lot more... exposed than the one in the interior.

Interesting to see the transmode/Limbo connection here, and it's generally a well written and drawn series. It's nearly pointless as a story but Simonson does at least make the script tie in to Illyana's current emotions regarding the death of her brother and friends.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I'm still operating on the premise that Doug's funeral takes place a day after New Mutants #62. Since this issue is entirely a dream, it can take place the same night as the events of #62 and (the New Mutant's portion of) the Spellbound mini-series. I should also mention that Lockheed is seen in the final non-dream panel, sitting with Illyana in her bed.

We'll next see him in New Mutants #65 with Kitty in Scotland, and that issue seems to have Kitty and Illyana's first meeting in a while. I guess Lockheed flew across the ocean between this issue and that one, then?

References:

• Colossus is thought to have died in Uncanny X-Men #229 and Doug Ramsey in New Mutants #60.
  
• Magik first encountered Warlock in New Mutants #21, and that's when the majority of this issue actually happened.
  
• Magik thinks that all the Brood were killed when their planet was destroyed in Uncanny X-Men #165. Of course if we've been reading X-Men over the past year, we know that isn't the case.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I thought this was referenced in a later issue of New Mutants. Does anyone remeber that or was it just me?

I don't know if it's referenced later, but i've realized that the scene with Magik teleporting away, and then coming back in space armor, was actually seen in earlier New Mutants #21. I've added a scan of it in that entry. It does seem to suggest that at least some of what Magik describes here wasn't a dream.

There's really no way to make sense out of Lockheed's appearance in the last panel, is there? He appears in Uncanny X-Men 227, the Excalibur Special Edition and New Mutants 65 as well as this issue. All of these issues take place over a relatively short period of time and Lockheed is in Britain in every issue but this one. Unless Lockheed flew from Britain to visit Illyana and then flew back to Kitty, it really doesn't make sense.

No wonder Simonson called this all a dream. When I first bought this, it came off as the most incoherent mess I'd ever read in this title. I'm guessing Claremont's leftover plot couldn't be made to fit in continuity anywhere taken straight.

Lockheed goes where he wants.

Possible the Lockheed in the final panel is a stuffed animal? Like the Bamf doll Nightcrawler once gave Amanda Sefton?

no more of a stretch than the entire issue is...

That being said, Lockheed did love Illyana, do not impossible he'd wander and visit. we do know he can cross the ocean alone after X-Men Unlimited 43.

But as a dream this made even less sense. Because why tell a dream about what happened to her while she was gone during #21 when she already told a fairy tale version of what happened while she was gone during #21 back in Uncanny X-Men Annual #8.

That's why I was so confused when this issue came out. Did we just get a second imaginary story about what happened during that gap in #21?

I'm going to call editorial shenanigans as to having the framing of this story be a dream. All the captions that look re-lettered are the Kitty's not really here, Peter's not really here, etc. Marvel editors took flak for scheduling out of continuity fill-ins and risked annoying fans. Instead of going to all the trouble of calling it a dream, they could have cut down on the ambiguity by just having Illyana write down what happened in a journal like the art already depicts her doing and pretending she was telling the story to Kitty and even have Peter show up while she's pretending. It doesn't help the Lockheed appearance, but it would allow the story to read without so many extra expository captions and allows them to keep what seemed to be important about the re-lettering, Illyana's grudge against Forge. Of course, if it's not a dream, then Illyana is journaling instead of vengeance seeking which could be another objection. And the sad part is that this issue was obviously scripted before Louise was told to de-age the New Mutants, making it actually superior to most of her other issues. Ugh, Chris Claremont should never have dropped this book. It was a crime.