Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1990-02-01 01:04:14 |
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New Mutants #89
Issue(s): New Mutants #89
Cover Date: May 90
Title: "The gift"
Credits:
Louise Simonson - Writer
Rob Liefeld - Penciler
Hilary Barta - Inker
Daryl Edelman - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor
Review/plot:
The maddening thing is that while this run of New Mutants is pretty awful, the things that are going on here are pretty important. They're important to the development of these characters, and at a higher level they contribute to the explosion in popularity to the X-characters generally that results in major changes to the industry. So as much as my impulse is to say, "Yep, still terrible" and move on to reviewing something else, i'm actually going to have to go through these in a lot of detail. I apologize in advance for all the splash pages, but there's no other way to show what's going on in these issues.
Cable is on the run from Freedom Force, who are in hot pursuit. Cable is specifically trying to reach out to X-Factor.
Meanwhile, everyone is upset that Moira is coming to reclaim Wolfsbane, to the point where they're unaware that their world is being invaded by tic-tac-toe creatures from another dimension.
Rahne says that Moira doesn't sound right, something that you'd think that X-Factor would take seriously enough to check out if they weren't completely absent from this story. Back in town five minutes and they're off to dine at the Windows on the World restaurant without checking up on their wards at all.
The kids go out to buy a goodbye gift for Rahne...
...at the same time that Freedom Force is chasing Cable through the city.
Cable knocks out all of the Blob's many many teeth...
...and the fight attracts the attention of the New Mutants.
Cable is actually pretty impressed with the team's fighting ability.
He does immediately take charge, though.
He credits his bionic eye for being able to spot Super Sabre. By all indications, Cable is really a cyborg right now, not any kind of mutant.
The Mutants and Cable defeat Freedom Force, and then pretty casually walk away from the fight and back to X-Factor's base. It's a weird situation. Freedom Force are government agents, but the New Mutants know that they've been helping to kidnap mutant babies, and until the Mutant Liberation Front took them, they were also holding Rusty and Skids. At the same time, Cable is a wanted fugitive and the New Mutants, having aided in his escape, are going to X-Factor's building, a publicly known location. I guess there's an implied impasse in all of that.
Cable hears that Moira MacTaggert will be at the base and says that he knows her.
Meanwhile, Rictor gives Wolfsbane a more personal gift - a chunk of rock from Asgard - and then Moira shows up sooner than expected. She's obviously using the same tailor as the one that designed Boom Boom's outfit from last issue, although in this case it's meant to depict the fact that something is wrong with the character, as we've also been seeing in X-Men.
Rictor stops Moira from leaving with Wolfsbane before the other New Mutants get back by seemingly destroying her helicopter (it'll turn out to just be Warlock in disguise).
When the New Mutants get back, Moira is having a suspicious conversation with Legion. Moira recognizes Cable although he's "even more the metal man" than the last time they met.
Cable manages to convince Moira to let Wolfsbane stay. And it turns out that Moira isn't the only one that knows Cable. Rictor does too. But he doesn't say anything to the larger group yet.
And we'll end there for now. The next thing we'll know, X-Factor have agreed off panel to let Cable run off with the New Mutants.
Quality Rating: D+
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: X-Factor #54 and Uncanny X-Men #263-264 takes place before next issue.
References:
- The New Mutants were in Asgard from New Mutants #77-85.
- It's said that Rahne has been collecting souvenirs from her various travels, including a piece of marble from her trip to Nova Roma in New Mutants #8-11 and a feather from her first visit to Asgard in New Mutants Special Edition #1.
- Here's a reference to a story that wasn't published yet: Cable knows Moira from Cable #-1.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Cable and the New Mutants TPB
| Previous: X-Factor #52-53 | Up: Main | Next: X-Factor #54 |
Comments
You have to be scared of those tic-tac-toe creatures; they're getting to infest everything about now.
And why the heck is Liefeld obsessed in elongating Blob's head? His ton of teeth is ridiculous enough but the really long head just stands out as over-stylized. (its tough to say which is weirder now: Blob's head or Mary Jane's suddenly huge lips thanks to Larsen)
MJ's giant Restylane lips came about during the McFarlane era.
Trust me, McFarlane's lips are nothing compared to Larsen's lips. Larsen's just make it like she's in an eternal state of puckering at times.
" I apologize in advance for all the splash pages, but there's no other way to show what's going on in these issues."
I was going to say, fnord, that you don't have to apologize for showing us more of an issue, but given that it's Liefeld and that there are few mild reactions to him your apology is probably necessary.
The problem is that Liefeld has the MacFarlane / Larsen style of dressing his female characters, but without their abilities to draw a human leg.
Also, it seems weird to see Warlock use the word "me". I could be completely wrong, but I don't recall him doing it before.
Not sure if the appropriate place for this comment is this entry or the entry for "X-Factor" 52-53, but: I've been reading through your entries of this era of "New Mutants" today and that also lead me to the "X-Factor" entries.... and I guess I never realized how tightly Simonson kept the continuity between the two titles during this era, after they came back from space and Asgard. Almost as tight as Conway kept the coordination between "SSM" and "Web" during the Lobo Bros. stuff. I had always assumed Weezie didn't have X-Factor and the Mutants interact much until "X-Tinction Agenda."
How did Moira get so far inside Ship to get to Rhane's room? They're clearly well below decks, so this isn't the sort of dwelling on the hull that Ship created for Mr. and Mrs. Grey.
@ChrisW Through the power of Liefeld? Or it was an early Ship malfunction? Or Moira's got a funky gene structure that Ship allows through. She did go on to get the Legacy virus.
@ChrisW: Recall Moira's under the influence of the Shadow King at this stage, so Ship is likely picking up on his residue inside her.
Now where's my No-Prize!
It's in Ship's basement. Go get it.
@ChrisW: While I have Marfan Syndrome, its inherited and not an RNA mutation (and I haven't been possessed by the Shadow King). So I'm not going to be granted access to the Ship.
Ooh, now Charlotte Jones was also granted access. So perhaps she would likewise end up revealed as another under SK's influence if Claremont had stayed on;)
Ship has been shown he can rapidly construct vehicles and structures. It always confused me when people keep saying Ship was letting regular humans in. Back @ the end of Inferno I seem to remember Ship saying it would construct a shelter on its hull for Marvel Girl's parents. They weren't allowed "inside Ship" they were just inside a structure outside of Ship's hull. I assumed it was the same for Moira and Charlotte.
@Jay: Moira appeared to be in Rahne's room on the Ship in this issue, and Charlotte Jones passed through the entrance, not a separate shelter on the hull and particular attention was drawn to this through the dialogue as her colleagues couldn't.
Charlotte was probably just the last example of Claremont's 'anybody can be a mutant' approach. Fifty issues later, he'd have had her shooting energy beams and flying. She already put on the costume. :D
With Moira, she was under the influence of Farouk, who came from Egypt just as Ship's former owner Apocalypse did.
It's also not clear where Legion's Jemail personality came from, but if it was the Gaza Strip, he'd likely have close connections to Cairo as well, and he's the conduit for the Shadow King. Heck, given how small the region is, even if Jemail didn't come from Gaza, it's unlikely he'd ever in his life been more than a few days by horse away from Cairo.
It was probably a malfunction on Ship's part, or part of his programming from the early days. I'm beginning to think that something is seriously wrong in Egypt.
It's possible Charlotte might have been carrying some of Archangel's... ahem... DNA at the time which let her through Ship's force field? Lol!
As for Moira, she had a mutant child and was also under the Shadow King's power...
