New Mutants #41

[stolisomancer]

After the team almost all got killed horribly in the last arc, New Mutants #41 is a downtime issue. Blink shows up, sees everyone's acting glum, and teleports everyone to Madripoor to party down at their local, somewhat-later-than-everyone-else celebration of the Chinese New Year.

This, for some reason, involves David Lopez deciding to go a little exaggerated and cartoony from time to time. I will warn you now that Roberto has gone out for the evening and decided, "You know what? I'm going to do my best Donkey Kong impression. Ladies love that!"

Then Doug facepalms. It's great.








(I'm sure I'm supposed to know who that girl with Warlock is. She says her name is Trois and she's from High Town. Then again, maybe she's new.)

Comments

[biod]

I needed that. Thank you.

[crabby_lioness]

Motto. That takes the edge off the AvX stupid.

[cainofdreaming]

Who turned Doug into Mark Hamill and then stretched his skull?

I don't recognize the girl either, but if she's not a triplet then that's a terrible waste of a pun.

[stolisomancer]

Lopez, since he started drawing the book, has decided Doug is skinny to the point of being gaunt.

I suppose it helps to differentiate him from Nate and Roberto, who're both more typically protagonist-y in their build, but it is a sharp departure from how, say, Leandro Fernandez drew him.

[halloweenjack]

I kind of like it; Doug almost looks like a blond, young Richard E. Grant in some of these panels.

[icon_uk]

Not a fan of the gaunt look for Dougie-boy myself

[northstarfan]

Motto. Just because he's back from the dead doesn't mean he has to look like a zombie.

[quatoria]

Agreed. I can't stand it.

[jcbaggee]

I feel it's a step in the right direction from his, dare I say, beefcake look he had in his UXM appearances, but it's too far in the direction.

I like him kind of....not scrawny, but lithe feels right.

[icon_uk]

Just imagine him the way Alan Davis would draw him! :)

[pallas_athena]

Can we just imagine *everyone* like that?

[rainspirit]

Emasculated, melodramatic freak-outs? Yes. Yes. This makes me happy.

[sinisterlink]

Okay, ever since the whole gauntness thing with Doug started, I've been saying he looks like Peter Cushing. And now he's quoting Darth Vader. This HAS to be intentional.

[icon_uk]

There are a couple of hints of something in #40 I'm just getting ready to post.

[icon_uk]

Before you get TOO dismissive Roberto, consider your relative history with the ladies;

Berto - Juliana (dead in the New Mutants Graphic novel) and.... basically the butt monkey of every girl he made a pass at thereafter, who found him annoyingly immature (at best)

Cypher - Friends (or more) with Kitty Pryde, Betsy Braddock, Rahne Sinclair. With possible sidebars concerning Cyndi (one of Legion's personalities who thought he was very cute), Roulette of the Hellions (Who thought he was cute too) and Tarot of the Hellions (Which went very badly as she tried to be nice to him as he was in mid doldrums due to Warlock being shanghied for the Fallen Angels mini)

Listen to the cute (When not drawn like this) blond linguist....

[salinea]

Lots of characters have thought Berto was cute and charming in the classic New Mutant. I can't say I'm convinced by your demonstration.

[icon_uk]

His problem in the classic NM days was that NO ONE thought Berto was as cute and charming as Berto did, and as a result of his arrogance/presumption, usually the females he hit on either rolled their eyes (good humouredly or not), and/or, whilst agreeing that he was cute/handsome, just weren't interested in him.

I don't think I can name one person from those issues he dated or had a relationship with.

[salinea]

... but you can't for Doug either.

[icon_uk]

Rahne and Doug were a definite item during the Simonson issues (and were referenced as such for years after his death)

How far the relationship of Kitty and Doug went is a little unclear, but enough for it to put a strain on her relationship (such as it was) with Piotr (Who saw Doug as a rival, since he could see that Doug and Kitty had a lot more in common with each other than he did with Kitty)

Betsy and Doug is another odd one, nothing physical, but a genuine love (of sorts) between them.

[salinea]

Rahne and Doug were a definite item during the Simonson issues
That's now how I remember it. More like "mutual attraction that brought them on the verge of getting together, and then he died."

How far the relationship of Kitty and Doug went is a little unclear
They were friends, Doug had a crush on her. At some point Kitty was starting to think about it when she was made aware of it - before she got distracted by other stuff like her relationship with Piotr going pear shaped. And then he died.

[icon_uk]

Fair enough, though I'd still say that even that was more of a relationship than Berto was seen having with anyone, and that was in a far longer span of issues.

Doug acknowledges that he lost a lot of his existing friends by becoming a Xavier student and losing touch with them and their more ordinary lives. Dead girlfriend to one side, it's actually tough to think of any friends that Berto ever had outside of the team.

Did Berto even have any romantic relationships in X-Force? I know Boom-Boom ended up with Sam, but did she have a fling with Berto first?

[salinea]

though I'd still say that even that was more of a relationship than Berto was seen having with anyone
except Julianna :) and I think he had a lot of fangirls in Asgard (which, you know, not relationship but probably sex).

it's actually tough to think of any friends that Berto ever had outside of the team.
Well, the kids from Fallen Angels?

Did Berto even have any romantic relationships in X-Force?
Now you're way ahead of the material I'm familiar with.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, though as Julianna died before he even joined the team, I wasn't really counting her.

Fallen Angels true enough, though again that was, at the time, "his team", and he didn't seem to stay in touch after the mini ended. They weren't so much friends as "people he'd met" (To borrow a phrase from Red Dwarf)

Ah, the post issue 6- Cypherlessness led me to drop the title (regularly at any rate) so the second trip to Asgard is an unknown value.

[salinea]

What second trip to Asgard? I probably haven't read this far either, was talking about the first one.

[icon_uk]

During the first trip, I doubt there was much sex for Berto as though he tried to act older, he was only 14, maybe verging on 15 (Only Rahne was younger than he was on the team), and as noted, most comments about Berto were "Cute, but he really IS a child", so I can't see him having that much appeal to immortal partners on Asgard (even if a Midgard lad could survive the experience when the average Asgardian measures their strength level in tons!)

As for the second trip, sometime in the interim between Doug's death and Cable coming on board, the team spent several issues in Asgard, which ended with Dani staying behind in Asgard as a Valkyrie rather than returning to Earth (Which is why she never worked with Cable on the NM team)

[salinea]

I know how old Berto was, and yeah, that was very young, but since his introduction I always thought it seemed implied he wasn't a virgin.

Well, I'll hunt down scans of the fangirls if you insist :p

[icon_uk]

HE always implied he was experienced with the ladies, but I doubt he and Juliana ever got that far and he had no named partner after that until... I really don't know, but we're talking decades here.

I have no doubt he had squeeing fangirls, he was a very pretty boy, but that was all he ever seemed to be, a pretty BOY, with no one he was interested in actually interested in to that extent, and him being less interested in girls and always focussing on WOMEN who were out of his league, who usually smiled indulgently at best. And based on how often that happened, and the complete lack of any mention of an actual partner, I think he remained a virgin for a heck of a long time.

[salinea]

HE always implied he was experienced with the ladies, but I doubt he and Juliana ever got that far
why, because 14 year old kids never have sex?

[icon_uk]

Of course not, but I'm not going to assume they did, and there was never one hint, suggestion or implication that THOSE two 14 years old had had sex. Berto's thoughts about her were always those of idealised "first love".

Berto's entire personality was built around the fact that he was a "golden boy" suddenly out of his depth. He was the only child, good looking, good at sports and from a family whose fortune was on a par with Richie Rich and Scrooge McDuck. He was rather spoiled and was used to succeeding at everything he turned his hand to, and assumed that women would be the same. Of course the running gag of his character was that the only people he impressed were people he wasn't interested in, and those he wanted to impress thought he was just a kid trying too hard.

[bewareofgeek]

So Cypher is a Technomage?

Elric: "We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know many things."

Sheridan: "Such as?"

Elric: "The true secrets. The important things. Fourteen words to make someone fall in love with you forever..."

[icon_uk]

Well, he does seem to be able to do some pretty funky stuff