New Mutants Annual #2 marks the first time Chris Claremont worked with Alan Davis in an American comic book. It also brought the Captain Britain “universe” across the pond. It starts with Britain’s sister, Elizabeth Braddock, being captured by Mojo and Spiral–and being called Psylocke for the first time. In the Marvel UK book, Braddock lost her eye, and in this issue, Mojo replaces it with one based on tech from his dimension.
The eye has hypnotic powers that entrap Karma’s siblings, via a new kids’ TV show. The siblings are magically aged into adults and become slaves to Mojo.
As do some other kids who get powers just for this story, but several of whom will reappear in the pages of Daredevil as the Fatboys gang.
They’re mass-tagged as “Fatboys.” And another hypnotized kid…
…becomes Jubilee. This is her first appearance.
The Manh siblings gain the power to change a person’s age, so they turn Captain Britain into a little kid.
Of course, all is returned to normal at the end of the NM Annual. So this is a pretty important issue, as it imports (see what I did there?) two universes fully into the 616: Marvel UK and Longshot.
And the story loosely continues in the X-Men’s 1986 annual, which starts with Mojo broadcasting a Danger Room session as sports entertainment.
Captain Britain drops his baby sister off at Xavier’s school, so Psylocke is now X-Men adjacent. In the coming years, Captain Britain will be firmly folded into the X-Universe as part of X-Calibur.
And then Mojo’s antics, via Psylocke’s electronic eye, continue, as he de-ages the X-Men into X-Babies.
Once captured, it’s up the New Mutants to rescue the baby heroes. We learn that Professor X had created new costumes for them at graduation, and they wear them–and become X-Men–for just this issue.
They’re not great. I’m glad they didn’t keep them.
And Longshot gets to fight Spiral, at last.
It’s a very good story—both annuals are very good. Chris Claremont is at the top of his game and he’s working with two of the best artists of the 1980s.
Thor’s frog friends make a cameo.