COTA:#6 A great wrap up and hopefully a new beginning *spoilers*

[jwatson]

Cota # 6 Was a great read. Defiitely one of the best issues and a great way to wrap up the series. Vita definitely stuck the landing and i hope to see this team of heroes in the future. This is easily the most beautiful the book has looked since issue 2 as well and every page was simply stunning.

It starts off with the scenes right after Storm outed Carmen and her friends are in shock. You can really see that they don't know how to take the news but Buddy is very upset and carmen calls Buddy out on befriending Cole just because he was a mutant and says how obsessed buddy too which the others say she took it too far and Carmen storms off.

When then cut to Carmen being welcomed on Krakoa by Storm and i have to say this is the best Storm's cloud cape has look. I love how it blended into her hair on certain panels. Storm is showing Carmen around basically but as to go to terraform, this is where Carmen is left alone and the hell bell's show up wanting some revenge but Dani intervenes and says Carmen is a personal guest of Storm and a student of hers, the bells back off and Carmen ends up with eyeboy. She starts to have a really great time and basically her time ends with her thinking on Mars and saying how beautiful it is.
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This is when it gets real, Carmen goes home and decides it's time to come out. When she is about to talk to her parents, they interrupt her and say they already know that she is a lesbian, that is not what Carmen wanted to tell them though and before she can really get a word in they are speaking for her. Carmen has a memory of her father watching Xavier on the TV and he mentions how no one trusts the mutants and their island so Carmen just blurts and out and basically says they don't have to worry about her as the mutants already offered her a home. This upsets her dad because he loves her. It was a really powerfully written scene.
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The story then moves to the COTA team taking on Holdercultre and they have never looked better. They are on the ropes but Carmen shows up and saves the day and we see her shape shift for the first time. I hope we get more on her powers though because as of right now there is very little, just a panel to be exact but i'm hoping she shows up in New Mutants. After the battle all of the friends talk (Which i did find weird everyone just talking so openly in front of each other about everything but i guess friendships would be stronger if we did. if it's the right people your around. Carmen and Buddy come to an understanding and end up wanting to see where things go, Buddy was scared of losing Carmen. The kids also come to an understanding it was wrong to pretend to be mutants, there was just so much in this issue, Vita tried to address as much as they could and did a fabulous job in my opinion.

The story ends a few days later Carmen/Buddy kiss under fireworks, they are walking her to the gate to Krakoa, she will basically go to Krakoa on weekends. Eyeboy is waiting for her on the other side.

This series will have a fond place in my heart and i can't ask for much more than that.

[Grunty]

Did Cole officialy become a mutant or were they still just suspecting it because he got injected with mutant cells?

It would seem to me that unless some part of his condition would cause it to permanently asborb and replicate the effect of the mutant cells (ala Deadpool and his cancer), or he had an inactive X-gene to beginn with, his body would eventualy end up rejecting the mutant cells and he would require constant reapplication of them combined with anti-rejection medicine ala the U-Men.

[Journey]

I liked how the dad peeped Xavier is a suspect sack of shit.

[Kingdom X]

Thought the issue was surprisingly good until the confession scene. We just sped through so much development to get there (and it was kinda cringe), I would have rather everyone just made up as friends. That time could have been spent on the remaining team members spending more time explaining why they thought it was okay/ a good idea to pretend to be mutants or on everyone making up with Cole.

Considering Dani called Carmen one of her students I think there's a good chance she pops up in New Mutants.

[Grunty]

(...) Considering Dani called Carmen one of her students I think there's a good chance she pops up in New Mutants.

In which a ton of characters are allready fighting for relevance of any kind, because since the 2000's the number of "student characters" has inflated massively starting with Academy X. With no real graduation apparently allowed to stick (say what you want about Generation X they still managed to be seen as "ex-students"). So either she becomes part of the wallpaper or fans of the respective previous incarnations of student teams will be annoyed/angry at her getting spotlight over them and at worst claim she is the writers failed off-book creation, they try to push in their remaining title now.

It doesn't help that she doesn't have the most interesting powers either. So it's not like there will be much to glamor for her, over student characters with (arguably) more interesting or impressive powers.

One could even argue she (like any of the other 4) might have had a better chance to gain relevance a few years from now as suprise pick under a different writer if she didn't had power, than now being part of the notoriously overloaded and underused body of X-men students and settled with being a "second hand Mystique" (look at Copycat for how well that works).

[RamaBird]

So either she becomes part of the wallpaper or fans of the respective previous incarnations of student teams will be annoyed/angry at her getting spotlight over them and at worst claim she is the writers failed off-book creation, they try to push in their remaining title now.

She can be background. Forced characters would result in other fanbases feeling jilted. But as a background character, in a few years, she can take center stage. Most new characters are background at first but with the right writer/conditions, they can become important with a few years experience.

[CoCoBandz]

I liked how the dad peeped Xavier is a suspect sack of shit.

That's what happens when you're a head of state. Some people love you some people hate you irregardless of how ignorant they may or may not be about your policies.

[Grunty]

I get what you're saying about brand recognition, but in-universe it doesn't make sense for her to keep answering to that name. It's representative of a dark and degrading time that the character is actively trying to move away from. The best creators could do is have her try to "reclaim" it in an empowering way, but that would feel kind of forced.

I understand these arguments too. But i think her being "Wolverine" feels forced too (and a futile action on top of that).

Overall i think it's part of a larger problem with her which i think is now merely sidestepped rather than resolved.
Because if they can't use X-23 for her in universe, on account of the reasons you mentioned, they would need to come up with a unique hero name for her and make it stick as the "in universe name" compared to the "fandom name", but as we have seen in discussions over the years, nobody is sure what name would fit her.

But at the same time, giving her the Wolverine name is very unlikely to ever become accepted with many readers or a general audience, since Logan fills the image associated with that super hero name and is unlikely to ever fade from it, which would be the main requirement for her being accepted as successor.

And then there is even the point of discussion on what ever she is better as "public" hero as they are doing now, which requires an equal public code name or if her true calling is still an "underground" hero, which would make a name given to her by her enemies like X-23 more fitting?

But alas. that's a discussion for her thread.

Back to the CotA issue that came out, I'm very glad that the kids learned their lesson about taking on others' identities because the X-Men didn't really say much about it in issue #5.

And next time we see them, they are pretending to be alien super heros, reasoning that they got their equipment from an alien ship and they have been to space.

Sorry couldn't resist.

[thjan]

I greatly enjoyed this issue and overall liked this series a lot. I am sad to see it go. This was my favorite issue by far. I am glad it focused primarily on Carmen, since she is my favorite of the new characters(and not because Gambit is my favorite X-Man, since I did not care for the replication of powers through tech and Carmen never displayed any special affinity for Gambit). I loved the scene with Carmen's family and I am glad she and her friends ended on a high note. It would sure be nice if more mutants were shown maintaining strong kinships and friendships outside Krakoa like that. I really hope Carmen will appear in New Mutants and we get a greater demonstration of her real mutant powers.

I will say that because Gambit is my favorite comic character and Ayala is my favorite writer in the Hickman era, I am disappointed that he did not show up in this series outside of the tiny, non-speaking cameo in this issue. Obviously he was not required to show up for me to enjoy the series, but he did appear on early covers and I had heard Ayala is a fan of Gambit so I was hoping for him to appear in one of the senior X-Men scenes. It would have been nice to see him written by a character focused writer like Ayala and by someone that actually likes the character. I don't know if Marvel just doesn't allow most writers to use him outside his "designated" book or what, but I know this is not the first time I have heard a writer say they like the character by then never used him in the their actual books.

Plus...she's a metamorph...how would they go about retconning her actual mutant powers which have nothing to do with energy manipulation.

I certainly agree with you that I don't think they plan on replacing Gambit with Carmen, but regarding this point, say hello to Emma Frost and her ridiculously contrived diamond secondary mutation(that was only introduced because writers don't know how to write telepaths as active field X-Men without a physical power of some sort anymore).

[Milici]

We could have had a book with the Exiles, Young X-Men, Generation X, X-Terminator, Brotherhood of Mutants, MLF, Morlocks, Acolytes ... instead we had whatever this was. I blame Jordan White personaly. I hope that Vita Ayala doesn`t dare to bring Gimmick to The New Mutants she already brought the doods she created in Prisoner X.

[Aeon]

Oh, it’s still ongoing?

Anyway, what was the scene with the Avenger Captains talking about Dani all about? As if they had sooo much interaction in the past.

[GeneTitan]

This book wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be after I read the first issue. I did give it a shot b/c I want to read all of the Krakoan era books (thought I absolutely CANNOT with "X-Corp.")
Honestly, none of these new characters landed with me. I like Carmen the best, but if she just ends up as wallpaper or we never see her again, it won't bother me.
Nighty Nightcrawler is annoying as fuck and I hope we never see him again. I hope he bamfs into a black hole.
But, this book was obviously not for me.
I do wonder why with all the mutants that have been resurrected we got this book. Characters like the original Hellions are relegated to a few panels or a data page when I would love to see a really cool modern take on those characters.
I supported the book and gave it a shot. Just wasn't my cup of tea.

[norj]

Oh, it’s still ongoing?

Anyway, what was the scene with the Avenger Captains talking about Dani all about? As if they had sooo much interaction in the past.

Sometime between New Mutants vol3 and Fearless Defenders, Dani won a set of arrows from Hawkeye off panel, I'm guessing she became friends with the rest of Avengers as well.

[jwatson]

Did Cole officialy become a mutant or were they still just suspecting it because he got injected with mutant cells?

It would seem to me that unless some part of his condition would cause it to permanently asborb and replicate the effect of the mutant cells (ala Deadpool and his cancer), or he had an inactive X-gene to beginn with, his body would eventualy end up rejecting the mutant cells and he would require constant reapplication of them combined with anti-rejection medicine ala the U-Men.

He is more like Homo novissimio or rather the people who were able to infiltrate krakoa using Domino's DNA, so not officially a mutant but mutant dna spliced in.

[Grunty]

He is more like Homo novissimio or rather the people who were able to infiltrate krakoa using Domino's DNA, so not officially a mutant but mutant dna spliced in.

Homo Novissima (Post Humans) are a whole magnitude beyond just having artifical given super powers.

From what i understand as scope in Hox/Pox, they are basicly people who can tailor themself to have any super power they desire on the fly. Rather than depending on artifical being granted them, having to absorb them or having a random chance in what powers they will get (meaning X-gene mutants).

They are beyond normal humans, mutant humans or any current non-mutant humans who got natural super powers by other means.

It's one reason i feel the chimeras are basicly the potential first step for mutants to become them aswell if they collectively decide to follow that path.

So i'm really not sure that could ever apply to someone who merely got mutant DNA in or on his body.

If anything that's just a mutate ala Deadpool or what the people they created on Genosha.