Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Over the years, there have been an incredible number of mutant teams at Marvel. It all started with the X-Men and soon the mutant wave exploded from there, especially in the 80s and 90s. One of the most popular teams in this expansion was the New Mutants, who would later evolve into a new team, X-Force. .
A central member of the New Mutants, and the X-Men universe in general, is Karma. While she’s not as famous as other members like Cannonball, Enchantress, and Sunspot, she’s been on the pages for over 30 years and has played important roles in several major storylines. In today’s video, we bring you 10 facts about this character.
Appeared before New Mutants
Marvel Team-Up is a magazine that has been around in one form or another since 1972. The title was created to feature different Marvel characters often in unique team-up situations. Different editions often feature a variety of writers and artists, and Karma grew out of a collaboration between Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.
Issue #100 of Marvel Team-Up, published in December 1980, marked Karma’s Marvel Comics debut. Interestingly, although she would later become much more recognizable as part of the New Mutants, this debut took place two years before the entire New Mutants team appeared in the pages of Marvel Graphic Novel #4 in 1982.
She was referred to Professor X by Mister Fantastic
Karma’s powers allow her to take control of other people’s minds. Before joining the X-Men, she was in New York on a mission of her own. On that occasion, Karma took control of Spider-Man’s mind and ended up fighting the members of the Fantastic Four, using the arachnid hero as a puppet.
After this whole mess was sorted out, Reed Richards recognized Karma’s potential. He was the one who not only referred her to the Xavier Institute for Gifted Young People, but also personally recommended her for enrollment.
His father was a colonel in the Vietnamese army
Karma had a difficult childhood. Her father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army who took the family to the field during the Vietnam War. One of the missions resulted in Karma’s mutant powers emerging for the first time.
After his father’s death, an uncle helped Karma escape along with his family. Unfortunately, his mother died on the long journey to America. This left Karma practically alone in an entirely new country.
She has a twin brother
As often seems to be the case with a surprising number of comic book characters, Karma has a twin brother. When they were still living in Vietnam as children, it was a threat to Tran’s life that caused Karma’s mutant abilities to manifest.
Tran had similar abilities to her sister and could possess people’s minds. The difference is that he went in a more evil direction. Eventually, he was killed by Karma, although she absorbed his life essence, creating an opening for his continued negative influence on her.
Founding member of the New Mutants
The original cast of the X-Men started out as teenagers fighting to protect a world that hated them. But over time, they grew into adults fighting to protect a world that hated them. As is often the case in comics, this meant adults had to recruit new teenagers to build the next generation.
Then the New Mutants appear. The first cast of this new team of teenage heroes was made up of Mirage, Cannonball, Lupina, Sunspot and Karma. All five original members of the team have continued to be active members of the Marvel Universe on different teams over the years.
Powers
But then let’s go a little more about Karma’s powers. She is a mutant with telepathic and psionic powers that deal with possession, mind scanning, and limited telepathy. However, her most characteristic gift is that of psychic possession, where she projects a wave of mental energy that overwhelms the consciousness of her victims while putting her own mind in charge.
During possession, the subject’s higher brain functions revert to diminished levels, similar to a dreamless sleep state, and the subject is left with no memory of the actual possession. When Karma first takes possession of someone, she can only move the subject’s body in an awkward manner until she becomes accustomed to her new host.
Sexuality
Although we now have a growing number of mainstream comic book characters who are part of the LGBT+ community, it took a long time to get to this point. A variety of characters have come out of the closet over the years, and that was the case with Karma.
Karma’s sexuality has been well known in the comics for a few years now. For a time she had a platonic crush on Kitty Pryde, but this was handled subtly. Until in Uncanny X-Men #508 (2009), her orientation was shown more explicitly. In a quick scene, we see that she was in bed with another girl. More recently, in the “Krakoa” era of the X-Men, she hooked up with the mutant Galura during the Hellfire Gala.
King of Shadows
The evil entity known as the Shadow King always seems to be lurking. He is a multidimensional being who can span a variety of realities, taking control of a host body in each of them. Unfortunately for Karma, she was a host body for too long.
While under the Shadow King’s control, Karma left the New Mutants behind and became a crime leader. The rest of her team eventually located her and freed her from the Shadow King’s control, returning her to her former personality.
Brother’s return
When Charles Xavier and Magneto created the mutant nation of Krakoa, uniting all mutants under one banner, Karma reunited with the New Mutants, bringing in many members of the original lineup.
Upon discovering that her twin brother, Tran, was still alive inside her, Karma agreed to enter the Crucible, part of the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols. This would allow her and Tran to be brought back separately. Despite everything Tran had done in the past, Karma decided to give his brother another chance in issue #18.
