Karma (comics)

Karma (Xuân Cao Mạnh) is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, the character first appeared in ''Marvel Team-Up'' #100 (December 1980). She is mostly in association with The X-Men.

She belongs to the subspecies of humans called mutants, who are born with superhuman abilities. Karma is endowed with the ability to seize control of another's mind, though she has sometimes been depicted with other more extensive psionic abilities. The origin of the character relates to the Vietnam War, as she and her family were among the boat people fleeing the country shortly after the advent of Communism and in the wake of violence. Her Vietnamese origin contributes to two of her main traits—her Catholicism and her mastery of the French language, both of which stem from France's strong historical influence in Vietnam. Karma, in fact, speaks English with a French accent rather than a Vietnamese one.

Karma was one of the five founding members of the New Mutants, along with Cannonball, Mirage, Sunspot and Wolfsbane. Being several years older than the others, and the legal guardian of her siblings from a young age, she was the most mature member, and the only one in the original lineup who was introduced in published comics before the team itself. Karma is one of the first major lesbian characters in a mainstream comic book.

Publication history

Karma first appears in ''Marvel Team-Up'' #100 (December 1980). She joins the New Mutants as a founding member in ''Marvel Graphic Novel'' #4 (1982) and appears as a regular cast member in ''New Mutants'' from issues #1–6 (1983) and issues #29–54 (1985–87), in which she leaves the team to search for her kidnapped siblings. Her search brings her to Madripoor, and she guest stars in ''Wolverine'' volume 2 issues #4–8 (1989) and #27–30 (1990).

In 1994, she appears in the ''Child's Play'' crossover between X-Force and The New Warriors, and features in three limited series: ''Beast'' #1–3 (1997), ''New Mutants: Truth or Death'' #1–3 (1997–98) and ''Mekanix'' (2002–03). In ''New Mutants'' volume 2, she returns to the X-Mansion as a faculty member and continues to appear irregularly as a supporting character when that title was relaunched as ''New X-Men''.

After M-Day, Karma retains her powers, and joins the main X-Men team when they relocate to Utopia. She is assigned to the New Mutants team of the X-Men and features in ''New Mutants'' vol. 3 issues #1–28, after which she leaves Utopia for the Jean Grey School as part of the Schism. Karma then serves with Wolverine's X-Men and is featured in ''Astonishing X-Men'' volume 3, starting with issue #49.

Character name

When Karma was introduced in ''Marvel Team-Up'' #100, her name was given as "Xi'an Coy Manh". In ''Love Unlimited Infinity Comic'' #31, published on January 5, 2023, the character's name was revised to "Xuân Cao Mạnh", or "Mạnh Cao Xuân" using Vietnamese naming order. ''Love Unlimited Infinity Comic'' #31 was written and illustrated by Vietnamese-American cartoonist Trung Le Nguyen, who explained the rationale for the change:

Fictional character biography

Introduction

Xuân (pronounced "Swun", but nicknamed "Shan") Cao Mạnh was born in the central highlands of Vietnam. Xuân's origins are rooted in tragedy. Her father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army who was forced to bring his wife and four children on missions. When Xuân's twin brother, Tran Cao Mạnh, was attacked by a Viet Cong soldier, Xuân's power of mind possession emerged to protect him. Tran soon exhibited the identical power, although he relished using it cruelly. While Tran was rescued from the throes of war by their crime lord uncle, General Nguyen Ngoc Cao, Xuân's father was shot and killed during the fall of Saigon. Xuân escaped on a cramped boat with hundreds of others, including her mother and her younger brother and sister, Leong and Nga. The boat was boarded by Thai pirates on the way to the United States; Xuân and her mother were raped by the pirates and her mother died shortly thereafter.

Arriving in New York City, a program to help Vietnamese immigrants run by the Catholic priest Father Michael Bowen ( Dagger's uncle) helped Xuân find work and an apartment. However, General Cao insisted she use her powers in his service, as Tran was already doing, and kidnapped Leong and Nga when she refused. Possessing Spider-Man, she attempted to use him to reclaim the children from a party her uncle was holding. The Fantastic Four intervened. Tran, not realizing Xuân was in control of Spider-Man, forced her out of Spider-Man's mind in possessing him long enough for the Thing to knock him out. With technical aid from Professor X, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man located Xuân. After an initial misunderstanding, they agreed to help her reclaim the children, but Tran possessed the Fantastic Four and set them against Spider-Man. Spider-Man was outmatched by Tran's ability to use the Fantastic Four as a single cohesive force due to his greater experience with his powers. Xuân finally lashed out and bested Tran in a psychic battle, absorbing him completely and permanently imprisoning him within her soul, taking the name Karma afterwards. Her powers doubled after absorbing and imprisoning Tran inside her soul.

New Mutants

Reed Richards refers Karma to Professor X, and she becomes his first recruit for his new team of mutant teenagers, the New Mutants. Karma had been working a full-time job to support herself and her siblings, and so agrees to work as Xavier's secretary to help him run the school in return for a generous salary.

During an attack by the Sentinels, the other New Mutants begin implicitly following Karma as their leader. During a fight with Viper and the Silver Samurai, the mutant psychic entity Amahl Farouk takes Karma as a host body. She disappears and the rest of the team fears her to be dead. Possessed by Farouk, she becomes a crime boss and runs a gladiatorial arena. She becomes grossly obese while possessed, as Farouk was a large eater in life and had continued his voracity when using Karma's body. When two of the New Mutants (Sunspot and Magma) are forced to participate in the high-stakes gladiatorial competition, she comes into conflict with her old teammates.

The New Mutants pursue her and ultimately drive Farouk to flee from Karma's body, and she defeats him in psychic combat. The New Mutants and Storm take a vacation on a small Grecian island. There they are abducted by the Enchantress. Magik attempts to teleport everyone away, but her teleport disc collides with the barrier around the Enchantress's castle, and they are tossed all over Asgard. Karma ends up in a desert wasteland and, still despondent at her obesity, she decides to lay down and die. However, the Norns intervene and place a young child near her, compelling Karma to survive in order to help the child out of the desert. Karma and the child live in the desert for months, using her powers to stun the wildlife for food, and scavenging weapons and shelter from travelers who have perished in the wasteland. By the time she reaches the end of the desert and reunites with the other New Mutants, she has shed her excess weight and her hair had grown to waist-length. When Loki returns the New Mutants and X-Men to Earth, although he undoes most of their transformations — such as Moonstar having become a Valkyrie and thus inherited a winged steed — he ensures that Karma retains her new slimmer physique. After an encounter with — and temporary death at the hands of — the Beyonder, she and her fellow New Mutants are briefly transferred to the Massachusetts Academy and join the Hellions.

Father Bowen, Karma's confessor. During the Mutant Massacre, Leong and Nga fail to turn up at home after leaving school. The Xavier School's headmaster, Magneto, is unable to locate the missing children, even with the resources of the Hellfire Club at his disposal. Believing her uncle has a better chance of finding them, Karma leaves the New Mutants to return to General Cao's service in exchange for his help.

Searching for Leong and Nga

In Madripoor, she works to help her uncle establish himself as one of the nation's two major crime lords. After the X-Man Wolverine appeals to her conscience, she begins covertly acting against Cao when his actions threaten innocent lives. General Cao strings Karma along for several months with promises of finding the children, but after he and some of his associates orchestrate the massacre of an entire village, she breaks her ties with him.

Karma continues her search independently, and learns the children were abducted by Shinobi Shaw and sold to Viper and Spiral

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases