KARMA: Page 2 of 6

Publication Date: 30th Mar 2023
Written By: Peter Luzifer, Ruth and Daytripper.
Image Work: Peter Luzifer and Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 2

Karma's situation remained desperate, despite her hard-won freedom. Since her disappearance, Leong and Nga had been in the care of Father Michael Bowen. How could she face her beloved siblings now, obese as she was? She felt like a freak and this kept her from reconnecting with Leong and Nga as she struggled to accept her new body. She seriously contemplated taking her own life.

Before returning to Westchester, Storm took the New Mutants on a vacation on the Greek isle, Kirinos. The mutants were mistaken for the X-Men and kidnapped to Asgard by the Enchantress on Loki's behalf. The team fought back and in their bid to escape were scattered throughout Asgard, in both space and time, when Magik’s teleportation was magically disrupted. Karma ended up months in the past in an unforgiving desert. She was resigned to die there until she came across a little girl, begging her for protection from a monster and asking her to help her home.

Her protective instincts roused, Karma spent months crossing the desert with the girl, shedding her considerable girth in the process and regaining her backbone. She was delighted when she was finally reunited with her teammates. At that moment, the girl disappeared, having been an illusion created by the Norns whose Queen Karnilla wanted to foil Loki’s plans to use the mutants. When Loki was defeated, he had to send the mutants back home and undo all the changes that had befallen them during their time in Asgard. Loki took pity on Karma and made an exception to this rule, choosing not to condemn her to the obese body she had when she arrived. [New Mutants Special Edition #1, Uncanny X-Men Annual #9]

Karma served with the team once more but was content to leave the leadership to Mirage and Cannonball. She remained with the group until the Mutant Massacre, when her younger brother and sister disappeared. Worried for their safety, as mutants were clearly being targeted, she asked Illyana to teleport her to her apartment. A bomb had been planted in her home and exploded when she flipped a light switch. The twins had been taken and the explosion destroyed all possible clues to their whereabouts. Karma barely survived the blast thanks to Magik, who teleported them out in time. [New Mutants (1st series) #46]

Karma was sick with worry, but the school’s new headmaster, Magneto assured her that he would do anything in his power to find them. This was not enough for Xuân and despite his direct orders not to search on her own, she decided to take matters into her own hands. When the New Mutants attended a Hellfire Club party, Xuân took Sebastian Shaw’s servant, Tessa by surprise and possessed her. She forced Tessa to run a search with the Club’s immense resources – but to no avail. The computers came up with nothing, the exact same results Tessa found when Magneto had asked the Hellfire Club for assistance when the twins first disappeared. Xuân felt that she had only one option left unexplored – the criminal connections of her uncle Nguyen. Though it hurt her to abandon her teammates, she quit the New Mutants, explaining her decision in a letter to them. [New Mutants (1st series) #52, 54]

In exchange for her services, Xuân hoped that her uncle would uncover the twins whereabouts. In the meantime, she had to do his dirty work for him, just as her brother Tran had. She accompanied Nguyen to Madripoor, where  her talents helped him to quickly establish himself as a major crime lord. Her uncle’s activities soon brought Xuân into conflict with one of her former allies. Nguyen and his allies, Roughhouse and the vampiric Bloodscream (who took an unhealthy interest in Karma) were trying to assassinate the local crimelord, Tyger Tiger who happened to be a friend of Wolverine’s. Karma secretly aided Tyger and "Patch" (Wolverine’s cover identity) and the turf war was solved with the two crime lords agreeing to share Madripoor. Tyger had no interest in drugs or slaves, so she left these lucrative markets to Coy. As both had super-powered operatives to aid them, a delicate balance was reached. [Wolverine (1st series) #4-7]

Several weeks later, Nguyen tried to gain an advantage with something called Project Lazarus. A key element was the inclusion of a device called Master Form, which had been left in the nearby village of Rumika to be guarded by the farmers there. Several parties were chasing after it and when she learned about it, Karma went there as well. She arrived in time to witness the villagers being slaughtered by the incoming forces. She tried her best to at least rescue some of the children, who reminded her of her siblings, but there were too many soldiers to possess them all so they all died.  After giving the people of Rumika a decent burial, Karma and Wolverine returned to Madripoor to uncover the Project’s secret. Realizing that her uncle had been involved in the massacre at Rumika, she finally stopped working for him and left him with a clear threat - if she ever learned that he had harmed innocents again, she would come to kill him. [Wolverine (2nd series) # 27-30]

Xuân continued the search for Leong and Nga on her own, but her quest was interrupted months later, when the Upstarts targeted all former New Mutants and Hellions as part of the Younghunt, the latest contest in their ongoing competition. Moonstar, Karma and Empath tried to infiltrate their enemies’ stronghold with  the help of Karma’s powers, but were overpowered by the mysterious Gamesmaster. Eventually, they were rescued by the combined forces of X-Force, the New Warriors and Cannonball’s sister, Husk. [X-Force (1st series) #33-34, New Warriors (1st series) #45-46]