"The Next Generation: Part Five - Karma"
by Bull (Sandkings)

The final member of the new class of students taught by Xavier was none other than Karma. Xi'an Coy Mahn escaped from Vietnam along with her siblings, Leong and Nga. Her greatest battle was never actually seen, but she had to face off against her older brother who had the same powers as she has. Tran and Xi'an both had the ability to "possess" people mentally and control their mind and body. Tran apparently did not have the morals that Karma had, and he was killed, thus leaving Xi'an to look after her Leong and Nga, as she would not leave them in her evil Uncle's care. When Karma came to Xavier's, she was the first of his new students. Xavier promised to help her learn to control her powers, and for a while, Karma worked beside the other New Mutants. For some reason, Karma never seemed to fit into the team. Karma's life became more complicated when the Shadow King possessed her.

Amahl Farouk (The Shadow King) possessed Karma and used her against her friends. Karma was able to defeat the Shadow King and rejoined the New Mutants, but only briefly. She left the team as some of the newer members joined to care for her younger brother and sister. She was not seen for some time until she turned up in Madripoor working for her uncle. She left this life and returned to the U.S. where she continued the hunt for her brother and sister. Over the last decade, we have seen Karma pop up in several places.

Recently, Karma, Leong, and Nga were featured in The Beast, a three part series focusing on the X-Man, Hank McCoy. Here, Leong and Nga were aged into teens and fought against Karma, Beast, and Cannonball. Karma was next seen in X-Factor with a vast change in personality. Now sporting baggy clothing, pink hair, and a (hinted) new sexual orientation. Many readers took her comments about the fact that Sam Guthrie "as definitely NOT her type" to mean that Karma may be a lesbian. However, this issue has not been addressed since her appearance in X-Force. She was also seen in the New Mutants reunion series where she turned on her friends to help Mikhail Rasputin to take a past version of Magik and try and cure her of the Legacy Virus. Since then, Karma has not been seen.

While the other four students in the original New Mutants have been spotted in different series or in X-Force as regular cast members, Karma has distanced herself from the "dream" they fight for. Sam and Dani are currently on X-Force. Sunspot (as I write this article) may be sent back to Brazil. Rahne Sinclair is off on Muir Island with Moira MacTaggart.

These are the "new" class of Xavier. Conceived by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, they were to be the actual students of the Xavier School. It did not take long before they started fighting for Xavier's dream. Even after Xavier left and they had Magneto as a headmaster, the New Mutants continued to fight for the dream. Many new members joined the team over the years. Cypher, Shadowcat, Magik, Magma, Skids, Rusty Collins, Boom Boom, Richtor, Gossamyr, Birdboy, Feral, Shatterstar, Warpath, Warlock, Cable, and Domino, have all come and gone from the New Mutants team before the New Mutants developed into X-Factor. While the New Mutants may be gone, the original students are all still around and, for the most part, fighting for the dream of mutant acceptance. The team has suffered the greatest amounts of tragedies, as many of their members have died (Rusty, Doug Ramsey, Warlock, and Magik). Despite these deaths, the team went on to become one of the best group of students Xavier ever gathered. Now, there is a new school for the young students and a new team of mutants that are growing up to fight for Xavier's dream, but the New Mutants will always be considered the Next Generation of the X-Men.