| “ | They are his parents, how could they do such things? | „ |
| ~ Karma |
| “ | I am... I am someone I don't recognize anymore. I don't know what's real and what's in my head. This isn't the first time I've lost myself... but it was so sudden. One second I was with my team, but my guard was down. And something wriggled inside my head. Something -- someone stole my life. | „ |
| ~ Karma. |
| “ | I am... Xi'an Coy Manh. I am Vietnamese. To be Vietnamese is to have lived your entire life with war. It is to suffer, grieve, hunger, fear. To walk hand in hand with death. I do not complain by saying this, merely state reality. | „ |
| ~ Karma. |
Karma (real name Xuân Cao Mạnh) is a fictional superheroine from Marvel Comics, and is featured in the New Mutants and X-Men comics.
Karma is a mutant with the ability to mentally possess other beings. A founding member of the New Mutants, she is one of the few confirmed and openly lesbian characters. She lost a leg and now has a cybernetic one in its place.
She was created by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, and first appeared in Marvel Team-Up #100 in December of 1980.
History[]
Early Years[]
Xuân Cao Mạnh is the daughter of a colonel in the Vietnamese army. Xuân and her older twin brother, Trân Cao Mạnh, were mutants, with the power to take mental possession of the minds of others. While still a child, Xuân saw an enemy soldier threaten Tran. Not realizing she had a superhuman power, Xuân nevertheless, acting on impulsive, took possession of the soldier's mind and stopped him from killing Tran. Tran then successfully attempted the same feat and forced the soldier to kill himself. While Tran took great delight in this use of his new-found power, Xuân was frightened of her ability. Xuân kept their powers secret, but Tran told their uncle, Nguyen Ngoc Coy, a general in the Vietnamese army.
General Coy later arranged for Xuân's family to leave Vietnam, which was now entirely under a Communist government, but only Tran was sent abroad. Eventually, the rest of the family left Vietnam on a small, crowded boat. Xuân's father was murdered by attacking pirates, who assaulted the women; her mother died the day the survivors were rescued by the United States Navy. Xuân, her younger brother, Leong Cao Mạnh, and her younger sister, Nga Cao Mạnh, were sent to the United States to be reunited with her Uncle Nguyen and Tran. General Coy had become a powerful and prosperous criminal in the United States (although he was publicly known as a businessman), and Tran was using his powers in his uncle's employ. When Coy asked Xuân to use her powers in his service, she refused. Xuân sought help from a Catholic priest, Father Michael Bowen, whom she had known in Vietnam. With Father Bowen's aid, Xuân secured employment and an apartment and enrolled her younger siblings in school.
At that time, General Coy kidnapped Leong and Nga, in an effort to blackmail Xuân into working for him. Desperate, Xuân located Spider-Man, whom she believed to be a criminal from accounts in the New York Daily Bugle, and took possession of his mind, so she could use his powers to rescue the children. While possessed by Xuân, Spider-Man fought three members of the Fantastic Four, who were present at a party Coy was hosting, unaware that he was a criminal. Xuân was forced to release Spider-Man's mind without having freed the children, but Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four located Xuân and Bowen, learned her story, and agreed to help her. Tran used his powers to take control of the Fantastic Four and have them attack Spider-Man. To save Spider-Man, whom she now knew was no criminal, Xuân was forced to kill her brother by absorbing his life essence into herself. Xuân was then reunited with Leong and Nga.
New Mutants[]
Shortly thereafter, Xuân, who now called herself Karma when using her powers, was recommended by Reed Richards and accepted the invitation of Professor Charles Xavier to enroll in his school in order to learn to use her mutant powers better. Thus, she became the first leader of the new team of young superhuman mutants he was training, the New Mutants. Although the team was originally created because the Professor was possessed by the BroodQueen egg inside of him for future embryos, they stayed together. Needing to support her two siblings, Professor Xavier also assigned her the position of secretary at the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Xavier and Dani Moonstar (Mirage) were kidnapped by Silver Samurai and Viper, at which time Xuân agreed to one year’s service to her uncle in exchange for their whereabouts and disappeared in an explosion.
Karma was thought to be missing or dead for a brief period, but had fallen under the control of the Shadow King. Shadow King possessed Xuân’s body and used his and Karma's own powers to carve a criminal empire. Shadow King indulged his excessive appetites, causing Karma to become incredibly obese. After taking control of the Gladiators, Empathturned Sunspot and Magma over to Xuân, where they were forced to battle for entertainment. After learning that their former teammate was in fact alive, the New Mutants decided to rescue her. After tracking Karma to Madripoor, then Cairo, the New Mutants were joined by Storm and all of them were possessed by Karma, save Mirage, Warlock, and Magik. After Mirage was possessed, Magik and Warlock released Karma from the Shadow King and Karma fought a psychic battle, which she won, forcing the Shadow King to flee back to the Astral Plane.
Later, Amora the Enchantress kidnapped the New Mutants to Asgard. While attempting to escape, Magik used her teleportation discs but the Enchantress' magics affected the destination and the New Mutants were separated through time and space. Karma found herself stranded in the desert months in the past, where she encountered a young girl, possibly the Norn Queen Karnilla, who she protected. Crossing the unforgiving desert for months, Karma managed to lose the weight she had gained under the influence of the Shadow King, and became quite formidable in the use of her power.
After their adventure in Asgard, the New Mutants found themselves under the guidance of a new teacher, Magneto, and Xuân returned to her position as school secretary.
Later, while watching the Wildways, Leong and Nga were captured by Spiral and Mojo, matured into the adults, Template, and mentally controlled by Psylocke into joining a new show, the Bratpack. After a brief battle with the New Mutants, Psylocke was freed from her mind control and freed the others as well.
During the massacre of the Morlocks by the Marauders, the New Mutants were charged with aiding the wounded. Later, Xuân asked Illyana Rasputin to teleport her to check on her younger brother and sister, only to discover they had disappeared. A bomb rigged to their apartment’s light switch destroyed all possible clues to their whereabouts.
At a Hellfire Club event, Xuân possessed Tessa to desperately search for her siblings in the Hellfire Club's database. Xuân found no information. After being caught by Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, Xuân declined helping the New Mutants in their contest against the Hellions to find who sold a forged statue of Selene to a member of the Hellfire Club before sunrise, stating that she had too many things on her mind. While the team was gone, Xuân left a letter for Dani, co-leader of the New Mutants, stating that she was leaving the team to work for her uncle and search for her siblings.
Searching for Siblings[]
Karma left the New Mutants and subsequently embarked on a long search for Leong and Nga. For a time she served General Coy in Madripoor, in the hope that he could locate her brother and sister. While working for her Uncle, Xuân encountered Patch, the X-Man Wolverine in disguise. Patch was attempting to stop General Coy from overthrowing the current crime lord of Madripoor, Tyger Tiger, and Xuân even assisted him by taking control of Roughouse and Bloodsport for Patch and Tyger to escape a beating. While attempting to rescue Lindsay McCabe, Tyger Tiger, and Jessica Drew, Xuân ran into Patch again and assisted in the downfall of her uncle's empire. Patch had General Coy at his mercy, until Prince Baran intervened and, thanks to Lindsay, considered them all honored guests of his. The prince offered that Tyger and General Coy work together to stop a power vacuum and war zone in Madripoor, and Patch convinced Tyger to accept. Next, Patch began his quest to save Karma from her uncle's service, but was sidetracked when he learned that disrupting General Coy's drug activities planted a target on the general's head and Xuân needed him to help her find her missing brother and sister. Xuân accompanied Patch to the airport to witness the arrival of Joe Fixit, who Patch smelled right away and recognized as the Hulk.
For a time Leong and Nga were the prisoners of Shinobi Shaw, who made them the subjects of genetic experiments. He then turned them over to Karma's longtime foe, the terrorist known as the Viper, and the extra-dimensional being Spiral. Karma and the X-Man Beast eventually joined forces to rescue the two children, but Beast was unable to undo Spiral's genetic tinkering. Karma later found a doctor who was able to undo the damage her siblings had suffered.
Adulthood[]
Karma dyed her hair pink had some body piercing done. She met most of her former New Mutants teammates who were now members of X-Force at the Burning Man festival. She was accompanied by two lesbian friends.
While studying and working at Chicago University as a librarian, Xuân crossed paths with Shadowcat and helped her fight the Purity and Sentinel menaces. Shortly after Karma's graduation, Moonstar arrived in an attempt to recruit David Alleyne for the Xavier Institute. Xuân introduced the two, and headed back to the relative safety of the Institute along with her siblings. It was also at around this time that Karma confirmed her lesbianism to Dani and confessed to an unreciprocated attraction to Kitty Pryde. At the school, Karma briefly reunited with the original New Mutants to battle Donald Pierce.
Powers & Abilities[]
Mutation: Karma has the same mutation as her twin brother with occurred whenwhen they were 14 to 15 years old. Karma and Tran both have psychic and telepathic powers.
- Telepathy: Karma's mutation is exactly just like her brothers allowing both of them to read minds.
- Psychic Possession: Karma's mutation and Tan's mutantion give them the ability to enter into another person's mind.
- Mind Control: Karma's mutation and her twin brother can take control another person through their mind.
- Sensory Link:
- Psychic Shield:
- Businesswoman:
Weaknesses[]
- Subordinate Personality:
Quotes[]
| “ | Perhaps--but it is not are place to pass judgment. Villain or no, I will not abandon him-- | „ |
| ~ Karma |
| “ | The New Mutants do not kill, Robert. That is are plague. If we do not hold true to those beliefs... then we are no better than my uncle. | „ |
| ~ Karma to Sunspot |
FamilyTree[]
- Unknown Parents -
- Nguyen Ngoc Coy - He was a Vietnamese general and uncle of Karma. He became a businessman man running criminal organizations.
- Tran Coy Manh - The twin mutant brother of Karma who decided to turn on his family and work for his uncle. Tran was killed by his sister but his conscience possessed her mind.
- Da'o Coy Manh - She is the half mutant sister of Karma and her siblings. With the same powers of her other mutants siblings. Currently now deceased.
- Leong Coy Manh -
- Nga Coy Manh -
Gallery[]
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