X-Men: 10 Characters That Must Appear In The New Mutants Movie

10. Karma

When you’re a teenager, age brings seniority: and Xi'an Coy Manh, codenamed ‘Karma’, is several years older than the rest of the New Mutants, already working full time as the legal guardian of and sole provider for her younger siblings when she’s given a job working for Charles Xavier as his PA. That’s how she finds herself in charge of the rest of the New Mutants - through her maturity and responsibility, and experience in looking after people younger than her.

Xi’an (pronounced ‘shah-n’) has her own kind of troubled past, as many mutants do before coming to Xavier’s school - but hers involves an evil twin brother, a father high up in the South Vietnamese army and pirates murdering her mother, so she’s ahead of the game there, too.

Her power involves possession of a subject or subjects: not just hypnotism or simple mind control, but total domination, to the extent that she can not only make them do stuff, but edit their memories and their perception of reality, perhaps even engage in radical personality alteration.

It’s an ability that can be set at a variety of levels, depending on the needs of the plot, and carries with it its own ethical considerations, driving character and creating its own form of conflict. Besides that, Karma is the original leader of the team, one of the lynchpins of the early New Mutants line-up, and required casting in any TV or film adaptation.