New Warriors #44

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This issue starts with several centurions from Atlantis trying to remove a large boulder, when Namor arrives and tells them to stand aside. Entering the cavern, Namor recalls that this is the spot where he cosigned to death the cloned bodies of his long-dead love, Dorma. Vashti, who is with Namor, explains the notes he found from Vyrra’s notes.

The notes explain the day that Namorita was conceived. It notes that when Norma, Namor’s cousin, learned that she was a hybrid and thus sterile, she turned to the “Banished One” – Vyrra. Vyrra did as he was asked and created a clone of Namora and placed it within her tomb.

Months later, Namora and her betrothed Talan, were proud parents of a baby girl. According to the notes though, Vyrra was forced to manipulate the genetic material used in the cloning process so as to eliminate difficulties Namora herself had when she reached puberty, and found her body change from the blue hue of a pure bred Atlantean to the pale pink skin bearing of a hybrid.

Vyrra knew then, but said nothing, that Namorita’s genetic make up was rather unstable and under specific conditions could undergo radical physical turmoil. Vyrra apparently tried to offset anything like that happening, by splicing in genetic DNA helix codes culled from corpses of Atlantean warriors buried centuries ago.

Namorita goes to the tomb of Kay’tha Takkroll; an Atlantean woman who, after seeing her people decimated, picked up the weapons from her father’s fallen hands, and led her people to a costly victory during the “Night of the Crimson Mist.” She was a woman who knew the price of honor and was willing to pay the price. When see Namorita lift the tomb and from there, remove a sacred dagger. Next we see her take a shell from a shore, and then a net from a dolphin she rescues.

We get a scene shift to see the rest of the New Warriors (Elvin Haliday – Rage; Dwayne Taylor – Night Thrasher; Silhouette; Angelica Jones – Firestar; Richard Rider – Nova; and Robbie Baldwin – Speedball) discussing the fact that Vance Astrovik (Justice) has joined Shinobi Shaw and that they have done nothing about it. Dwayne finally comes clean that he and Vance conspired to infiltrate an organization known as the “Upstarts.”

Another scene shift brings us back to Namor looking for Namorita. When he suddenly finds himself entangled within a net in the Marriana’s Trench, when he tears himself free he can not believe the sight before his eyes.

He sees Namorita. But she is nothing like she had been before. With blue skin and adorned in fish nets, a dagger, and some metallic armor – he sees in her the passion and fury that once belonged to Atlanteans, and yet beneath it all – an unexplainable sense of calm.

Namorita explains to Namor that the name and person that was “Namorita” is dead and that she is now Kymaera, based off the Greek legend of creatures known as “Chimera.” Namor talks to her for some time and says that the Namorita he knew would never give up on herself, and that if she did surrender to the darkness and doubt that consumed her, then Vyrra would have won.

Struggling with doubt, she returns to the New Warriors base – the Crashpad – and approaches Rich Rider first. She explains to him that the emotional problem she was enduring was a part of the physical problem that changed her body. When she asks if how she is now is okay with him – he takes her hand, hugs her, then kisses her and says, “Of course it is.”

A scene shift and we see that Dwayne gets a call from Vance, who is in Tokyo. Vance has learned that the Upstarts plan to assassinate the surviving members of The New Mutants and the Hellions – which would thus include Angelica Jones, Firestar, and former member of the Hellions.