Karma's place in this era begins with an absence. She is one of the original New Mutants, but she is missing before the #8–34 expansion window starts. Her disappearance belongs…

Karma's place in this era begins with an absence. She is one of the original New Mutants, but she is missing before the #8–34 expansion window starts. Her disappearance belongs to the earlier #6–7 sequence, and the rest of the class spends much of this period without her. That is why putting all nine familiar students into one undated roster would lose something important. Amara, Illyana, Doug and Warlock enter a class that Karma has not been there to watch grow. The team is accumulating new friendships while one of its first relationships remains painfully unfinished. The eventual explanation involves the Shadow King, Amahl Farouk, controlling her. A mutant whose own ability is to take possession of another person has become the victim of an immensely dangerous psychic predator. Her apparent actions during that control have to be understood in that context. Treating them as a straightforward turn to villainy would misread what the team is trying to overcome. In #34, Illyana and Warlock's efforts help the group reach the truth and free Karma. The endpoint is a rescue and the beginning of recovery. It doesn't make the experience harmless, and it doesn't turn everything that happened during her absence into a problem solved by putting the uniform back on. Her return gives this roster window a fitting boundary. The class has become much larger, but the story still comes back for someone it lost near the beginning. The original students have a friend to welcome home, while the newcomers become part of that welcome. Karma belongs in this portrait as the returning founder, with the timing visible. Her absence shaped the group, and getting her back is part of what this expanded group accomplishes.