A living spacecraft is an unusually suitable home for Warlock. The New Mutants have always needed to recognize a person inside a body that does not resemble their own. Aboard Sh…

A living spacecraft is an unusually suitable home for Warlock. The New Mutants have always needed to recognize a person inside a body that does not resemble their own. Aboard Ship, they are also living inside someone who can answer back. Warlock remains the teammate whose usefulness can change shape from moment to moment. He can carry several friends, shield them or become the transport an escape requires. That freedom is visually funny, but it also gives the group something practical they badly need while their familiar home and support systems are falling apart. His response to the break with Magneto is telling. Even while the others are angry, Warlock still instinctively considers helping someone in danger. His attachment to people does not vanish the instant their behavior becomes difficult to understand. The team has to explain its boundaries to him as well as its plans. The Asgard adventure makes particularly good use of his willingness to cooperate with an odd assortment of companions. Separated from the others, he travels with Boom-Boom and Hrimhari. Their combination has no obvious reason to work on paper: an alien shapeshifter, a loud American teenager and an Asgardian wolf-prince. By #83, they are involved with Tiwaz and Volstagg's children while trying to find help against Hela. Warlock's adaptable body lets their unlikely little party keep moving through a world none of them controls. There is a warm absurdity to how readily he makes these arrangements feel normal. A teammate needs a ride, somebody is falling, a plan calls for a shape nobody else can provide. Warlock responds. His friends are still struggling to find a stable home, and he repeatedly becomes something that can hold them together long enough to reach the next safe place.