Warlock belongs to Cable's initial New Mutants just as firmly as Cannonball or Boom-Boom. He trains, travels and helps his friends during the early part of this run. His presenc…

Warlock belongs to Cable's initial New Mutants just as firmly as Cannonball or Boom-Boom. He trains, travels and helps his friends during the early part of this run. His presence carries the strange, affectionate household of the older series directly into the new mentor's more confrontational world. That makes him useful in ways a conventional soldier could never be. He can transport the group, alter his body for the immediate problem and respond to machinery on terms the others cannot. In the Morlock-tunnel adventure of #90–91, he is still one of the familiar voices reacting to danger around the team. Madripoor puts him beside Cannonball, Boom-Boom and Sunfire against the Mutant Liberation Front in #93–94. The combination shows how easily he can participate in the larger action story without losing the qualities that make him recognizably Warlock. His attachment to his friends remains the reason his extraordinary body keeps finding ways to help. Genosha removes the security behind that flexibility. The forced transport in #95 drains him severely, and Cameron Hodge's attempt to exploit him ends in his death. The character who could seem able to become almost anything is reduced to remains his friends can carry. The aftermath continues through #97, when Rictor, Boom-Boom and Jubilee find those remains. That detail prevents the death from becoming merely a change in the roster. The people who knew him have something dreadful and tangible to deal with. Warlock's entry in this era ends there. Later developments do not belong in this account. For the New Mutants who continue toward #100, he is a friend they have lost, and the group's increasing readiness for battle has not spared them that grief.