Skids is the one who has to make the terrible practical decision in New Mutants #87. Rusty needs help, the people holding them have made the situation worse, and the MLF is offe…

Skids is the one who has to make the terrible practical decision in New Mutants #87. Rusty needs help, the people holding them have made the situation worse, and the MLF is offering a route out. The choice is made under pressure, not in the comfortable setting of a recruitment speech. Her force field has often made her the person who can protect someone else. Here, protection also involves deciding where to take an injured person when the available options are bad. There is no reassuring institution waiting to resolve the problem for her. That makes her skepticism important. By #100, she is voicing concern about the MLF’s terrorist activity. Being present with the group has not erased the distinction between what she needed from them and what they want to do. Her doubt belongs in the account just as much as the fact that she left with them. Stryfe’s claim to be acting for people like her becomes much less convincing when an actual person he supposedly represents is uncomfortable with his methods. It is easier to speak for an injured prisoner than to listen to that prisoner after the escape. For this early MLF thread, Skids provides a necessary limit on how broadly the whole roster can be described. Some members arrive ready to carry out the attacks. Others are people whose vulnerability has been turned into an opportunity. Putting every name under one heading should not make those differences disappear.