New Mutants #11

The penultimate chapter of "The Ties That Bind" arrives in this 2004 installment, with a cover by Chris Bachalo that immediately commands attention. A young woman — intense, resolute, her wrists wrapped in bandages and two blades crossed at her back — stands at the center of a storm of violet lightning, the surrounding darkness alive with crackling energy and faintly etched circular symbols. Writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, with interior art by Carlo Barberi, bring the Xavier Institute's next generation to life in what promises to be one of the arc's most charged installments.