WARNING: The following contains spoilers for New Mutants #15 by Vita Ayala, Rod Reis & VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
While most mutants are trying to live in peace in their new utopia on Krakoa, some couldn't help but remain bad. Sabretooth lost his freedom at the very start of the nation's development. Mister Sinister has his own devious plans in motion thanks to his hidden cloning labs. Sebastian Shaw has a seat at the big table and still killed Kate Pryde, although he was since punished. Now, it seems Shadow King has started to orchestrate something behind the scenes, planting discontent in the younger mutants' minds.
New Mutants #14 opened with Amahl Farouk's origin and how he went from an idealistic young boy who wanted to do good and help others into the vengeful and manipulative Shadow King. Giving so much time to his origin, it is clear that the youngest mutants on Krakoa, and their new instructors of the original New Mutants team members, might have a lot to fear from the powerful mutant, who found a home high in the mountains of Krakoa.
The New Mutants are training the kids but some new students feel like outsiders, even among their mutant brethren. Four of these mutant children are Anole, Rain Boy, Cosmar, and N0-Girl. The four children end up going to the mountains and found Shadow King. It was there that they had a lot to tell him, including what they learned. He welcomed them all to sit around a fire and tell him their stories because they have "all the time in the world." However, this is the Shadow King, and these are all impressionable children, so there is no way he is just playing the role of the kind old mutant who wants to hear their stories.
He's still with the kids and this time he was watching and helping train them. They were all working hard for Shadow King, who taught these impressionable young mutants there are no odds they can't overcome, and then he mentions the Crucible. He especially praises Cosmar, congratulating her on how far she has come. When she asks him to come to watch her fight, he tells her he wouldn't miss it for the world. The Crucible is a ritual death where a mutant who has yet to regain his or her powers fights another mutant to the death and they return with their powers returned. The problem here is that Cosmar has her powers.
At the wedding reception for Douglas and Bei, Cosmar approached Dani Moonstar and asked her to be her partner in the Crucible, something Cosmar had wanted since she first manifested her powers. However, Dani rejected her and said the Crucible is to heal mutants rubbed of their gifts, but that Corsar is perfect the way she is. Cosmar ran off in tears, saying Dani's powers never mutated her and as she left broken, Shadow King gave a toast to the youth and a great future.
There is a disturbing aside in the book from the journal of Amahl Farouk where the Shadow is clearly manipulating him, making him think he is using his powers to help others be better until eventually realizing he needs to shape and rule the world from the shadows. There was no way that the Crucible could have cured Corsar's physical mutations, so Shadow King only filled the child with false hopes. Whether he is trying to turn the youth of Krakoa against the elder mutants or just humiliate them, this was one of the harshest things he could have done to a mutant like Cosmar who looks up to him.