WARNING: The following contains spoilers for New Mutants #18 by Vita Ayala, Rod Reis, VC's Travis Lanham, and Tom Muller, on sale now.
As bright as the future might seem for mutantkind, all is not well on Krakoa. Outside of the many troubles that the mutant nation is facing as a whole, many of the mutants of Krakoa have been dealing with their own personal struggles without much of anywhere to turn for guidance or reassurance. While some mutants like Warpath and Magik have open ears and a willingness to listen, Scout, X-23's cloned little sister, has some problems that she can't handle on her own.
But when she turned to Wolfsbane looking for help in New Mutants #18, Wolfsbane revealed that she was even more lost than Scout was by showing her allegiance to the Shadow King.
Scout's friends in the New Mutants have been practicing using their powers in coordination for quite some time now, and they have recently started swapping bodies as opposed to combining powers. With the Shadow King's immense psychic powers, Amahl Farouk has been helping these young mutants transfer their minds into one another's bodies, though these practices have proven to have some truly unsettling consequences. When they can't keep their own bodies from deteriorating due to the process, the group decides to practice on corpses, and that is something that Scout just can't stomach. When Wolfsbane overhears the group arguing, she decides to take Scout for a walk and a talk on their way to visit Shadow King so that the young mutant can see him for herself.
With other players, this would otherwise be a gentle, caring action, but Wolfsbane's dependence on Shadow King makes the situation wholly unsettling. The Shadow King's history as one of the X-Men's most vicious villains is well-established. And even though Krakoa has given all mutants a new chance to work in community, the Shadow King is still seen as a potentially malicious figure. Despite that, he has made fast friends of the younger mutants of the island, especially those whose appearances make them more susceptible to prejudice, and that alone is enough to concern the likes of Scout.
Wolfsbane, on the other hand, seems more than happy to be leaving Gabby in Shadow King's hands, as well as fully trusting that there is nothing untoward happening in his orbit. While it's surprising that she would be so eager to put such blind faith in a man with such a long history as a villain, Rahne Sinclair is dealing with her own tragedies, which makes her a potential target to be exploited by Amahl Farouk.
Rahne has been desperate to see her son, Tier, on Krakoa. Like her mother and Asgardian Wolf God father, Tier is a lupine-mutant capable of shifting between his human and wolf forms. He also just so happens to have inherited his father's healing factor, as well as developed a natural immunity to magic. Unfortunately, this couldn't save him from being stabbed through the back during the events of 2013's X-Factor #256 by Peter David and Leonard Kirk, and to make matters worse he can't even be resurrected on Krakoa. For some reason, Cerebro doesn't believe that Tier has truly passed on, and so Rahne has been left once again mourning the loss of her son with no way of telling where or what in what state he could be. This sort of grief is never one that passes quickly, though it is one that can be felt from a mile away, and the Shadow King has certainly felt it.
When Farouk approached Wolfsbane, she had broken down in tears and was unable to keep herself together. The Shadow King didn't just offer her condolences and kind words, either, but a chance to help the young mutants that he has been training. Of course, Rahne jumps at the chance to do this without seeing that Farouk very clearly has his own reasons for wanting her at his side.
While the Shadow King's ultimate intentions remain unclear, it cannot bode well for the New Mutants. And until the rest of the team reacts, the Shadow King's flock will only grow larger.