GOSAMYR

Real Name: Gosamyr

Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial (unidentified race)

Occupation: Adventurer;
    former slave

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Dr. Anjay Bhatnagar, Lila Cheney, Dagger (Tandy Bowen), New Mutants (Cannonball/Sam Guthrie, Magik/Illyana Rasputin, Mirage/Danielle Moonstar, Sunspot/Roberto da Costa, Warlock, Wolfsbane/Rahne Sinclair), Power Pack (Counterweight/Jack Power, Destroyer/Alex Power, Molecula/Julie Power, Starstreak/Katie Power), X-Terminators (Boom-Boom/Tabitha Smith, Rusty Collins, Leech, Artie Maddicks, Rictor/Julio Richter, Skids/Sally Blevins, Wiz Kid/Takashi Matsuya)

Enemies: Grissom Gang, N'astirh, S'ym, Spyder

Known Relatives: Numerous family members, including at least one brother (all presumably deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile throughout the galaxy;
    formerly Spyder's ship

First Appearance: New Mutants I#66 (August, 1988)

Powers/Abilities: Gosamyr is a member of an insectoid alien race. She is currently in the humanoid larval stage of their development. Upon reaching adulthood, her people form cocoons and undergo a millennia-long gestation period, at which point they emerge as enormously-powerful, but wise and serene, creatures. However, if that process is artificially-induced, the gestation period is much shorter and the adults emerge as mindless monsters. Like all members of her race, she emits psionic energy that allows her to manipulate the emotions of other individuals or make them more suggestible to her whims. This works on a number of races, including humans, but apparently not on members of the Technarchy or members of Spyder's race. She also has silky, translucent wings that allow her to fly. Unlike most female members of her species, she can undergo the "Minor Death," which briefly removes from her the ability to influence the outside world; this involves wrapping her wings around herself to become invisible.

Height: 4'10"
Weight: 90 lbs.
Eyes: Yellow
Hair: Blonde-white

History:
(New Mutants I#69 (fb)) - Gosamyr belongs to an insectoid alien race known for their emotion-manipulation abilities. They are uncommonly seen in the galaxy, as they rarely allowed other members of their race to live; however, reports of them did reach the Technarchy and they were known to be feared by the Brood.

(New Mutants I#67 (fb) / New Mutants I#70 (fb)) - Gosamyr's brother had dealings with the alien slave master Spyder; these dealing went poorly for him and he sold his entire family, including the young Gosamyr, into servitude. Spyder forced the other members of Gosamyr's family to go into their cocoon phase prematurely, intending to harvest the extremely valuable material of the cocoons, while he kept her as his personal servant. As he was unable to directly experience emotions, her powers were ineffective on him.

(New Mutants I#66) - Aboard his ship, Spyder showed Gosamyr a picture of Lila Cheney, whom he claimed had been sold to him by her homeworld.

(New Mutants I#67) - Gosamyr waited for Spyder to fall asleep then escaped from her slave collar and snuck aboard the retrieval ship headed to Earth to capture Cheney. She hoped that she could make Cheney help her but Spyder's accountants, the Intergalactic Red-Tape Brigade, instead successfully captured Lila and escaped Cheney's friends, the New Mutants. However, Gossamyr managed to detach a small space yacht from the retrieval ship, parking it in Manhattan. She found the New Mutants and used her emotion-manipulating powers on Sunspot, persuading him to help her.

(New Mutants I#68) - Gosamyr accompanied the New Mutants to Limbo, where Magik used a scrying glass to track Lila. While she was successful, she couldn't teleport the team to a ship that was moving at warp speed without killing them. Gosamyr sobbed about this, but Mirage suggested that Magik instead teleport the space yacht to Lila's last known location so they could follow her from there. Once aboard the yacht and on Lila's trail, Gosamyr had the ship make new clothing for Dani and Rahne; she was complimentary of Rahne's new fashions but was dismissive of Dani's, making her stalk off. 

    Later, Sunspot poured out his troubles to Gosamyr, and she kissed him; when Rahne walked in on the two of them, the alien girl merely winked. Later, while dismissing Dani's powers as unimpressive, she picked up on Rahne having a crush on Sam and manipulated Dani into manifesting an illusory Sam who was in love with the Scottish mutant; Rahne was horrified and attacked Dani. Gosamyr separated the two, but Dani realized what the alien had done and struck her. Meanwhile, the team's attempt to approach Spyder's vessel had failed, and they soon had attack craft pursuing them.

(New Mutants I#69) - The attack was diverted - unbeknownst to Gosamyr and the New Mutants, on Spyder's orders - and the yacht was allowed to land. Dani left, as Gosamyr's powers were giving her a headache, while the rest of the New Mutants continued to suffer under Gosamyr's manipulations, turning on each other. Seeing that Dani had been attacked by the alien Grissom Gang, Gosamyr and the others went out to save her. Gosamyr stayed on the sidelines but was grabbed by one of the criminals who intended to sell her back to Spyder. Sam and Bobby saved her but then got into a fight over her affections. She tried to assert her dominance over the others, commanding them to save her family. Enraged at her manipulations, Magik attacked her and slashed the alien with her Soulsword, briefly resulting in an energy manifestation of Gosamyr's monstrous adult form. Gosamyr passed out, allowing her influence to dissipate; upon awakening, she was surprised to hear objections to her manipulative behavior, as every member of her race behaved in that fashion. The team reluctantly agreed to take her with them as they went to save Lila from Spyder's clutches. They breached his lair, only for Spyder to capture them all.

(New Mutants I#70) - Spyder held Gosamyr and Lila Cheney at his side as the New Mutants struggled against the bars of their cage. Gosamyr struggled against him so he tied her to a pillar while he left to show Lila Gosamyr's family. Desperate, she offered to use her "Minor Death" ability, provided that the New Mutants promised to rescue her family. They agreed and she became invisible, slipping her bonds and knocking one of Spyder's guards into the bars of the New Mutants' cage. The teen heroes were able to escape in the confusion, and they found Spyder gloating over Gosamyr's cocooned family. Still weakened from the Minor Death, she fainted while her family, maddened by their premature development, emerged from their cocoons as mindless monsters. They battled the New Mutants as they destructively rampaged and began to bore into the core of the planet, threatening to destroy it. Desperate, Lila Cheney teleported the creatures away, apparently into a nearby sun. As Gosamyr mourned her family, Spyder and his forces attacked, forcing Magik to teleport Gosamyr and the New Mutants into Limbo. As soon as they arrived, however, they were confronted by S'ym and his demon hordes!

(New Mutants I#71) - Unable to teleport away, Gosamyr and the New Mutants were forced to defend themselves against S'ym and his demons, who were all infected with the techno-organic Transmode Virus. The demons chased them through Limbo until they were confronted with the demonic sorcerer N'astirh, who tricked Magik into transforming into the demonic Darkchilde and opening a portal to Earth she could not close, allowing an army of Limbo demons to invade New York!

(Power Pack I#42) - Gosamyr battled demons in Times Square with the New Mutants.

(New Mutants I#72 / X-Terminators I#4) - Gosamyr and the New Mutants watched in horror as a pentagram began to form in the skies over New York. She and the others helped the X-Terminators rescue a number of abducted mutant babies from the pentagram that N'astirh intended to use in a demonic ritual. They took the babies to a church, where Gosamyr, Skids, Rusty Collins, Leech and Artie Maddicks watched over the infants and the injured Dani.

(New Mutants I#73) - When Magik sacrificed herself to send the demons back to Limbo, Mirage, Rusty and Skids set out to see what had happened, leaving the babies in the care of Gosamyr, Leech and Artie.

(Cloak and Dagger III#4) - Gosamyr and the others tracked one of the remaining demons to the apartment of Tandy Bowen, alias Dagger, who had worked with the New Mutants before. Having already destroyed the demon, Dagger asked for their help in finding her partner Cloak. Warlock transformed into a spaceship as they tracked Cloak into space but unfortunately, they only found his discarded cape.

(Power Pack I#44) - Gosamyr and the others returned from space and landed at a field hospital, where they joined Power Pack and put their powers to work helping out Dr. Anjay Bhatnagar. Gosamyr used her emotion-manipulating powers (see comments) to make injured patients believe they felt no pain. Later, she expressed some interest in Power Pack member Counterweight, who thought she, like all girls, had cooties. She and the New Mutants came to the Power family's apartment, where their parents James and Margaret were experiencing massive amounts of anxiety after learning of their children's superheroic identities. Mirage concocted a lie about Power Pack actually being illusory constructs of her powers, and Gosamyr used her own powers to make the elder Powers buy it.

(New Mutants I#74) - Gosamyr and the others returned from their clean-up mission; upon landing, she attracted the attentions of Rusty and Rictor, and also seemed to trigger Mirage's death-premonition-senses. Gosamyr lamented her inherently destructive nature, although Sunspot insisted that she had the ability to overcome it. Needing somewhere to keep the babies safe, the whole group departed for X-Factor's massive alien Ship. Its sensors allowed the New Mutants and X-Terminators to enter but as soon as it detected Gosamyr, it went berserk, putting her in a containment chamber and attempting to destroy her. The others saved her but it only intensified her feelings that she was endangering new friends. Ship told her that its databanks contained information on a planet of mystics whose inhabitants had taught others of her kind to control their destructive impulses. Ship produced a small starship for her and, after kissing Sam and Bobby goodbye, she departed for the stars.

Comments: Created by Louise Simonson, Bret Blevins and Terry Austin.

    An X-character who hasn't appeared in over thirty years? Shocking! She's an unusual character - sort of a blend of negative female stereotypes, inasmuch as she's frail and weak and faints a lot but she's also viciously emotionally manipulative. She's also kind of a weird character to add to the New Mutants, who already had one alien member, and I'm not sure if Simonson intended for her to be a long-term member of the cast before she jettisoned her post-Inferno.

    "Gossamer" is the fine spider silk produced by spiderlings, or a light, sheer fabric. Clearly, Louise Simonson anticipated the '90s by spelling it differently to be cooler.

    It's not explicitly mentioned if Gosamyr's brother was one of the members of her family Spyder had cocooned.

    Lila Cheney appears alive and well in Uncanny X-Men I#269 but no mention is made of what happened to Gosamyr's family.

    It's not entirely clear if Gosamyr is normally wearing any clothes. We briefly see her wearing clothes produced by her ship but she wears them over whatever she's usually wearing, whether that's some kind of white leotard or just her body. She is an alien, after all, and may not actually have anything that requires covering up.

    I'm not sure exactly why the "Minor Death" is such a sacrifice - she claims that it causes a member of her race to lose "our ability to influence the world around us," which I would assume means her emotion-control powers. It's implied to be permanent and indeed, after undergoing the Minor Death, she doesn't use them the way she did before - although that could also be because she realizes that using them on her friends is a nasty thing to do. She does use them afterwards on the Power family and some Inferno victims - that happened in Power Pack, though, which was not written by Louise Simonson, so it's possible writer Jon Bogdanove didn't get the memo (We do see Rictor and Rusty lusting after her in her final Simonson-penned appearance: that might not be her using her powers but rather those two being teenage boys).

    Thank you to Jacob Rougemont for scanning Gosamyr's main image!
    If only it didn't pick up an after image from the other side of the page! --Proto-Man

Profile by Minor Irritant.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Gosamyr, alien associate of the New Mutants, has no known connections to:

Gosamyr's family

(New Mutants I#67 (fb) / New Mutants I#70 (fb)) - A male member of an insectoid race had dealings with the alien slave master Spyder; they went poorly for him and he sold his entire family, including the young Gosamyr, into servitude. Spyder forced the other members of Gosamyr's family to go into their cocoon phase prematurely, intending to harvest the extremely valuable material of the cocoons, while he kept her as his personal servant. As he was unable to directly experience emotions, her powers were ineffective on him.

(New Mutants I#70) - Spyder took his new captive, Lila Cheney, to gloat over the cocooned aliens. However, the creatures, maddened by their premature development, began to emerge from their cocoons as mindless monsters. They went on a rampage, battling the New Mutants, and started to bore into the core of the planet, threatening to destroy it. Desperate, Lila Cheney teleported the creatures away, apparently into a nearby sun.

    In their adult forms, Gosamyr's family were enormously strong and powerful but totally mindless creatures, capable of destroying planets or even entire solar systems.. 

--New Mutants I#70 (New Mutants I#67 (fb), #70 (fb), #70d




images: (without ads)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Update '89, Gosamyr main image (main image)
New Mutants I#67, p5, pan1 (headshot)
New Mutants I#68, p16, pan4 (using emotion powers)
New Mutants I#70, p8, pan4-5 (Minor Death)
New Mutants I#69, p16, pan2 (vision of adult form)
New Mutants I#70, p12, pan1 (cocoons)
New Mutants I#70, p19, pan3 (Gosamyr's hatched family)

Appearances:
New Mutants I#66 (August, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Terry Austin (inks), Ann Nocenti and Bob Harras (editors)
New Mutants I#67-68 (September-October, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (art), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants I#69 (November, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants I#70 (December, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Terry Shoemaker (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
Power Pack I#42 (December, 1988) - Jon Bogdanove (writer/pencils), Stan Drake & Don Hudson (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
New Mutants I#71-72 (January-February, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
X-Terminators I#4 (January, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Jon Bogdanove (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants I#73 (March, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Al Williamson & Mike Manley (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
Power Pack I#44 (March, 1989) - Jon Bogdanove (writer/pencils), Russ Heath (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #4 (April, 1989) - Terry Austin (writer/inks), Mike Vosburg (pencils), Carl Potts (editor)
 New Mutants I#74 (April, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Bob Wiacek (inks), Bob Harras (editor)

First Posted: 03/04/2023
Last updated: 03/02/2023

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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