Main Characters: X-Men | Professor X | Magneto | Wolverine | Mystique | Jean Grey | Deadpool
Original Timeline: X-Men | Free Mutants | Other Mutants | Brotherhood | Weapon X | Humans | Hellfire Club
New Timeline: X-Men | New Mutants | X-Force | Apocalypse and His Followers | Transigen | Other Mutants | Humans | Weapon X | D'Bari | New Mutants Villains
Other Timelines: Earth-17040 | Earth-17372
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Demon Bear
Demon Bear
Played By: ?
Film Appearances: The New Mutants
A mysterious entity who is the physical manifestation of Dani Moonstar's greatest fear.
- Adaptational Heroism: Unlike the original Demon Bear Saga, Dani is able to control and calm him down.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Not long after the teens recognise that they can't escape Milbury Hospital without killing Dr. Reyes, Demon Bear devours the doctor, saving them the trouble.
- Bears Are Bad News: A gigantic grizzly bear that dwells in Dani's nightmares and manifests into the real world.
- The Dreaded: Is this for Dani.
- Final Boss: Of the film.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Its eyes glow a hellish red. It changes to a blue-white glow when Dani manages to get control of the monster.
- Kaiju: It is a giant bear the size of a blue whale that Dani fears in her dreams.
- Made of Evil: Is this according to Dani's description of it in the opening narration:Dani: (narrating) [The Demon Bear] is all things evil; fear, shame and self-destruction.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Despite the best efforts of Illyana, Sam, Rahne and Roberto to keep the Demon Bear from killing Dani, nothing they do makes so much as a scratch. It takes Dani calming the beast down for it to vanish into nothing.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Demon Bears eyes glow red, and it's a monstrous creature that causes death and destruction wherever it goes. Once Dani tames it, however, its eyes turn to a bluish white before Demon Bear disappears.
- Villainous Rescue: Demon Bear devours Dr. Reyes just before she can fatally suffocate Dani. The "rescue" part is downplayed by the fact that it immediately attacks the New Mutants once it's finished with Reyes.
Smiley Men
Smiley Men
Played By: Dustin Ceithammer, Marilyn Manson (voice)
Film Appearances: The New Mutants
Demonic creatures from Illyana's past that torment the New Mutants.
- Canon Foreigner: There is no comic book counterpart to the Smiley Men.
- That said, their smiling masks could be a reference to The Right, an anti-mutant supremacist group that often attacked the New Mutants in the comics. One of their main gimmicks is the robot suits The Right members wear all have smiling faces, which earn them the nickname "Smileys", in the comics.
- Creepily Long Arms: Their arms (and legs, for that matter) are inhumanly long and thin.
- The Dreaded: They're this for Illyana. Being confronted with them reduces her to terrified sobbing, and it's several minutes before she can work up the nerve to fight back.
- Expy:
- As long-limbed, black-clad, child-hunting monsters with no eyes, they come across as the film's equivalent to the Slender Man.
- Their disturbingly wide grins, black suits, and inhuman motion is evocative of the Gentlemen. For bonus points, the episode of Buffy that features the Gentlemen is shown during the movie.
- Eyeless Face: They don't have eyes, just skin stretched over empty eye sockets.
- Lean and Mean: They're monstrous, child-abusing creatures who are inhumanly tall and thin.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's ambiguous as to whether the Smiley Men are actual monsters that tormented Illyana, or if they simply represent how the young Illyana saw the men who enslaved and abused her.
- Paper Tiger: They look scary, but aren't very tough; Roberto and Sam manage to kill a few of them almost by accident, and when Illyana starts fighting back, she cuts them to pieces with ease.
- Scary Teeth: Oooh, yes.
- Tattooed Crook: They either represent or are gangsters who kept Illyana as a Sex Slave, and their torsos are covered in Mafiya-esque tattoos.
- Would Hurt a Child: They tormented and abused Illyana when she was a child, and their screentime is spent trying to kill the teenaged New Mutants.
Reverend Craig
Reverend Craig
"AND LIKE CHRIST, I RISE AGAIN!"
Played By: Happy Anderson
Film Appearances: The New Mutants
A priest from Rahne's past who beat and abused her when her powers first manifested.
- Burn the Witch!: More like brand the witch, but the feeling is clear given how he reacted to Rahne's mutant power.
- Death by Adaptation: Takes no part in the original storyline and only died decades later. Here he is long dead having been killed by Rahne.
- The Dreaded: Is this for Rahne. She is frozen in fear from the moment she sees him walking into the shower with a red hot branding iron in his hand.Rahne: (shaking with terror) You're not real. I killed you!Reverend Craig: AND LIKE CHRIST, I RISE AGAIN!
- Facial Horror: When we see an illusion of him, the left side of his face is all torn up and bloody because of what Rahne did to him.
- Large Ham: His brief screentime has him devour the scenery with aplomb.
- Posthumous Character: Has been dead long before the events of the movie. He was killed by Rahne after he had beaten and branded her.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: Reverend Craig is Rahne's biological father (although Rahne believed him to be her foster father instead) in the comics, whereas in the movie he is only her priest.
SPOILER CHARACTER
Cecelia Reyes
"Danielle takes your greatest fear, and makes you live through it, over and over, until it kills you..."
Played By: Alice Braga
Film Appearances: The New Mutants
A mutant with the ability to generate force fields, who tried to make five young mutants control their powers to turn them into Essex Corporation's personal killers. She was also a mutant-specialized medical doctor in Milbury Hospital.- Adaptational Badass: In the comics the extent of Reyes's mutant power is she can envelop her own body in a force field and extend parts of it a short distance. In the movie she surrounds the entire hospital grounds in a force field bubble that's at least a mile across, and she can project separate force field bubbles around other people to restrain them and kill them by crushing them inside a shrinking force field.
- Adaptational Villainy: A heroic ally of the X-Men in the comics, but here, she works for Mr. Sinister's Essex Corporation and is the Big Bad of the movie.
- Asshole Victim: No tears were shed when she was killed by Demon Bear.
- Barrier Warrior: Her mutant power allows her to create force fields, including the one surrounding the hospital.
- Big Bad: She initially is this to the New Mutants.
- Big Bad Wannabe: She devolves into this, as she is revealed to be following orders from the Essex Corporation and is no match for the Demon Bear that threatens the New Mutants.
- Boomerang Bigot: She is a mutant herself, and is in league with mutant hunters.
- Control Freak: Reyes doesn't respond well to the teens acting outside her will or defying her authority, throwing them, especially Illyana, into solitary confinement when they act up.
- Creepy Monotone: Reyes's voice rarely rises above a steady tone that is likely meant to sound reassuring, but instead comes off as unsettling.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Judging from her screaming as Demon Bear chomped down on her body, Reyes' death was neither quick nor painless.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Reyes seems disturbed when her superiors order her to terminate Dani, but that doesn't stop her from trying to go through with it.
- Expy: Of Nurse Ratched.
- Facial Horror: Rahne viciously claws half of Reyes' face to save Dani. Close-ups show that the attack damaged one of the not-so-good doctor's eyes.
- Faux Affably Evil: Reyes tries to come across as a compassionate doctor who works to help young people, but her constant surveillance of the teens and refusal to allow them to leave makes her come across as sinister even before she's revealed to be working for the Essex Corporation. Both times she tries to kill Dani, Reyes ignores her pleas and soothingly talks about how Dani's death is for the best and how she'll soon be with her family.
- The Heavy: While not the sole threat of the movie, Reyes is running Milbury Hospital on behalf of her Essex Corporation superiors (and implicitly, Mr. Sinister himself).
- Lack of Empathy: Played with. The way she compares her work with the teens to her mother's work as a veterinarian suggests that Reyes sees the teens she's claiming to help as little more than animals. That said, her comparing Dani to a rabid dog that needs to be put down implies that she's not totally dead to human suffering, and that she needs to justify her actions, at least to herself.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: She's not trying to help the New Mutants; she's evaluating them for placement in Essex's programs to weaponize their powers. At minimum, she's aware of what Essex Corporation's affiliate Transigen gets up to.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Reyes tries to justify killing Dani by comparing her to a rabid dog she had owned as a child and claiming that left unchecked, Dani's power would kill all of them. However, she didn't come to the decision herself (she was ordered by her superiors to terminate Dani, and mentions that it's a test of her own willingness to obey), making her justifications come off as self-delusion to ease her conscience.
- The Quisling: Reyes is a mutant who works for a corporation that exploits mutants.
- Villain Has a Point: Her assessment of Illyana as a misanthrope with a hatred for authority is dead-on, which even Illyana can't argue with, despite her disgust with Reyes. She also points out that as long as Dani can't get a grip on her powers she's a danger to all around her, though her solution is to kill Dani.
- Villainous Breakdown: Downplayed, but the pain and blood loss from being mauled by Rahne does a number on Reyes' composure, causing her to rant about how the teens should be grateful for her efforts and her voice taking on a sadistic edge as she tries to suffocate Dani with a force field.
- Would Hurt a Child: She's willing to gas a teenager to death on her superiors' orders, and the implications of what would have become of the other teens if left in her care are grim.
