LOCA

Real Name: Unrevealed ("Loca" is possibly part of her real name)

Identity/Class: Human mutant (possibly magically-enhanced)

Occupation: Soldier

Group Membership: Inferno Babies (Alex, Bob, Face, Maw, Russell, Scab, Shauna, Toko, Timothy, Trista)

Affiliations: Gosamyr, Inferno Babies, the Lost Boys (and Girls) (Big Top, Monitor, Shatterbox/Joey & Gailyn Bailey, Speedfreak), Project Purgatory (Dr. Noc, Gen. Charles Ulysses, McDonald, others), Nathan Summers, the X-Terminators (Boom-Boom/Tabitha Smith, Rusty Collins, Leech, Artie Maddicks, Rictor/Julio Richter, Skids/Sally Blevins, Wiz Kid/Takeshi Matsuya);
    formerly the New Mutants (Cannonball/Sam Guthrie, Mirage/Danielle Moonstar, Sunspot/Roberto Da Costa, Warlock)

Enemies: General Combest, N'astirh, the New Mutants (Cannonball/Sam Guthrie, Cypher/Doug Ramsey, Karma/Xi'an Coy Manh, Magik/Illyana Rasputin, Magma/Amara Aquilla, Danielle Moonstar, Sunspot/Roberto Da Costa), Pixie (Megan Gwynn)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: The Hatchery, Otherplace;
    formerly an unidentified US military base; the State Home for Foundlings, Omaha, Nebraska, USA; Times Square, Manhattan, New York, USA

First Appearance: (unidentified) X-Terminators I#3 (December, 1988);
    (identified) New Mutants III#20 (February, 2011)

Powers/Abilities: Loca had the mutant ability to sense emotions via taste or smell. She could use this ability to track certain emotions. Positive emotions gave her a pleasant but sobering feeling but especially negative emotions had an intoxicating effect on her.

    Over time, various parts of Loca's body (mostly limbs) were replaced by either demonic or cybernetic prosthetics, granting her enhanced and in cases, possibly superhuman, strength in those limbs.

    Loca also seemed to possess a great deal of gymnastic capability and manual dexterity, able to swing around by grasping objects, though whether this ability was an inherent skill or if it resulted from the demonic/cybernetic prosthetic limbs she possessed remains to be seen.

Height: Unrevealed (approximately 5'7")
Weight: Unrevealed (approximately 150 lbs.)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black

History:
(X-Terminators I#3) - After the Otherplace demon N'astirh was instructed to steal thirteen power-filled babies (beings of both purity and great potential power) to sacrifice for the demon S'ym to open a mystic portal for his demonic hordes to invade and conquer Earth, the infant later known as Loca was one of the mutant children kidnapped and brought to Manhattan's Times Square for the ritual. While S'ym demons brought food and other supplies needed for the infants, the mutants Leech and Artie Maddicks watched over the babies. N'astirh soon forced the also-captured Wiz Kid to build a computer capable of processing his sacrificial spell and Otherplace demons handled the babies while Wiz Kid stalled N'astirh until the young mutant X-Terminators arrived to save them. The X-Terminators gathered up the children but they were soon defeated by N'astirh's Otherplace demons when Leech's power-draining abilities temporarily removed the X-Terminators' powers. Once Wiz Kid had reluctantly completed the computer, N'astirh ordered his demons to fly the babies to designated spots above Times Square to begin the sacrificial ritual.

(X-Terminators I#4) - The Inferno Babies remained in their designated spots as N'astirh's spell flooded New York with demons.

(New Mutants I#72) - The ritual was disrupted by a combined effort from the X-Terminators and the heroic New Mutants, who safely rescued the Inferno Babies were their designated spots in N'astirh's spell.

(X-Terminators I#4) - The Inferno Babies safely made it to ground level with the X-Terminators and New Mutants.

(New Mutants I#72) - The Inferno Babies remained with the New Mutants as the New Mutants and X-Terminators discussed how to help their injured teammates and what to do with the rescued babies. Ultimately, the groups decided to continue working together with some of them heading off to continue the fight while others stayed behind at a church to care for the injured and the babies.

(New Mutants I#73 - BTS) - For a time, the Otherplace demons ignored the church but they soon attacked it seeking the Inferno Babies, only to be repelled by Rusty Collins, Skids and the injured Mirage. When the demons began to be pulled away by flames, Mirage assumed it was the work of her teammate Magik and she opted to go check on the situation with the alien Gosamyr agreeing to stay behind to watch the babies.

(X-Factor I#35 (fb) - BTS) - The Inferno Babies were sent in the State Home for Foundlings orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska, where they were placed in machinery to keep them sleeping.

(X-Factor I#35) - When the Goblin Queen and N'astirh sought to reopen the portal to Otherplace by sacrificing some of the children, N'astirh sent demons to retrieve the rescued children from the orphanage, unaware that X-Factor's Cyclops and Marvel Girl were there attempting to retrieve Cyclops' son Nathan Christopher Summers. The demons arrived to find Cyclops and Marvel Girl battling the misguided Nanny and her Lost Boys (and Girls), who also sought to "rescue" the mutant babies. During the battle between between Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Nanny's brainwashed children, the demons stole the Inferno Babies from Nanny's Lost Boys (and Girls), flying off into the night to return the children to N'astirh.

(X-Factor I#36 - BTS) - N'astirh gloated that his demons were on the way to deliver the recaptured children.

(X-Factor I#37 - BTS) - N'astirh's demons delivered Nathan Summers and the other Inferno Babies to N'astirh and N'astirh immediately snatched up Nathan to present him to the Goblin Queen for sacrifice.

(New Mutants III#16 (fb) - BTS) - Following N'astirh and the Goblin Queen's defeat, the Inferno Babies were turned over to the US government. Using flesh from the mutant infants used to open the portal to limbo, Dr. Noc reverse-engineered a portal to limbo. Dr. Noc continued working to weaponize the infants in a few years time.

(New Mutants III#16 (fb)) - General Charles Ulysses was brought in with the promise of a new assignment involving mutants. Meeting with General Combest, Ulysses was led into the area housing the Inferno Babies, who were being experimented on in an effort to transform the infants into living weapons. Unsure about the babies, Ulysses questioned Combest whether the Project's Dr. Noc had isolated the genetic trigger to start the infants' mutant powers but Dr. Noc answered that it wasn't so much finding a trigger in their genes. As he removed a triangular slice of flesh from one of the babies, Dr. Noc reminded Ulysses that the infants had been used to open a doorway to a demonic dimension and that it was their flesh that was the key to the government's project. Ulysses was then given the mission of raising and training the Inferno Babies within the timeless realm of Otherplace. Not long after, the babies were moved to a military base nicknamed the Hatchery within Otherplace.

(New Mutants III#16 (fb)) - Two hundred and sixty-three Earth days later (and one thousand, five hundred and thirty-three Otherplace days), Dr. Noc was performing stress trigger tests on the now grade school aged Inferno Babies and he placed one of them inside a cage, subsequently surrounding the child with demons. Several weeks later, after some of the Hatchery soldiers recovered a bloodstone locket from a temporal counterpart of Illyana Rasputin, Witchfire led an army of demons to assault the Hatchery.

(New Mutants III#18 (fb) - BTS) - The mutant children slew the demons, although one of them had his face blown off by the emergence of his mutant powers.

(New Mutants III#16 (fb)) - As the demonic attack continued, Dr. Noc was ordered to check on the Inferno Babies but Noc discovered that demons had entered the Hatchery and he reported back that they were all dead. Ulysses communicated with General Combest, confirming the children's supposed deaths and requesting permission to exit through portal Epsilon, but Combest instead ordered the portal sealed to prevent contamination from Otherplace, essentially leaving Ulysses and his men stranded in Otherplace with the only exit portal being in a transient location.

(New Mutants III#18 (fb)) - Moments later, as Loca and the others watched, Noc clarified to the arriving Ulysses that the children survived, and that it was the demons who had died. Days later, Loca and the other children watched as safety and firing mechanisms were installed on Face. During this, General Ulysses proclaimed all of the children to be soldiers and assured them that he would respect them as long as they respected his authority. Dr. Noc also informed the children that, while they might have once seen the Project Purgatory staff as their captors, they all needed each other now and the staff were not the bad guys. As Loca and the others remained grouped together, one of the mutants asked who the bad guys were and a smirking General Ulysses remarked that he was glad they asked.

(New Mutants III#17 (fb) - BTS) - Ulysses and his men, as well as the now adult Inferno Babies traveled 600 miles "blood-north" through the shifting worlds of the Elsewhere Desert.

(New Mutants III#18 (fb) - BTS) - The Inferno Babies were informed of the New Mutants and told that they were bad guys alongside the US government officials that had stranded them in Otherplace.

(New Mutants III#16) - After General Ulysses found his way back to Earth and led a mission to capture the X-Man Pixie, during which he took possession of her Soul Dagger, General Combest confronted Ulysses and accused of losing his mind during his tour of duty within Otherplace. When Combest exclaimed that he should have court-martialed Ulysses after he lost the weaponized children, Ulysses calmly remarked that the Inferno Babies hated being referred to as "weapons." Loca and the other Inferno Babies then killed General Combest, revealing to him that they were very much still alive.

(New Mutants III#17 (fb) - BTS) - Loca and the other mutants obliterated an entire battalion of the US Army in approximately 30 seconds.

(New Mutants III#17) - When Magik and the other New Mutants arrived to rescue Pixie and began traveling towards her location, one of General Ulysses' soldiers wondered if they were safe in their location after having taken out the army battalion, prompting Loca to smirk as her teammate Timothy noted that he and his mutant allies had been the ones to take out the army, and that with the speed and ease with which they had done so, they were safe there for as long as they needed. Eventually, Magik and the New Mutants arrived at Ulysses' headquarters and General Ulysses unleashed the Inferno Babies against the New Mutants. Magik at first held back, noticing the scent of Otherplace on the mutants but when they demanded her Soulsword, Magik refused and tensions between the two groups rose.

(New Mutants III#18) - Loca and the other Inferno Babies readied themselves against the New Mutants as the mutant Russell informed the New Mutants how they had been informed about all of them. Russell revealed how all of the Inferno Babies were mutants like the New Mutants but instead of being allowed to stay with them, they were turned over to the "bad guys" in the US government. After Cypher confirmed from Russell's demeanor that the mutants had been indoctrinated, Danielle Moonstar realized the mutants were the Inferno Babies they had turned over to the US government following the demonic invasion of Earth. When Toko informed the New Mutants that their teammate Magik would be killed once General Ulysses was through with her, the New Mutants refused to allow that and the battle between the two mutant teams began. Loca immediately identified Karma as a viral telepath and pointed her out to her teammate Alex, whose amoeboid body enveloped Karma's head. Loca then faced off against Danielle Moonstar, whose emotions Loca was able to smell. Quickly realizing Moonstar had no actual superhuman powers, Loca claimed that it wasn't anger she smelled but fear. Moonstar attempted to fight back but Loca announced her plans to taste Moonstar's pain, admitting that she enjoyed desperation. Loca then pinned Moonstar's arm back and ordered Moonstar to look at her, her eyes growing wide before she broke Moonstar's arm and punched her in the face using her demonic arm. Loca's downing of Moonstar distracted Sunspot, who was in turn downed by Scab. The other New Mutants were each taken down as well and once they had all been captured, Loca smiled at the possibility of being allowed to do whatever she wanted to them.

(New Mutants III#19 (fb) - BTS) - The Inferno Babies drew for which New Mutants they would be assigned to watch over and Loca drew Cannonball.

(New Mutants III#19) - When Cannonball awoke in a straight jacket surrounded by dynamite, Loca informed him of his situation and warned that if he tried to use his powers, he would ignite the dynamite and kill them all. Cannonball asked what she wanted and Loca revealed her mutant abilities to smell and taste emotions, noting that the New Mutants' love for one another was pleasant but the anguish that might be caused if something were to happen to them would be delicious. A scream soon emanated from the adjacent cell and Cannonball recognized it as Danielle Moonstar, who was being tortured by Timothy and some of General Ulysses' soldiers. Loca quickly found herself in a sense of euphoria at the emotions displayed by Cannonball upon seeing Moonstar tortured. Realizing that Loca was getting exactly what she wanted from Cannonball, Moonstar claimed her torture didn't hurt and informed Cannonball that he was a great kisser. Suddenly feeling great at hearing that Moonstar had enjoyed her kiss with him, Cannonball overcome his feelings of anguish and Loca immediately sensed his emotional change. Demanding to know what happened to his anguish, Loca found Cannonball instead swooning over the knowledge that Moonstar had enjoyed their kiss and an angry Loca smacked him against the wall. Project Purgatory soon began preparations to return to Otherplace and Loca brought Cannonball to the military base's collider tunnels to regroup with her teammates, Maw commenting that Loca got cranky when she went hungry. Loca responded by telling Maw to shut up.

(New Mutants III#20) - After Karma, Magik and Pixie escaped with the help of Face, Loca attempted to intimidate Danielle Moonstar, commenting on how she could smell the feelings of hope on Moonstar and asking Moonstar if she thought her friends would arrive to rescue them before Moonstar's broken arm healed incorrectly. She also apologized for being a bit loopy, claiming that the despair emanating from the other New Mutants' cell was intoxicating and that she was getting quite a buzz off the shame her teammate Russell was feeling over his jealousy of the mind-controlled New Mutant Cypher. Complaining that Moonstar's hope was sobering her up, Loca griped that she couldn't wait to put an end to the "living hangover" that was Moonstar, prompting Moonstar to ask what Loca was waiting for. Upon arriving in Otherplace, General Ulysses and his men met with three demons who spoke on behalf of the Otherplace demons and during the meeting, Ulysses ordered Loca to sacrifice the New Mutants and prepare for their endgame. After taking down demons and getting hit with a few arrows on the way, Loca prepared to sacrifice Moonstar first, only to enter Moonstar's cell and realize Moonstar had successfully downed several demons within her cell despite her broken arm. Moonstar then surprised Loca and ordered her to look at her, much as Loca had done when she had broken Moonstar's arm. Wielding a bow with her one good arm and a foot, Moonstar fired an arrow directly into Loca's heart, killing her.

Comments: Created (as an unidentified infant) by Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove and Al Milgrom. Further fleshed (as Loca) by Zeb Wells and Leonard Kirk.

    Several Inferno Babies are seen in X-Terminators I#2 (November, 1988) but none seem to match the description of the girl that became Loca. X-Terminators I#3 seems to be a more accurate first appearance, as there is a baby in that issue that somewhat resembles Loca (Caucasian female with brown hair).

    I approximated Loca's weight as being slightly heavier than a normal human her age and build to account for the metallic and demonic prosthetic limbs.

    It's hard to believe they never got a better name than the "Inferno Babies..." --Snood

    We see so many stories where Spider-Man or someone fights to uphold this no killing standard...in this one, Dani Moonstar shoots Loca in the neck with an arrow, and Cannonball deliberately smashes though a monorail, killing Scab, Noc, and others. --Snood

    This profile was completed 09/18/2025 but its publication was delayed, as it was intended for the Appendix 25^th anniversary celebratory event.

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Loca should be distinguished from:

• other "Loca" characters, groups, items, races or events

Appearances:
X-Terminators I#3 (December, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Jon Bogdanove (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
X-Factor I#35 (December, 1988) - Louise Simonson (writer), Terry Shoemaker (pencils), Joe Rubinstein (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
X-Terminators#4 (January, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Jon Bogdanove (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
X-Factor I#36 (January, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Walter Simonson (pencils), Bob Wiacek (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants I#72 (February, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
X-Factor I#37 (February, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Walter Simonson (pencils), Bob Wiacek (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants I#73 (March, 1989) - Louise Simonson (writer), Bret Blevins (pencils), Al Williamson, Mike Manley (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
New Mutants III#16 (October, 2010) - Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk (art), Nick Lowe (editor)
New Mutants III#17 (November, 2010) - Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk (art), Nick Lowe (editor)
New Mutants III#18 (December, 2010) - Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk (art), Nick Lowe (editor)
New Mutants III#19 (January, 2011) - Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk (art), Nick Lowe (editor)
New Mutants III#20 (February, 2011) - Zeb Wells (writer), Leonard Kirk, Andrew Currie (art), Nick Lowe (editor)

First posted: 09/03/2026
Last updated: 09/18/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com

Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!

Back to Characters