By Marc Strom
Writer Zeb Wells and artist Diogenes Neves bring the gang back together in NEW MUTANTS #1 on May 6, reuniting the original team for all-new adventures in a brave new world. And to celebrate the much-anticipated reunion, Marvel.com takes a look back at the histories of those individual team members from their first appearances to the present.
Concluding today with
Magma, catch up on anything you may have missed and everything you'll need to know to meet these characters once again when the new series kicks off. Plus, NEW MUTANTS scribe Zeb Wells gives cuts through Magma's history to determine what lies at the character's core!
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A Life Full of Eruptions
Given that Magma first developed her powers in an active volcano, it should come as no surprise that her life has never had much stability.
While not technically a charter member of the New Mutants, the young heroine first encountered the group when an early mission took them to the strange country of Nova Roma. In a community resembling that of ancient Rome led by the villainess Selene, Amara Aquila discovered her powers when her not-so-kind leader tossed her into the aforementioned volcano as a human sacrifice.
Surviving to battle with Selene alongside the New Mutants, Amara left Nova Roma to join Charles Xavier's school. After a number of conflagrations with Emma Frost's band of young mutants-in-training, the Hellions, Magma developed feelings for one of the White Queen's pupils, Empath.
Eventually, Amara left the New Mutants to join the Hellions and pursue a relationship with Empath. However, their relationship ended when Magma discovered Empath had been subtly manipulating her emotions.
Around this time, Magma discovered that Selene had created the town of Nova Roma by brainwashing a population of British citizens. The heroine learned that her true name, Allison Crestmere, and for a time "Allison's" personality took control until a brutal attack
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by the Church of Humanity left her comatose. After the New X-Man Elixir revived her, the Amara personality came to the surface once again.
When the Decimation wave that depowered most mutants hit the world, Amara lost her boyfriend as he fell into a volcano. Driven temporarily insane, she eventually regained control of herself and most recently helped defend San Francisco with the rest of the X-Men from the Skrulls' invasion forces.
Getting Down to the Core
For Magma, the New Mutants' reunion proves how she truly has become fully integrated as a member of the team.
"When [the New Mutants] first formed she wasn't there, she came a little bit later and was kind of the new girl on the team," Wells recounts. "And when we pick back up with her now, she doesn't have that attached to her anymore. She's another character [who has] kind of, at least for our purposes, wrapped up a lot of the loose ends in her past and is looking to move on. So she's no longer hindered by the past, as she was [before]."
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Throughout her history, Magma has undergone a few identity crises. However, Wells divulges that he wants to focus more on what makes Amara really tick and get down to what drives the decisions she makes.
"When a history gets that convoluted, you've really got to go back and look at the big picture and the character decisions that a lot of her storylines were based on," the writer explains. "And I think that when you go back and look at her relationship with the Hellions, and the fact that she joined the Hellions at one point, and that she was in love with Empath, I think all of that points to a character that likes to follow her gut—or follow her heart more than follow her gut, actually.
"You look at all that convoluted stuff and you try to pick out the core of the character. This is a character that's very emotional [and who has] a lot of heart and [a lot of] trust in her heart, and going forward I want to deal with her through that lens."
With no real family of her own, over time the New Mutants and X-Men have become the next best thing for Amara, something that will reflect itself in the upcoming series.
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"She definitely still feels that the New Mutants are her family," Wells relates. "Especially because I think that the connections that you form in the time of your life when all the New Mutants were together are pretty strong, and I think they're definitely strong well into your twenties. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of a real family for her, I think she'd naturally gravitate towards the New Mutants."
Visit Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited for more Magma. We hope you've enjoyed New Mutants Week and remember to pick up NEW MUTANTS #1 on May 6!
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