Thoughts

The pulp epic that is the New Mutants in New Rome comes to an end in this issue, sticking wholeheartedly to the b-movie template. There’s a big showdown with the villain, or rather with two villains. The threat to New Rome is defeated and the Vampire is seemingly killed – although tellingly nobody gets to see a body.

It feels slightly overstuffed at time, but in a good way. Reading it, I feel that loads more could have been made by so many different aspects of the story – for example Rahne as Roman God. But wanting more from a story is a pretty good sign of strong imaginative storytelling.

Amara seems to have joined the team at the end, which is intriguing. Such is the complexity of her backstory, its going to be interesting how committed the next few issues get with taking seriously the fact that her origins are so alien. Will she return to the mansion and within a few issues simply be the beautiful blond American teen?

I guess Claremont probably felt there was more mileage having such a character as an outsider as he was finding it possible to write for when it came to Karma. It’s also a lot easier to avoid stereotypes when your foreign character is from an entirely fictitious and fantastical foreign land.

Fun Panel

Every now and then its great to take time out when reading a comic and reflect on the image you’ve just looked at. And consider just how brilliantly barking mad it is. In this case, Girl who has just discovered her body can turn into Magma bursts in on her Evil Father, who happens to be plotting to make himself Emporer of a South American outposts of the Roman Empire hidden in the Amazon. Thereby thwarting his plan to poison a Boy who canfly by turning his legs into thermo-chemical energy.

Wonderful.

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

Selene is going to go on to have a part in the X-universe, but its worth considering just how insanely powerful she is. She can manipulate all inanimate matter. She can mind control. She can drain the life force from others to make herself stronger. And yet she always remains a minor tier threat.

None More Claremont

Claremont is back in his world of cosy comics-code-friendly Domination here. An older woman preying on an adolescent is already eye-brow raising so its interesting how far they go into defining the predation as full-on temptation and pleasure. On one level, Selene has been described as a “vampire” and this is all well within the scope of established Vampire storytelling tropes. But it feels slightly clumsy to then present it in this context, with the seduced being an underage girl in a bikini. The unbroken link described here doesn’t really become an element going forward, though. Claremont already had Magik to explore these ideas, so its probably a relief they didn’t go down this road with another teen character.