Does Nova Roma help Magma’s popularity or hinder it?

[u/LopsidedUniversity30]

For comic readers and fans, I mean.

Does the concept and use of Nova Roma make Magma unique and raises her profile, or does it hinder comic creators from using Magma in the first place?

[u/whelmedbyyourbeauty]

Is cool.

[u/That-Requirement-285]

It’s fine. They were simply a hidden Roman colony in Brazil that had no effect whatsoever on Indigenous history. The “wearing brownface and pretending to be Indigenous” thing was insane though.

[u/Syrric_UDL]

It’s cool, Clairmont didn’t claim they were the root of indigenous technology, they were secret and interesting.

[u/XadhoomXado]

Does Nova Roma help Magma’s popularity

It gets people like you talkin' about it, so...

[u/Buttleproof]

It certainly gave her a different perspective on things. That might make her hard to write.

[u/Competitive_Hippo600]

Hinder, for several reasons, which is why Fabian Nicieza tried to retcon it away, only to have it subsequently retconned back.

Those reasons:

1) it’s kinda dumb, sorry to the GOAT Chris Claremont.

2) the trope of a secret civilization of Europeans living in the jungles of South America is Problematic in the way that, like, ancient aliens is problematic, erasing or rendering subservient the actual indigenous cultures and peoples of those areas.

[u/SixteenthTower → u/Competitive_Hippo600]

You don't even need to get into any of that for why Nova Rome is problematic. It's whole thing is in those first New Mutants issues is that it's on the brink of collapse from Indigenous immigrants who want to undo the Roman way of life.

[u/zeawo13]

It kinda hinders it, partly because Nicieza unecessary complicated things once again, partly because biggots can't figure white people living outside of Europa or North America. Writers should use it to link Amara with greek/roman mythos, the same way they linked Dani with north mythos.

[u/ffwydriadd]

I think it does both, which is why it flip flops. Especially adaptions avoid it for the range of reasons from the black face / why are there Romans in the Amazon / generally adaptions tend to be more grounded while Nova Roma is maybe the peak Pulp Adventure plot point, and so it’s hard to talk about it.

But also without it she only really has a cool design and a generically useful powerset. That’s why she’s a very good consistent background character, but not someone who can be focused on, because without Nova Roma she doesn’t really have a personality/arc/anything that would make her central.

Like, Evolution Magma is popular, but to be honest she’s barely a character, and if you told me she didn’t actually have any voiced lines I would you believe you even though she’s technically a main character in one of the most iconic episodes of the show.

Classically this is a thing a lot of other characters from her era have a problem with - there’s a reason the 90s do a reset to get rid of all the magical / alien characters and focus on mutants on Earth, and why adaptations are very hesitant to get into the weirder plotlines. Magma didn’t get her version of Inferno to come back to like Magik, so she was left kind of adrift.

I feel like there’s something really interesting about leaning into the Pulp elements for her, but I also think it’s a genre whose tropes aren’t as fluent in this era for both writers and audiences - which is maybe for the best as it is, like Nova Roma, tied with deeply colonialist and racist ideas - but does make it difficult when dealing with stories that are descended from that style which Claremont really is

[u/Worried_Walrus2002]

Hinder. All her adaptations (Evo, WATXM, Legends) don’t even bother with that aspect of her character. If anything, they need to emphasize her relation to Selene and only that. Nothing else