Real Name: AMARA "AMY" JULIANA OLIVIANS AQUILLA (later retconned to Alison Crestmere)
First Appearance: NEW MUTANTS #8
Place of birth: Nova Roma, Brazil (later retconned to somewhere in England)
Known relatives: Lucius Antonius Aquilla (father, possibly adopted, in Nova Roma)
Height: 5'6
Weight: 124 lbs.
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Brown
Amara was the first addition to the New Mutants team. The character had a truly original origin. She was a mutant living in a hidden valley in Brazil called Nova Roma. "New Rome" was the home of Roman descendants who fled Rome in the First Century BC. There they mingled with the Incans, and lived by the old ways for the last 2000 years. As a result of this, Magma had a hard time adapting when she left her home society and came to the modern world.
Amy was always seen writing lettes back to her father remarking about things the average comic book reader takes for granted, like electricity. The character did seem to grow more comfortable in her surroundings, but was always a bit of an outsider from the rest of the team. She rebuffed Sam's romantic advances, though she greatly respected the American boy. Magma's decision to leave the team and join the Hellions, as well as her feelings for the Hellion Empath (real or manipulated?), were an excellent plot twists that never quite came to fruition.
Magma's characer, and, in fact, many of the early New Mutants stories involving her, suffer greatly because of one of the worst retons in X-History. After the cancellation of The New Mutants, it was revealed that Nova Roma was actually a farce, and all of its citizens, including Magma, were mind controlled into believing they were part of the ancient society. The villainess behind this was Selene, but nevertheless, Magma's entire history became null and void, and Amara Aquilla became Amy Crestmere, a lost English mutant with no history or past. Unfortunately, she also became much less interesting.
Magma was the daughter of Lucius Antonius Aquilla, First Senator of Nova Roma, a hidden city in the Amazon jungles of Brazil. Senator Lucius Aquilla was the leader of an opposition to a faction that wished to turn Nova Roma into an imperial state. Senator Aquilla sent his daughter Amara to live in the jungles outside Nova Roma, disguised as an Indian, to save her from the Black Priestess and her Fire Cult, who dealt in human sacrifice. Later, the senator discovered that the Black Priestess was actually the immortal mutant Selene, wife of Senator Marcus Domitius Gallio, the leader of the Imperial faction.
Amara remained in hiding for years until she was captured by the New Mutants, who were on an expedition in the Amazon jungle. They learned of her disguise, but then both Amara and the New Mutants were captured by soldiers of Nova Roma and imprisoned. Now held prisoner by Selene, Amara was to be sacrificed. Selene used her mutant powers to drain Amara's life energy into her own body. The New Mutant named Mirage attacked Selene. This distraction caused Selene to release Amara from her control, but Selene knocked Amara into the pit of lava.
Somehow, rather than harming Amara, her immersion in the lava awakened her latent mutant powers. Together, Amara, with her new-found powers, and the New Mutants defeated Selene and helped thwart Senator Gallio's attempt to kill Senator Aquilla and seize power. Amara was instructed to go to the United States with the New Mutants and there learn about modern civilization. Amara did so and became a member of the New Mutants under the code-name Magma.
Amara had a difficult time adjusting to life in modern day America. Sam made it clear he had developed a crush on her, but "Amy" as her friends began calling her, did not know what to make of this. Eventually, Amara begin to fit in with the rest of the team, and began to get used to things like television.
During the New Mutants trip to Asgard, Amara became the victim of an evil enchantment, and actually found herself transformed into one of the faery folk. After returning to Earth, and her true form, Amara shocked her teammates by informing them of her decision to leave the New Mutants and join the Hellions.
Amara had fallen for the Hellion, Empath. Her teammates suspected that he had used his powers on her to influence her emotions, but Amara claimed that was not the case. Both Amy and Manuel (Empath) came from aristocratic pasts, and Amy claimed that was her attraction to him. Regardless, Amara left her friends at Xavier's, and joined the Hellions.
Magma sided with her new teammates the Hellions during their next encounter with the New Mutants, though she wasn't entirely comfortable with that. She eventually left the Hellions, alongside Empath, to return to her home of Nova Roma. She was last seen in the pages of the New Mutants in a flashback issue that marked the return of Chris Claremont. In that story, she met the Marvel hero Hercules, one of the gods of her childhood.
Amara has the ability to generate and project bursts of heat (up to at least 850 degrees Fahrenheit) and flame. Magma can use this ability to turn nearby rock molten. She can then telekinetically hurl this rock at an opponent. When using her powers, Magma usually shifts, by act of will, into a glowing form that shines with intense light and gives off intense heat. Magma also possesses invulnerability to heat or flame and from being blinded by intense light.
Magma also has the psionic ability to control the area of tectonic plates under the surface of the ground within a radius of a few thousand feet, thereby creating earthquakes within that area. Magma can also cause magma, molten rock or lave to rise from underground and break through the Earth's surface, thereby creating miniature volcanoes, and hurl molten rock telekinetically.
Magma can trigger small earth tremors when in her human form, but can only generate heat or flame or telekinetically hurl molten rock when she is in her glowing form. Magma's powers depend on her maintaining contact with the Earth or whichever planet she is on, or at least with a floor that is part of a structure in contact with the ground. Magma's powers are linked to her emotions; hence, by losing her temper she can temporarily lose control of her powers.
After the New Mutants Amara and Empath remained in Nova Roma. There, Amara sensed something was different about her homeland and its people but could not discern what was worrying her.
Later, all of the remaining members of the Hellions were killed by Trevor Fitzroy. Warpath, joined by Firestar and Cannonball, who were all once members of the Hellions, went to South America to tell Amara and Empath of the death of their former teammates. While there, they discovered that Amara and all the people of this city had been living a lie. The city had not been founded by ancient Roman settlers. Instead, it was populated by the kidnapped and mind-wiped victims of the mutant sorceress Selene. She had created the city as a testament to the times she loved most and desperately wanted to relive. The people of Nova Roma started to regain their memories and Amara was told that her name was Allison Crestmere and that she was a mutant of British descent.
Upset, Amara left Empath and Nova Roma to find out her true history. She later resurfaced once again as a member of the New Hellions under King Bedlam and battled her former friends in X-Force. In the end, Magma stayed true to her old friends and betrayed the evil Bedlam to help X-Force. However, she turned down an opportunity to remain with her friends and decided to go her own way once again. Her current whereabouts are unknown.
