BIOGRAPHY - Page 5
It took a while for everyone to recover, and the team lost a few members as Magik, Karma and Cannonball all left for various reasons. After seeing the fate of the Inferno Babies, Cyclops tasked Magma and the rest of the New Mutants with tying up and loose ends from the X-Men’s past. The first of which was the location of the recently resurrected Nate Grey aka X-Man. Tracking him down they discovered he was a prisoner of the Sugarman, who was using Nate’s energy signature to open up a portal to the Age of Apocalypse. Magma and they others worked together to defeat the twisted villain and save Nate, who decided to join the team afterwards. [New Mutants (3rd series) #26-27]
Not long after, Dani went missing when she was on route to Las Vegas. With their leader gone, Amara stepped up and assumed control, opting to go ask the Magik for help. As Illyana was imprisoned for her manipulations during the Elder Gods crisis, she couldn’t help directly. She told them their teammate was in the Norse version of Hel but they would need to find their own way there. As spellcasting was just a simple matter of language, Cypher thought he would give it a go and he attempted to teleport Amara and the team to Hel. He wasn’t quite as good at it as he thought, though, and the New Mutants found themselves in Hell, the Christian version, ruled over by Mephisto. In fact, they appeared directly in front of the demonic villain, who seemed delighted to have new souls to play with. Sunspot and Amara were at odds as to how to proceed; him being a devout Catholic, making any kind of deal with the literal devil wasn’t an option for Sunspot.
Amara saw the situation they were in though and reluctantly realized they would need help escaping, especially if Dani was trapped in Hel. When Sunspot attacked Mephisto, Magma stepped in with all her fire and fury to split them apart and the lord of the underworld was impressed with her fiery attitude. He approached Amara and told her he could transport them to Hel, in return for a single date with her. The rest of her team objected profusely but Amara accepted the deal, immediately being teleported to Hel on condition that Mephisto would call for her soon. When Magma and the team landed in Hel, they found themselves amongst a huge battle between the forces of Hel and the undead. After finding Dani they discovered that she had been summoned to Hel as part of her Valkyrie duties to defend the realm. Amara and the New Mutants joined the forces of Hela, the realm’s ruler, and got a power boost in return. They managed to turn the tide of war in Hela’s favor and push back the invading forces. Hela teleported them home with barely a thank you. However, for Amara, her worries were just starting as she had a date with the devil to prepare for. [New Mutants (3rd series) #29-32]
Amara and the team soon had a decision to make as Wolverine and Cyclops had a falling out due to their differing ideas on how to lead the X-Men. Wolverine went back to Westchester, whilst Cyclops stayed on Utopia, meaning all the X-Men had to choose where to go. After some thought, the team chose to stay with Cyclops but move off Utopia and into San Francisco city. As they were now renting a house, Amara applied for a number of jobs to try to bring some money in.
The team still answered to Cyclops and his next mission was to locate Blink, a mutant who had been part of Selene’s inner circle, but who had vanished since her boss’ downfall. Amara and the team soon located her, but found the young girl on a mission of her own to stop a mysterious string of natural disasters. They soon discovered that a touring rock band was somehow triggering the disasters, and Amara warned everyone that she could feel an enormous earthquake building up as the band played at their next concert. Whilst the rest of the team split up to stop the band, Amara made it her priority to try to counteract the effects to the tension building in the local tectonic plate. With Sunspot guarding her, Magma struggled to subdue the earthquake, and so Bobby decided now was the perfect time to declare his love for her. The team managed to stop the band and Magma dissipated the tectonic build-up, averting a deadly disaster. She hugged Bobby in celebration but took the opportunity to tell him she only thought of him as a friend. [New Mutants (3rd series) #33-36]
The time had come for Amara to fulfill her deal with the devil… literally. It was date night and, despite the rest of the team protesting, Amara was adamant that she would honor her vow to go on a single date with Mephisto. Sure enough, he arrived on time, dressed smartly and with an offering of roses. Amara started to get uneasy when Mephisto took her to the gluttony, the third circle of Hell, for a meal.
As he explained in great detail all the effort he took to plan the date, Amara eventually snapped, believing that it was all a ruse for him to trick her into another deal or for her to accidentally sell her soul. The two had an honest talk and Mephisto revealed he didn’t want anything from her other than a nice date. With that, Amara took control of the evening and took Mephisto to a small restaurant in San Francisco. They ate, chatted about Mephisto’s work and she began to see to a (slightly) more human side of him. On their walk back to her apartment, Amara admitted she’d 
actually enjoyed herself and rewarded Mephisto with a kiss on the cheek for being gentleman and not stealing her soul. She even agreed that he could call her again if he wanted to, but she declined to tell the rest of her team that information when they quizzed her on details afterwards. [New Mutants (3rd series) #37]
Amara started seeing Mephisto occasionally without the rest of her team knowing, but many of 
them suspected something was going on. Sunspot especially wasn’t happy as he still hurt over Amara’s rejection of him. [New Mutants (3rd series) #41] Amara and Mephisto’s relationship quickly ended though when she discovered he had imprisoned the Disir, a cursed group of Asgardian shieldmaidens, in his realm. After the Disir escaped, the New Mutants along with Thor, Hela and Loki, helped track them down and free them from their curse. Mephisto was furious that his prisoners were gone, but Amara was equally as angry as she was reminded that he was the devil after all, and he had done some truly horrific things over the years. [Exiled crossover]
Mephisto did try to win back Amara’s affections soon after, but she told him point blank there was no chance. She even threatened to set the Disir on him if he dared bother her again. Soon after, Amara and the New Mutants were called to action when the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, causing the X-Men to go to war with the Avengers over its intentions. As well as fighting off the Avengers, Amara helped scour the globe for Hope Summers, the one mutant everyone believed would host the Phoenix. In the aftermath, the mutant race was reignited and the New Mutants went their separate ways as they dealt with the new world order. [New Mutants (3rd series) #50, Avengers vs. X-Men crossover]
Amara stayed out of the X-Men’s lives for a while, though she did accept an invitation from Dani to go partying on New Amazonia, where she helped defend the island during a surprise attack. Sometime later, she joined her fellow New Mutants for a (fake) funeral for Sunspot, who was trying to get the jump on some shady villains hunting him down. [Fearless Defenders #11, New Avengers (4th series) #18]
Amara was soon in need of help herself when she fell under the influence of the telepathic Mesmero and was forced to join his new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Mesmero was working for a human politician, who wanted to stir up anti-mutant hate in the media and needed a few newsworthy stories to help the cause. Under Mesmero’s sway, Amara attacked the United Nations and came into conflict with a team of X-Men, led by Kitty Pryde. The Brotherhood escaped, but the X-Men soon tracked them down to their base. As Mesmero couldn’t control Amara all the time, she was imprisoned when she wasn’t required, and it was Kitty who finally found her in her cell. Twisted by Mesmero’s influence, Amara attacked Kitty before coming to her senses. The rest of the X-Men eventually managed to defeat the Brotherhood and Amara was taken back to the mansion to recuperate. [X-Men: Gold #1-3]
Mesmero was locked away in a superhuman prison, but soon enough he escaped and went after the politician who originally paid for his services. When Amara heard he was out causing trouble, she told Kitty outright that she was going on the mission to stop him, as she had a score to settle. The battle didn’t work out quite as Amara had planned as she was quickly knocked out my Mesmero after charging at him with all her fiery anger. [X-Men: Gold #21-22]
That didn’t deter Amara from helping out with the X-Men, as she was soon drafted onto a squad led by Iceman. She found herself working alongside a new version of Pyro, whom she had worked with on the Brotherhood. Amara initially questioned his motives, as he had worked for Mesmero willingly, but as she battled alongside him she started to see his heroic nature. [X-Men: Gold #23-25]
Iceman’s team soon disbanded, but Magma came to the X-Men’s aid again when they were fighting a dying Nate Grey, who was using his remaining time on Earth to bring about world peace… by force if necessary. When the reality warper Legion got involved, things took a turn for the worse and almost all the X-Men, Magma included, were sucked into a pocket reality. To the outside world, Amara had been killed along with most of the X-Men, but in this new world she was a stunt coordinator for Nightcrawler, who was a world-renowned actor. As with all warped realities, things started to unravel and eventually everyone was freed from it. [Uncanny X-Men (5th series) #9-10, Age of X-Man: The Amazing Nightcrawler #1-5]
In the time Amara had been away, the world had become an increasingly dark place for the mutants left behind. Many of her friends, such as Wolfsbane, Madrox and Sunspot, had been killed and the rest were fighting for their lives. Everything changed when Professor X invited Amara, and every other mutant on the planet, to Krakoa. Once feared, the living island was now home to all mutants. What’s more, Xavier had developed a resurrection protocol involving five key mutants, meaning all of Amara’s friends who had been killed were brought back to life. Amara and the rest of the New Mutants took on a mentoring role of the other students on the island, not only helping them with their powers but also help them adjust to the new world order. [House of X #6]
Soon enough, Amara received a message about a mutant boy in need of help, from her father in Nova Roma. One of Krakoa’s many gifts to the mutant race was biological portals, which allowed someone who stepped through them to step out of another portal somewhere else on the world. The X-Men had set them up across the world, to allow mutants to easily get to Krakoa. When Amara spoke to the boy, she discovered he had been running for the portal outside Nova Roma, but a strange creature had attacked him.
Amara led a team into the forest and encountered the creatures first hand. After killing them all, she made sure to take DNA samples in a bid to figure out what they were. Afterwards, she personally flew a group of mutant children back to Krakoa until the threat around Nova Roma was resolved. [New Mutants (4th series) #8]
Amara’s next mission was with the rest of the New Mutants, though it wasn’t as easily resolved as her previous one. The team encountered a mutant girl whose powers involved trapping people within her nightmares. Magma, along with a few of her teammates, were sucked into the girl’s mindscape and would have died had it not been for someone inducing pleasant dreams in the girl, counteracting the horrific nightmares she had been having. [New Mutants (4th series) #10-11]
On Krakoa, Amara is finally experiencing the mutant paradise that had been promised for so long. How long it lasts remains to be seen, but for now she gets to be a role model to the ever-growing student population of the island.