Monsters & Malaria Fill The Jungles Of Nova Roma In New Mutants #8

It’s a whole new New Mutants! Hickman is gone, and so are the dueling storylines. Where will this lead? Nova Roma, apparently as Ed Brisson, Marco Failla, and Carlos Lopez take us hunting.

You’re Doin’ Fine, Nova Roma (Not Really)

Liz Large: Should we start with the elephant in the room? Nova Roma, the country that we were first introduced to as a hidden Roman colony, then as a brainwashing project of Selene, and now (according to our trusty data page), it’s back to being the home of actual Roman colonists and their descendants.

Allison Senecal: I commented a few months ago when New Mutants started about how grand it was that we were seemingly ignoring Nova Roma forevermore. It was so nice to have Amara divorced from (or at least completely ignoring) that origin. So so nice. Looks like I spoke too soon. And, frankly, I wish they had kept the Selene origin? At least it made the whole operation seem a tad less racist. Or at least brainwashed racist. Even though…they kept…being pretty racist… [Ed. note: Nova Roma is the worst part of the early New Mutants and that’s including the motorcycle team that combines into one secret motorcycle superhero.]

LL: It makes sense to set a story in this general area—Brazil is one of the few countries allied against Krakoa, and we’ve seen in Marauders that they’re using their military to prevent mutants from accessing the gates. But “near Brazil” is a geographic area big enough that we could have avoided this entirely. I think it’s interesting that besides Amara, none of the other original New Mutants are on this trip—I don’t think they have fond memories of the place.

AS: Ah yes, fond memories of being sold as slaves and drugged. No, god. Why did we revisit this place? I’m so curious as to whether we’ll get more Nova Roma later on as a contrast to Krakoa. Both are secluded societies, but Nova Roma is entirely isolationist whereas Krakoa is very much active on the world stage. Nova Roma is just a terrible pseudo-utopia in the middle of Brazil that hasn’t bothered to *checks notes* even learn any Portuguese.

NOT The Mutant We Wanted To See

LL: What did you think of Shaw’s appearance? I wasn’t expecting to see him so far from his usual haunts of Marauders/X-Men. We did finally get to see proof of why Shaw has his job, though—destroying a cartel without a single fight. His presence makes everything seem more sinister. This includes Maxime and Manon—I can’t get a read on these kids. Are they good kids who just need a Glob-shaped mentor? Or is there something more here?

AS: I also do NOT know what to make of them…it’s probable that they kinda work for Shaw? I mean they went to Blackstone. I’m sure if they told anyone else in power on Krakoa what happened in Pilger, there is a much easier way to get the info to Shaw? There must be. On the other hand, the comic really could just be showing us that information exchange instead of cutting right to Shaw neutering this cartel. I dunno. I wanna believe the twins are on the right track, they are not their past, etc but we’ll see. Shaw was pretty great here. Just the perfect level of chilling. I hate the dude, but I do see why he’s useful to the Council. I can’t see Emma dirtying her hands with this kind of work anymore. It wouldn’t do for a news outlet to snap a pic of her on this kind of jaunt. Shaw, though, awful business as usual.

LL: Something that keeps coming up in a lot of the X-books is the concept of trauma—how people deal with it, heal from it, or don’t. In that context, I appreciated the diary data page a lot. While some of the New Mutants cast is older now, like Boom Boom said in issue 6–she’s been on a black-ops team since she “was like, 12”. All of the New Mutants probably need therapy, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I’m happy to see that Jean has read at least one article on Dealing With Your Teen’s Trauma. [Ed. note: Between Demon Bear, Legion, and Inferno, pretty much all those good New Mutants stories are about people who are horrible at processing trauma.]

AS: I just straight up chortled. It’s true though, we’ve rarely seen even that level of attention to getting these kids real therapy sessions. Journaling is at least something, and shows that it is something some mutants are thinking about. In conjunction with this week’s issue of X-Men, we’ve really seen the need for therapists of some kind on Krakoa, so I hope that gets addressed more soon.

LL: I do want to mention that I like the way this series has been pairing kids from different eras. They’ve all had very different experiences of being with the X-Men and usually, we see them paired with the same people—rarely is Amara in a story without other original New Mutants, for instance. Seeing her coordinate this mission with the others as (in part) a way to get a relatively easy win after the disaster that was the trip to Beak’s family was interesting — they understand each other in a way, in part because they all have done some truly bonkers stuff. I’d like to see more about the area on the island where all the younger mutants live and how they’re getting along (or not!).

You’ve Gotta Hand It To Them

LL: And a surprise villain reveal at the end! I don’t think we’ve seen her before, but some of the monsters look very cool. But does this mean these are just free range monsters who think mutants are delicious, and not a government plot to prevent mutants from getting out?

AS: I am personally vaguely tired of getting a new villain reveal almost every week, but I did like that this lady is just kind of a weird rainforest hermit. Is she a Nova Roma expat? She’s super duper White so that’s my guess, but I wanna know more. Does she …create the monsters? How? Lots of fun questions to explore with this one. And maybe some that will allow us to meaningfully talk about how awful Nova Roma is, ahaha. [Ed. note: We’ve done our required 1 Nova Roma story for the decade, please do not give us more.]