Before the main story, this issue starts with a (terrible) costume change for Boom-Boom…
And a new name. Boom Boom becomes Boomer. She’s into Sam Guthrie, which puts her in conflict with Lila Cheney.
Boomer’s not the only one with new clothes. The whole team takes on new garb—and formally ditches Professor X.
So much voguing in the 1990s.
Roberto is dealing with the fallout of having been manipulated by Gideon.
He’s so melodramatic.
Meanwhile, something is very wrong with Domino…
This is the first sign that the character we’ve been seeing as Domino is in fact Copycat.
Also, GW Bridge quits SHIELD.
Just about every page of X-Force #19 is a different subplot. It’s very challenging to keep up with it, and, frankly, to care about all of it.
On to the main story: Most of the Hellions died during the X-Ecutioners Song event, but remember that Warpath and Firestar were part of the original team? Warpath and fellow X-Force member Cannonball call on Firestar to go tell the other surviving teammates (Magma and Empath) how the team was killed. That means a trip to the frozen-in-time world of Nova Roma, located in South America.
When they get there, they see that Empath has used his powers to take over Nova Roma and basically enslave Magma.
This could have been a neat little story, but it turns into a retcon. All along, Nova Roma has been mind-controlled by Selene. Like, since we first saw the place way back in the 1980s when Magma first appeared in the pages of New Mutants. And Magma’s not even the daughter of the Nova Roman “emperor.” Empath realized all this when he arrived, and took advantage as Selene’s magic spell wore off. Once he is defeated, Magma agrees to stay behind and help the citizens of Nova Roma recover from years of mind-enslavement.
I’m not sure a major retcon was needed to accomplish having Magma basically be the leader of Nova Roma, but it’s a fun little one-off. And in the end…
It’s ANOTHER new costume.
Also in these issues, Cannonball breaks from Professor X. Professor X promised to mentor the New Mutants but then left them with Magneto, who died. Then Cable was their mentor, and he also “died” in X-Ecutioner’s song.
I mean, read what he says there. He’s not wrong.