Illyana Rasputin: Magik Appreciation 2019

[powerpax]

Pinging this for this week. I think we may have lore to discuss.

[G0RM]

spoilers:

I was unable to track down who suggested that "Arakko/Krakoa" have ties to Limbo, and/or Otherworld, Otherplace etc, but they might be onto something. Starting in X-Men #2 showing Arakko as portal/volcano with Cthulhuian tentacles emerging is suggestive, but labling individuals as "summoners" of 'daemons' and 'elementals' continues the trend. Morgan LeFey is active in Excalibur, and X-Men has this additional implication of interdimensional magic, so I'd call incompetence if Magik isn't called to interact with these threatening inter'demon'sional incursions.

end of spoilers

[Anchorsify]

Well magik is currently trapped in space so I don’t see how she would be called in to assist if Doug wasn’t for a similar need for his expertise.

[G0RM]

Well magik is currently trapped in space so I don’t see how she would be called in to assist if Doug wasn’t for a similar need for his expertise.

Do you think the characters (and possibly the authors) are currently forgetting Canon, in that Illyana had previously and repeatedly demonstrated she was (like Lila Cheney) an intergalactic teleporter?

I'm seeing on the page suggestions from the characters that they believe the Krakoan flower is their only way back, rather than Magik just trivially teleporting them to Limbo, then back to Earth.

Does anyone care about Canon anymore?

Is this like how in AvX they forgot that Rachel held the Phoenix Force for years?

[loke13]

Do you think the characters (and possibly the authors) are currently forgetting Canon, in that Illyana had previously and repeatedly demonstrated she was (like Lila Cheney) an intergalactic teleporter?

I'm seeing on the page suggestions from the characters that they believe the Krakoan flower is their only way back, rather than Magik just trivially teleporting them to Limbo, then back to Earth.

Does anyone care about Canon anymore?

Is this like how in AvX they forgot that Rachel held the Phoenix Force for years?

Or just a retcon.

[Havok83]

Do you think the characters (and possibly the authors) are currently forgetting Canon, in that Illyana had previously and repeatedly demonstrated she was (like Lila Cheney) an intergalactic teleporter?

I'm seeing on the page suggestions from the characters that they believe the Krakoan flower is their only way back, rather than Magik just trivially teleporting them to Limbo, then back to Earth.

Does anyone care about Canon anymore?

Is this like how in AvX they forgot that Rachel held the Phoenix Force for years?

Ignoring Magik's powers is indeed a plothole. We've seen her teleport across space with ease but they are acting like its a foreign concept with her. It would make more sense to not have her on this mission bc she breaks the narrative of what they are trying to sell. She's one of the Great Captains so she already has a valid reason to not be in space.

[G0RM]

Ignoring Magik's powers is indeed a plothole. We've seen her teleport across space with ease but they are acting like its a foreign concept with her. It would make more sense to not have her on this mission bc she breaks the narrative of what they are trying to sell. She's one of the Great Captains so she already has a valid reason to not be in space.

Well, as with The Black Vortex, she has more reason to be in space than anyone else, given that she IS an intergalactic teleporter. Frankly, the rest of the Mutants could have gone with the Starjammers, and then Magik would port Cypher to the destination, given that he really has no business leaving the island.

On the other hand, like with the Blackbird, they'd be better off if she just transported the spacecraft to the destination, rather than using it to fly.

[chisob]

Honestly, Magik should be an omniversal level teleporter.

She should able to teleport anywhere and anywhere. In x-men black sun Limbo was described as an omniversal nexus connected to all of creation.

She afound Legion outside creation itself in New Mutants and she teleported the infected room of the x-mansion outside reality. (New Mutants children) She even brought in the future x-men to fight for her in x-men.

Her personality doesn't seem to giving of great captain vibes though. She seems pretty impulsive. More maverick and less deliberate tactician (which she's displayed in the past when she played the long game and manipulated the x-men to destroy the Elder Gods and her run in with Cyttorak)

[Havok83]

Well, as with The Black Vortex, she has more reason to be in space than anyone else, given that she IS an intergalactic teleporter. Frankly, the rest of the Mutants could have gone with the Starjammers, and then Magik would port Cypher to the destination, given that he really has no business leaving the island.

On the other hand, like with the Blackbird, they'd be better off if she just transported the spacecraft to the destination, rather than using it to fly.

Thats my point. She is an intergalactic teleporter, which makes her invaluable to this mission, BUT they arent utilizing that, thus making her nonessential. They cant have it both ways

[sungila]

Just a thought about Magik's powers and their limitations.

Do you think that living with others, maintaining her psyche, humanizing her cohabitation with people and time and place and even maintaining her own agency of choice and possibility, her sense of self, her actual 'control' of the choas of conflicting myriad and somewhat individually and collectively sentient powers should all be considered? Impossible algebra? Understandably maybe even, afraid to...equate it.

That Illyana has intuitively or excruciatingly refined her powers in order to not be entirely corrupted, isolated, or enveloped by them is to me an integral part of her AND a means for explaining how creators choose to express her mutant and magical powers.

Also that the powers, like a sword (any sword) are not her, she's not the sword...she's not limbo...her mind says the sword is her soul, and so-be-it...but it's not and neither are the gems and all these are incantations, words, stories, means and vehicles for creation...for artistry...for surviving...almost as necessarily unconscious as breathing or listening, seeing or feeling...her magics especially are manifestations of her very true and real but not entirely actual experience.

New_Mutants_Vol_3_28_Textless.jpg

Choosing immediate limitations (conditions) is sometimes and often the liberating act of opening a place for the reach of an horizon and the chambering of a heart, perhaps willingly frayed and cracked, unbroken'd lit diaphanous for dusty light and permeable to love, ie: generative failure.

[G0RM]

Honestly, Magik should be an omniversal level teleporter.

She should able to teleport anywhere and anywhen. In X-men: Black Sun, Limbo was described as an omniversal nexus connected to all of creation.

She found Legion outside creation itself in New Mutants and she teleported the infected room of the X-mansion outside reality. (New Mutants: war children) She even brought in the future X-men to fight for her in X-men.

Her personality doesn't seem to giving off Great Captain vibes though. She seems pretty impulsive. More maverick and less deliberate tactician (which she's displayed in the past when she played the long game and manipulated the X-men to destroy the Elder Gods, plus her run-in with Cyttorak)

To act at her full omniversal potential, Illyana would stay in Limbo at all times, using her original one second-per year time dilation, scrying on Earth, opening disks & teleporting stuff everywhere and anywhen to prevent all deaths and right all wrongs, like Squirrel Girl and Nancy's hypertime adventure in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #31.

https://comicsverse.com/unbeatable-s...irl-31-review/

But Magik finds her full powerset as Omniversal crosstime-traveling Hell Lord to be an unbearable prison, and instead appears to spend most of her time on Earth amongst her friends, hacking at opponents with her SoulSword and consuming cake & coffee...

Appears to...

[sunofdarkchild]

Illyana has always actively limited herself in the sense that she has a god-mode which she almost never uses willingly, the Darkchylde form. In a sense what makes her different from characters like Thor, Superman, Mephisto, ect. is that she can choose to be less powerful and go super-saiyan when the need arises, where they are at maximum power all the time and would need to pull their punches to 'hold back.'

As for her teleportation, it never made sense to me that 'the farther she traveled, the greater the time-skip. If she already has to go to Limbo first, then total distance should not matter. Limbo is a different dimension whose relative point to anywhere in our universe should be the same, so it shouldn't make any difference if she's teleporting to the next room or to the next galaxy.

I've been saying for years that I'd like to see more logical limits placed on her ability to summon stepping disks, for instance that summoning a large number of stepping disks at once, one really big stepping disk, or keeping a portal open for an extended period of time would put a big strain on her. So if she transported a large group of X-Men to a battle she might have to sit the opening of the battle out to recover from the large teleportation. She's already OP without her mutant powers. She doesn't need to be able to decapitate entire armies from another continent.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Count me in as someone saying Ilyanna should NOT be considered capable of anything remotely close to intergalactic teleportation (at least not without a significant drawback, like brings out her demonic form etc etc)

[G0RM]

Count me in as someone saying Ilyanna should NOT be considered capable of anything remotely close to intergalactic teleportation (at least not without a significant drawback, like brings out her demonic form etc etc)

Are you saying she should be Nerfed in story 'for reasons', or that it should be ignored or that it never happened? Should she be able to time-travel?

Do you dismiss Canon, like her porting across the Galaxy & decades crosstime back in TNM v1 #50, later in the Gosamyr stories, and finally in Black Vortex?

If Wolverine trips in the woods, should he break his legs?
Should Ororo be able to fly?

I mostly believe feats that characters do three times are established as abilities, not just emergency 'grandma lifts bus off toddler' one-shots.

[G0RM]

Illyana has always actively limited herself in the sense that she has a god-mode which she almost never uses willingly, the Darkchylde form. In a sense what makes her different from characters like Thor, Superman, Mephisto, ect. is that she can choose to be less powerful and go super-saiyan when the need arises, where they are at maximum power all the time and would need to pull their punches to 'hold back.

IMHO, from the instant she defeated Belasco the first time through now, the hooved Darkchilde is Illyana's true form; the barefoot little girl a mask & power damper she wears to be loved and underestimated. (In "Good Loves, Man Kills” Styker has captured a Hell Lord, but she doesn't even read as a mutant on sensors, just 'anomolous.' But being able to fool Cyttorak and Dormammu in their own domains into believing she is a mortal is an amazing accomplishment.)

I hold an unusual view of Illyana as an "anti-villain”, having Great Power, but refusing Great Responsibility. She won the throne of Limbo, then immediately abandoned it, a choice that led inevitably to Inferno due to the power vacuum.

In Limbo there are no good choices, but regarding true outcomes, her obliteration of the Elder Gods was sort of her peak of heroism, finally taking responsibility for saving all Reality from an undefeatable existential threat, like God Doom defeating an infinite number of Beyonders. (Refusing to lead the Cult of the Beyonder, for which He killed the New Mutants, was probably another.)

In the same way a lot of people think about Superman stories, for me a good Illyana story is about ethics, hard choices, and learning about how friendship is Magik; the power level to dismember a space god is irrelevant, but being blind to ruining a friend's wedding.... Priceless.