Illyana Rasputin: Magik Appreciation 2019

[244]

I guess Magik reclaiming her bloodstones was a huge waste of time if she still has her demonic side. Well, writers can god whatever they like I guess...

She's Darkchylde, big whoop.

Unless they for some reason kill her, she'll be back to normal before the year's end.

Magik’s not unkillable even in her demonic form. She can heal quickly but she need to whip up a healing spell.

[Woozie]

Magik’s not unkillable even in her demonic form. She can heal quickly but she need to whip up a healing spell.

I never said she was unkillable, it's just there's nothing to worry about when it comes to Magik if the biggest issue is "She's in darkchylde mode"

[G0RM]

Magik’s not unkillable even in her demonic form. She can heal quickly but she need to whip up a healing spell.

Dormammu, Mephisto, and many other Hell Lords are unkillable, so I don't see why Magik wouldn't be. Belasco was until Magik killed him (many others had tried & failed), and N'astirh made Cameron Hodge unkillable, so Limbonic magic seems to contain the potential.

When she was bound to the Enchantress' wall, both the Darkchylde & Illyana halves were unkillable, so there's that (that series also showed Illyana as being unageable, given that Hell Lords are routinely chronologically immortal, as well as unkillable.)

In another series I saw an explanation that Hell Lords are linked to their Splinter Realms at a deep intrinsic level, and that even if their Ruler is annihilated, the Hell dimension itself will resurrect its Lord from a stored backup; to kill a Hell Lord, you must either wrestle control of the Realm away, or destroy the entire Splinter Realm dimension itself.

(As example, Franklin Richards himself used his Omega potential to obliterate Mephisto, but Mephisto returned, his full powers broken into five parts, two of which ended up incarnated into Scarlett Witch's children by Vision.)

We have frequently seen beings that Illyana banished to Limbo crawling around in twisted forms, and both S'ym & N'astirh have been killed multiple times & return constantly. (After all, if it's possible to escape from Hell by dying, everyone would choose that as a way out.)

Personally, given that we didn't actually see Dark Beast's head due to the circumstances by which she killed his body, I prefer to think she keeps it alive in a jar in Limbo (like Cameron Hodge's decapitated head)

[244]

Dormammu, Mephisto, and many other Hell Lords are unkillable, so I don't see why Magik wouldn't be. Belasco was until Magik killed him (many others had tried & failed), and N'astirh made Cameron Hodge unkillable, so Limbonic magic seems to contain the potential.

When she was bound to the Enchantress' wall, both the Darkchylde & Illyana halves were unkillable, so there's that (that series also showed Illyana as being unageable, given that Hell Lords are routinely chronologically immortal, as well as unkillable.)

In another series I saw an explanation that Hell Lords are linked to their Splinter Realms at a deep intrinsic level, and that even if their Ruler is annihilated, the Hell dimension itself will resurrect its Lord from a stored backup; to kill a Hell Lord, you must either wrestle control of the Realm away, or destroy the entire Splinter Realm dimension itself.

(As example, Franklin Richards himself used his Omega potential to obliterate Mephisto, but Mephisto returned, his full powers broken into five parts, two of which ended up incarnated into Scarlett Witch's children by Vision.)

We have frequently seen beings that Illyana banished to Limbo crawling around in twisted forms, and both S'ym & N'astirh have been killed multiple times & return constantly. (After all, if it's possible to escape from Hell by dying, everyone would choose that as a way out.)

Personally, given that we didn't actually see Dark Beast's head due to the circumstances by which she killed his body, I prefer to think she keeps it alive in a jar in Limbo (like Cameron Hodge's decapitated head)

The catch is Limbo is a pocket dimension that used to look like the Savage Land, until Belasco fashioned it to his own image.

[G0RM]

Every writer since Magik came back has ignored the immunity to telepathy plot, so people just have to let go of that, or self-canon like "she's just pretending she doesn't know who Emma is" or "she pretended she didn't know Cyclops was dead in Death of X". It's just not part of her powerset anymore.

I deny that this forgetfulness of her mental shields happened ever since her Resurrection; it was a major plot point in The New Mutants.

Zebb Wells had an utterly psi immune Magik, otherwise her vast plot against the Elder Gods could not have come off. Her interview with Emma in TNM v3 #9 (Magik's beautiful "I am Darkness and Hurt given Form" dialog) had Magik specifically offering a glimpse into her mind, showing Emma a scene where Legion had killed most of the X-Men, but the rest of Illyana's mind was completely locked off from Emma. Even after Magik recovered the bloodstones, the bomb-jacket phase was because her mind could not be read, and so trust was impossible. Even when they were in the Phoenix Five together, her plot to curse Piotr with Cyttorak's power, despite being able to free him at any time, was also sealed away from anyone's telepathic knowledge, even though there was some "Group Mind" in the Five.

Under Bendis fighting the future Xavier & Xorn, Illyana showed some telepathic resistance; she was immune to mind control, but not simple mind-blasts. As recently as Dead Souls, Magik shrugged off Tran's illusions after a relatively short period, surprising him.

Lazy authors pump up all the antagonists and nerf all the protagonists, rather than figuring out elegant dilemmas or introducing genuine threats (I loved the use of Unit just before AvX for example.)

If the writer can't figure out a way for the antagonists to threaten a team with a Magik equipped with mastery of Space, Time, Power, Reality, Soul, and Mind, the writer will conveniently forget about her Mind Shield or Soul Armor, leaving her unconscious most of the issue. On the flip side, they equally nerf the team's psychics by equipping every rent-a-thug with technological mind shields, otherwise Karma and Dani would dominate every battlefield.

They also boost the powers of opponents on other teams, like O.N.E. and Emma, who now allegedly warped reality at the same level that Mastermind did when he censored the entire world's recollection of Sentry.

It's just lazy writing. There are few Zebb Wells, Alan Moores, and even Bendises in the world; other writers just use dimwitted versions of characters because it's literally impossible to run scenarios where the characters are substantially more intelligent than the author. It just can't be done by definition, so this dreck is the result.

[244]

I'm actually okay of Magik not having psy-shields anymore. It's gonna be less interesting if Magik is always having the upper-hand or ending any battle with just a wave of her hand. To make a story interesting, it needs some sort of conflict which a character has to overcome.

I think the justification of Magik losing her psy-shields is she got back the rest of her soul, or whatever any fan would like to come up with...

Thank you, beautiful!!

So. Some thoughts. Illyana's "mutant" side. I interpret that statement as "mutant" being substituted for what would typically be "human".
So if Scott were to say "Illyana's human side was the only thing holding it back" I feel most folks would be like "Yeah, okay. Her humanity was lost so.....yeah. Darkchild. That math adds up."
But, instead he said mutant. Which, for me, with it being Scott Summers and the whole mutant vs human thing, I'm fine with this word choice. It doesn't make sense in conjunction with the narrative necessarily hahahaha, but I understand the semantics. <shrug>

So yeah. I get the intention behind the word choice, but its very much intention vs. successful execution.

This is why future writers interested in Magik's character needs to read "Magik: Storm and Illyana". It's okay to modify stuff a little but the "core" needs to remain.

[G0RM]

I found another recent instance of Illyana's mental shields, Phoenix Resurrection #3, where the Phoenix Force had concealed a town telepathically, but Magik sensed the compulsion to leave and cut through the veil with her Soul Sword, revealing the town to the rest of the X-Men, all the rest of whom had been fooled (Old Man Logan had a feeling of danger, but everyone else just felt "there's nothing here")

[Illyana has 3 speaking scenes in the Phoenix Resurrection series, her briefest and to me most satisfying in #4 with a single ironic panel, where Hellion is on his knees in the burning corpse-strewn town asking in despair "Are we in Hell?" to which Illyana simply answers "No" ]

So back to "her shields turn on and off for plot convenience" ie lazy writer syndrome... Or my personal read being "I mustn't appear too competent or they'll depend on me for everything, so I'll play dead whenever they can handle it on their own, and do the minimum possible when they can't... Like dismembering space gods and teleporting armies of frost giants & dark elves to Limbo... but only with the team's "help"

[sunofdarkchild]

That doesn't necessarily mean telepathic immunity or resistance. As a sorceress Illyana can sense things that other people can't. Something as powerful as the Phoenix Force would make her senses go haywire.

[pandafarmer]

Honestly folks, I am convinced that this whole lead up over the last year for all X-books was basically them saying to Rosenburg and the rest "Hickman is coming in a year, we just need these certain pieces in these places, otherwise make everyone as miserable as possible because we're hitting the reset button anyway so it won't matter who you kill/maim."

[Devaishwarya]

Yupp. Love Irvin's Darkchilde.
Along with Blevins, Sienkiewicz and Camuncoli versions.

[ComeOnBunny]

I just feel like all these years of X-Men books have been a waste for Magik it feels like the last good development we had from Magik was her training with Dr. Strange and the What If Magik one shot issue. I feel if the character is to have any significant development she needs to move on from the X-Men franchise and go solo or maybe duo with Kitty Pryde. Is it too late for a Shadow Cat and Magik series?

[Omega Alpha]

Pretty much every X-men has been used poorly in the last few years, it's not a Magik problem.

[Andru]

I just feel like all these years of X-Men books have been a waste for Magik it feels like the last good development we had from Magik was her training with Dr. Strange and the What If Magik one shot issue. I feel if the character is to have any significant development she needs to move on from the X-Men franchise and go solo or maybe duo with Kitty Pryde. Is it too late for a Shadow Cat and Magik series?

I thought her leading a team in Dead Souls was a positive direction for her development. But I would love to see her branch out and deal with more mystical threats outside of the X-Men.

Pretty much every X-men has been used poorly in the last few years, it's not a Magik problem.

This is true.

[Magik]

I just feel like all these years of X-Men books have been a waste for Magik it feels like the last good development we had from Magik was her training with Dr. Strange and the What If Magik one shot issue. I feel if the character is to have any significant development she needs to move on from the X-Men franchise and go solo or maybe duo with Kitty Pryde. Is it too late for a Shadow Cat and Magik series?

Sounds awesome but I don't know if I want her with Kitty right now...I mean Kitty has been used on recent Xmen comic books so many times that I'm really tired of her. Maybe the mystical threats that Andru said is more appropriate this time.

[pandafarmer]

I was at a convention this weekend and was on a panel about The New Mutants and was graced with a Magik cosplayer! Was pretty fun to see as I don't think I've seen a single Illyana in the 15 years I've been going to the con.

EDIT - adding link - Slide 15 She mentioned she ran out of time to complete the arm and sword.
http://www.citypages.com/arts/see-th...2019/512320842