Illyana Rasputin: Magik Appreciation 2019

[Andru]

that still isnt consistent with Jamie and Alex seemingly unaffected. I think Dark Beast was lying or not being completely transparent as he doesnt go into any details.

You are right about Emma but is there any evidence that Magik didnt know who she was? I dont have the issues in front of me.

In Issue 18, Scott & Alex have a conversation in which Emma is brought up. Alex does not seem to recall who Emma is either. This leads me to believe Emma removed herself from everyone's memories.

EDIT: One panel later Alex refers to Emma as "the mystery woman we all knew but none of us can remember". So I guess that answers it.

Also the fact that no one else on the team, other than Cain, were confused by Scott & Logan's questioning of Emma's identity, seems to imply she mind wiped them all.

[sunofdarkchild]

When Cain first asks why Emma isn't on the list Illyana looks as surprised as everyone else, and she never speaks up to say she knows who Emma is.

[Havok83]

In Issue 18, Scott & Alex have a conversation in which Emma is brought up. Alex does not seem to recall who Emma is either. This leads me to believe Emma removed herself from everyone's memories.

EDIT: One panel later Alex refers to Emma as "the mystery woman we all knew but none of us can remember". So I guess that answers it.

Also the fact that no one else on the team, other than Cain, were confused by Scott & Logan's questioning of Emma's identity, seems to imply she mind wiped them all.

We are discussing 2 seperate issues now. Emma and Sinister manipulated the X-men independently of each other. Alex was affected by Emma but nothing suggested Sinster manipulated him. He and Jamie both opposed Dark Beast whereas Scott didnt bc of Sinister

[baltiroo]

I think the thing we have to remember with this Illyana (the one from House of M/Quest for Magik) is that she is not exactly the same Illyana we all grew up with. So her lack of telepathic resistance can be explained away like that. It's not perfect but allows for some influence. I think she is also sensitive to dark intent so that can explain the Legion situation in AoX. As for the cuckoos, she is still the Illyana who grew up in Limbo, so certainly her mind would be twisted.

[jamgut]

Not a fan of Rosenberg ignoring Illyana's resistance to telepathy.

I cannot recall the exact last time it was mentioned, but I do remember in Bendis' run the cuckoos refused to engage in any telepathic activity with Illyana because they claimed her mind was a scary place...I know, not the same thing, but at least there was an effort?

And even further back, in Age of X, Illyana was one of the few mutants who Legion blocked from his alternate reality as she would have been able to tell it was inauthentic. IIRC Magik, Xavier, Emma, The Cuckoos, and maybe Danger, were all imprisoned/sedated, as Legion felt they were threats to his new world...However, I believe Pyslocke & Rachel were both in Age of X, so maybe it was not solely based on telepathy?

Regardless, the hints/nudges to Magik's natural resistance to telepathy are there. I guess it is up to the writer if they want to continue to honor Claremont's intentions or not.

I thought it was somewhat implied in Zeb's New Mutant run. I seem to recall that Illyana "let" Emma take a peek inside her mind. As concerned as Emma was about Illyana 2.0, Emma would have already done some serious spelunking in Illyana's mind had she been able.

[Andru]

We are discussing 2 seperate issues now. Emma and Sinister manipulated the X-men independently of each other. Alex was affected by Emma but nothing suggested Sinster manipulated him. He and Jamie both opposed Dark Beast whereas Scott didnt bc of Sinister

I only addressed your second point in my reply. As for Sinister, your explanation for just affecting Scott makes sense.

[Maestroneto]

No-prize answer for Magik being affected by Emma's mind fog is that she was just pretending because she trusts Emma.

[Omega Alpha]

No-prize answer for Magik being affected by Emma's mind fog is that she was just pretending because she trusts Emma.

Nah, doesn't fit her reaction, and I don't see why she would trust Emma all that much after Death of X/IvX. It was just bad writing.

[pandafarmer]

Nah, doesn't fit her reaction, and I don't see why she would trust Emma all that much after Death of X/IvX. It was just bad writing.

Well keep in mind she shows up in Secret Empire, so her working with Emma post "cray cray" isn't too out of the spectrum.

[Omega Alpha]

Well keep in mind she shows up in Secret Empire, so her working with Emma post "cray cray" isn't too out of the spectrum.

Working is one thing, trusting her would be something else.

[G0RM]

No-prize answer for Magik being affected by Emma's mind fog is that she was just pretending because she trusts Emma.

Given her arc from TNM volume III through Dormammu as god-tier manipulator, the scary explanation is that Illyana is mentally immune, but just plays along, same as pretending to be infected by T/O etc, all in an unknowable long-game, this dreary outcome actually surprisingly being the best of all possible worlds across many time streams.

My main call is that if she pulls out all the stops, it will go back to the "Let Magik Do Everything" school-in-Limbo type situation, and she grew too bored of that to let it happen again. (Like warning Scott & Emma about the mist three or four times in Death of X, but letting it happen anyway, allowing them the free will to make their own decisions... See "Groundhog Day" for what time travelers can do with all the cheat codes to replay indefinitely, killing and manipulating Elder Gods, Hell Lords, Phoenix Force etc.)

Regarding her "incredibly powerful and sophisticated psionic shields", recall that Illyana's very first trick after returning from Limbo the first time was to convince Xavier that he telepathically taught her English, while simultaneously remaining mentally shielded...

Think about that for a while...
I'll wait...

Seriously, how does that work, and how 'sophisticated' does it have to be to convince Charles there was nothing contradictory about that? She's apparently subtle enough to make telepaths think they can read her mind, and make others forget that her mind can't be read.

Remember also that Illyana didn't show up as a mutant in detectors at that time (allowing herself to be captured in 'God Loves, Man Kills' by someone who thought all Mutants were demons... Well at least one was...), so she's been veiling her abilities throughout her entire career; exceptions to that end up with her surrounded by roomsful of combatants to be fitted for a bomb-jacket, or else lead up to her killing her apprentices.

Illyana is like One Punch Man, bearing the burden of being too powerful to be challenged by any normal fight, but struggling to make and maintain relationships instead, just like she suggested in this issue:

”Such a young girl, so powerful. Yet you waste it, little Rasputin. With training, you could be our equal, but instead what do you do?"

-"I made friends"


Spoiler:
(Also consider the chilling possibility that the precise manner of Hank's apparent death here means she actually trapped his head in a magic crystal somewhere in Limbo... After all, if N'astirh can do the head trick with Cameron Hodge, and she leads N'astirh around on a leash like a poodle...)

[mogwen]

Maybe it's just that Illyana wants to be more human. And pretending to be like the others is a way for her too feel closer, to reconnect with the Illyana that was. Magic is a feat of will. Maybe she just wills herself to be manipulated. Seems a little circumvoluted but Illyana's mind must be such a mess, if I was a telepath, I wouldn't dare peer into it.

[G0RM]

Maybe it's just that Illyana wants to be more human. And pretending to be like the others is a way for her too feel closer, to reconnect with the Illyana that was. Magic is a feat of will. Maybe she just wills herself to be manipulated. Seems a little circumvoluted but Illyana's mind must be such a mess, if I was a telepath, I wouldn't dare peer into it.

'Making Friends' requires placing oneself at their level. There might be circumstances where billionaires, geniuses, giant athletes etc stoop down in some way to stay connected with other people without their gifts. If everyone else in the team drops to the ground when psi-blasted, maybe Illyana joins them for solidarity (and to avoid winning every fight for them, like how she teleported each New Mutant to Limbo and back when fighting the Shadow King, rather than just teleporting Xi'an/Farouk and ending the fight instantly by herself.

Certainly the bomb-jacket era was about reestablishing trust plus giving her breathing room to stop treating others like chess-pieces. Like Dhalpin3 believes, Dormammu might have fused Illyana's soul back together while trying to damn her with all he had, and her apprenticeship with Strange greatly facilitated her becoming 'The Nice One'.


Regarding technical aspects of her mental shields, I believe the general trend of Gods and Hell Lords is that they are awful to behold telepathically, as Emma's battle with Thor in AvX showed, much less encounters with Mephisto and others.

Something about adding a Splinter Realm to the splicing of brain with astral form makes telepathy untenable against any Demon Lord.

(Taking TNM v1 #14 as evidence, when Emma disrupted Illyana's astral form with a psi blast, Magik's 'psychic familiars' issued forth until Dani intervened with her own powers. One read is that Illyana used layers of ensorcelled intangible demons as shields, so that reading her mind requires penetrating through a shifting Labyrinth of demon husks worn as mental armor, traps, and decoys... Maybe she's stopped splicing demons to her mind since regaining her disparate soul, but I think she's just pretending.

(Handing over a Hell Lord's power to anyone who can 'possess' them is an untenable security risk, like making Godzilla vulnerable to body swap or mind control etc. It's Illyana's duty to make her mind immune to control or exchange, like putting weapons in a gun-safe to keep them out of the hands of children.

(Given that she, Doctor Strange, Loki etc have demonstrated psi shielding before, Magik most likely still has it, but it's subtle enough that many telepaths are led to believe they can read her mind or affect her, lest the action grind to a halt given an immune cross time traveling Hell Lord on the team. For example, I think she was playing Tran and Xi'an in Dead Souls, like an echo of her complex play with Piotr, Cyttorak, the Phoenix Force etc, despite being able to free her brother at any time. Family is complicated, and family therapy takes time and effort, Mutants even more so.

(A good parent lets children win a substantial fraction of the time, rather than always playing with deadly seriousness. As with her fight with Black Widow, Magik must always take it easy on her opponents or else simply kill them, like most of the X-Men leave their opponents alive most of the time, even if that sometimes means they 'lose' a fight...

[Omega Alpha]

Maybe it's just that Illyana wants to be more human. And pretending to be like the others is a way for her too feel closer, to reconnect with the Illyana that was. Magic is a feat of will. Maybe she just wills herself to be manipulated. Seems a little circumvoluted but Illyana's mind must be such a mess, if I was a telepath, I wouldn't dare peer into it.

Nah, sadly the answer is that writers see just ignoring Magik's TP resistance

[WallStreeter]

There’s a simple reason why she lost her immunity to psychic attacks. Originally, during the New Mutants her powers in earth were limited to her mutant teleporting powers and her soul sword. Her soulsword in those days only affected magical creatures. In XFernus she took down a team of XMem on earth with magic and since then her magical powers work just fine on earth. Her soul sword kills non magical beings and destroy sentinels. She has since been trained by Doctor Strange.

So she’s vulnerable to psychic attacks because otherwise she’d have no invulnerability. Strange himself has been taken out by very strong psychic attacks.