Illyana Rasputin: Magik Appreciation 2019

[G0RM]

Attachment 79989

I just finally read this! Hooray for Rosenberg!
I'm not saying I'd like this all the time...but this and this:
Attachment 79990

that's Ya'mazing

Cake!

Glorious Cake!

I think Illyana, Moon Girl, and Karnak are a brilliant combination, playful deep-thinkers all.

[G0RM]

Me too Andru, me too. It's amazing how often that mini makes its way into my immediate life...I find it everywhere...as if by magik.

Most recently in some erroneous research involving archetypical psychology, death, dream, mediumship and the underworld in literature. Anyway there's this post-Jungian dude named James Hillman who wrote a pop psychology book called Soul's Code in which he uses THE ACORN to re-establish Plato's myth of destiny is fate...Hillman is pompous, presumptuous and pretentious but that book was a kinda big deal to lots of people...and I wonder...well, if the concept of "man" being born with the seed of his fate (his fully formed oak tree) already within...well to make a long thing short...

No matter what CC intended...somehow in the telling of Magik's mini-series...that acorn, that theory, that damned character is fate and fate is destiny and blah blah bullshit...well, it goes splat in the mini and she MAKES A SWORD out of all that...she doesn't pull it out of some stone or forge it in a "one must stand within the fire to be made strong trial'...nope...she needs a sword...she doesn't need a metaphor or fairy tale...she needs a sword.

But Claremont is a thief, he is, in a good way. Storytellers and thieves. But the trick in the trade is really the one in control (or out of control)...

SO CC tries to say she tries and tries to fit the molds she's given but they don't work...they don't have a prefabricated perfect fit for her soul...and something weird happens...and in that weirdness...a flaw...a gap...this curious imperfection...and that's vital.

So she makes something (out this something) and that something is something she shouldn't have...a sword.

I feel like if CC knew exactly what he was doing he couldn't have done it...he himself had this acorn...and it went splat...spectacularly and forever...miraculous poverty. (Kitty eats Kurt...wha?)

Umm, okay...

She uproots the tree...she plants seven years of formative psyche, her personal generative store in Limbo...and establishes an 'absence' only her as a darkchylde can fill...it's amazing!

It equates more than a koan or proof because it doesn't and fate is matter, material goo stuff, primal...there is no memory...it's not a fact and can't be fiction...it's 'something else'...

And the she makes a sword! That's just, well, sometimes the huge souldsword she was carrying for awhile when she was more or less hardly speaking...I mean it makes sense...she's carrying this big huge soulsword! And even her outfit (remember when she wears that wild cat skin leotard)...well, she's...anyway.

A sword is before a fire...like an axe is before an axe handle...lol, I'm so bad at forum posts...but anyway!

One reason I really love 'Dead Souls' and the last "What If' is that - that's Illyana. That's not only Illyana, but Illyana in the foreground. That's Illyana with emotion and trying responsibility and handling her 'great power'... and...

YES, what you said Andru

Me too

Ditto Magik in daily life, which is why I am involuntarily starting to write & draw a supplement to Magik #4.

Ahh...
"The Acorn"

Symbolism is planted deep:

Note in TNM v1 #50, by planting the SoulSword in the soil (soul?) of Limbo, she rewrote it as Paradise; it WAS an acorn the whole time, regardless of how it appeared, the Autonomy Within Her, like Dorothy's slippers.

"Hacks and craftsmen timidly borrow scraps from the shadows; Great Artists plunder with wild abandon, stealing vast hoards of that which inspires, smelting down those riches, and by discarding the dross, reforge what gleams anew to light the world."

Regarding CC as thief, please review Dante's "Divine Comedy" on Wikipedia, watch "Heavy Metal" 1980, then reread Kazar introducing Belasco, TNM #160, Magik 1-4 + the lost years of Illyana before TNM #14, including "God Loves, Man Kills", where Stryker actually did have within his grasp the Mutant fated Eschatologically to release all the demons and Elder Gods Beyond to (almost) feast upon the souls of all those who now or have ever lived...


"Religion is for those of us who are afraid of going to Hell.
Faith is for those of us who have already been there."

#meToo

[G0RM]

I would call Magik as clearly rating the combat MVP slot in the last two issues, both with SoulsSword & offensive mass teleport abductions (no major spell use yet, like wiping out a striketeam of Nimrod-class Sentinels, back when she was training under Strange.)

Does anyone else get the impression she's still completely holding back, calling in her performance?

How long before the team and writers face up to her being in the Thor/Silver Surfer/Odin power level range, much less Fisk/Doom class planner?

(And what's up with using the back room of a bar as a base rather than Lila Cheney's Dyson Star, or pillaging vast fortunes of stolen remotely teleported drug money etc? I call it that she's magically clouding everyone's minds, like when the New Mutants rode saddleback through Limbo for weeks, rather than just teleporting directly in an instant?)

[butterflykyss]

what happened to magik arm why does it look like colossus'?

[Shankarma1]

Just a nip pick but I wish they would try and keep Magik's mutant ability and Arcane abilities separately or at least more defined in which is which. Of course I know that her mutant ability is intertwined with Arcane magic but I don't know I just feel like the panel of her teleporting everybody she didn't need the arcane circle but what do I know

[Daedra]

what happened to magik arm why does it look like colossus'?

that's magik magical armor, she always had it, the more power she uses the more it grows if i remember correctly

images.jpg il_fullxfull.1070535718_tuk8.jpg Magik-Marvel-Comics-New-Mutants-Illyana-Rasputin-c.jpg

Just a nip pick but I wish they would try and keep Magik's mutant ability and Arcane abilities separately or at least more defined in which is which. Of course I know that her mutant ability is intertwined with Arcane magic but I don't know I just feel like the panel of her teleporting everybody she didn't need the arcane circle but what do I know

kinda thinking the same, what did she need all those magic symbols for? she was just using her mutant power

[butterflykyss]

that's magik magical armor, she always had it, the more power she uses the more it grows if i remember correctly

images.jpg il_fullxfull.1070535718_tuk8.jpg Magik-Marvel-Comics-New-Mutants-Illyana-Rasputin-c.jpg



kinda thinking the same, what did she need all those magic symbols for? she was just using her mutant power

thanks for the info beloved!!!

[G0RM]

I might get a bit "Mary Sue" about Illyana in the following, but each part is based on precedents; I'm just assembling 35+ years of Illyana's power-moves in one place... (the Black Vortex and Phoenix Force didn't really offer her much that she doesn't always potentially have if played to the max, as the Elder Gods, Dormammu, Scythian & others learned to their regret... She can plausibly be said to have mastery of Space, Time, Soul & Reality between her mutant, sorceress, and HellLord powers, plus her mind-shield & memory altering & thought blurring spells suggest mastery of Mind, and when in full armour or LightChilde-mode she also clearly embodies Power. But having killed herself at 14 when she accidentally took over the world while playing childish games, she clearly doesn't want the Responsibility that Omnipotence carries, sort of an anti-Spiderman regarding Power & Responsibility...)

that's magik magical armor, she always had it, the more power she uses the more it grows if i remember correctly

images.jpg il_fullxfull.1070535718_tuk8.jpg Magik-Marvel-Comics-New-Mutants-Illyana-Rasputin-c.jpg

The end of the surfboard-sword, spikey-BDSM black-leather Magik era might just be a stylistic choice of the artistic team, an indication of her battle with T/O, or might be an aspect of her boredom with status quo.

Given that Illyana clearly has instant costume generation spells, it's astounding that she doesn't wear different garbs in every scene, like Kitty did back when she couldn't decide on a code name.

Back in Illyana 1.0's era, the artists often drew her with a stunningly diverse, Paris-catwalk worthy variety of outfits, often with a skull motif plus hairstyle, horn, and hoof variants etc.

Like Iron Man going through suit upgrades, her SoulArmour might be fairly adaptable, all the way up to the full-body-exosuit she shed at the end of Inferno when she became the LightChilde (plus there's the possibility she could wear tech armor under the mystic, like the space suit she picked up during the slumber party... As an intergalactic teleporter/crosstime traveler, there's no reason not to be decked out like Kang or Doom as Infamous Iron Man, whether by plundering dead worlds across space & time, or by ordering it custom made as befits a HellLord.

For that matter, shifting SoulSword appearance might be as easy as changing lightsaber color, although I never tired of waiting for her actually to ride the cricket-bat version around through the air, like the Silver Surfer does on "To Me"

kinda thinking the same, what did she need all those magic symbols for? she was just using her mutant power

Those 'data-circles' might be an homage to Cumberbatch in the MCU that the artist wanted to draw, but it could be any of a number of things, including T/O side effects (if she's not just pretending to be dealing with that) or a way to automatically clear a battlefield of dozens of hidden enemies (without chopping them up like Blink sometimes did, or as Magik did to Scythian.)

The original "light circles" were strobe-flash instantaneous, which has the advantage of being undodgeable, but the 'floating in air "Portal"-type' stepping disks have the advantage of redirecting momentum (why she doesn't use them for indoor skydiving & outdoor jump-flying has always seemed like a waste to me, although she did drop the soldiers in this scene from a bruising altitude), not to mention being impenetrable shields that can redirect attacks, gate in demon hordes, or dismember giant space-gods like Magus & Scythian.

During the era she held Limbo within her after curbstomping Dormammu, she used raw mystic energy without Portals to bridge space & time (with the special effect of being surrounded with images of demonic beings, including Cartman.)

There are also other invisible non-stepping disk Portals she's been able to see since Sapna, which would help her with interdimensional travel, and she also demonstrated the ability to stride across time (why she would do that rather than remotely scrying across time, I cannot say.)

Note other "killer apps":

Her power to teleport can't be effectively nullified by mutant collar or area neutralization field because
1) she could use a spell, not a Stepping Disk (maybe explaining the recent mystic symbols)
2) Several individuals have used the SoulSword Itself to summon stepping disks, so unless mystic wards prevent her from doing so, she could summon her Sword, then use it to teleport without mutant abilities.
3) If she lives through any given battle, by sitting on her throne in Limbo while scrying on the past where she was confined, she could summon a stepping disk to take herself out of the past to the point in the past in Limbo when she arrived, then use her HellLord powers to remove the restraining collar/bomb-jacket, then sit down on her throne to scry on herself in the past in confinement to teleport herself into Limbo etc etc... (time travel loops are always fun!-)

(This last trick might explain some of her instantaneous rescues; since time passes at an arbitrary rate in Limbo, she could review battles in slow motion, then port bullets out of the air etc, while sitting on her throne like a spectator with a remote control... Her escape from explosions, grabbing Cyclops out of the way of a dissintegration blast etc, suggest she can act at the speed of thought, or even backward in time like precognition, spidey-sense etc.)

The bomb-jacket & Danger's prison cell were just to relieve the anxiety of the other mutants; I suspect Cyclops & Illyana both knew it was just a test of her patience, which had already been tested in her time of frozen hell when she didn't eat or sleep for a year, or the Enchantress's binding wall & torture show (a rather blatant demonstration of Magik's full immortality as HellLord of Limbo.)

In the end, it was only the Ties That Bind (her loneliness & desire for a life with friends & family) that truly imprisoned her (especially love of Kitty & Piotr, plus the desire to earn respect from Scott. The whole Juggernaut, Phoenix Force & Black Vortex empowerment eras, plus various de- and re- empowerments, deaths, resurrections, and T/O infections might just be manipulations on her part to create Peers who can understand her world. "There are no snowflakes in Hell.")

[Daedra]

I might get a bit "Mary Sue" about Illyana in the following, but each part is based on precedents; I'm just assembling 35+ years of Illyana's power-moves in one place... (the Black Vortex and Phoenix Force didn't really offer her much that she doesn't always potentially have if played to the max, as the Elder Gods, Dormammu, Scythian & others learned to their regret... She can plausibly be said to have mastery of Space, Time, Soul & Reality between her mutant, sorceress, and HellLord powers, plus her mind-shield & memory altering & thought blurring spells suggest mastery of Mind, and when in full armour or LightChilde-mode she also clearly embodies Power. But having killed herself at 14 when she accidentally took over the world while playing childish games, she clearly doesn't want the Responsibility that Omnipotence carries, sort of an anti-Spiderman regarding Power & Responsibility...)



The end of the surfboard-sword, spikey-BDSM black-leather Magik era might just be a stylistic choice of the artistic team, an indication of her battle with T/O, or might be an aspect of her boredom with status quo.

Given that Illyana clearly has instant costume generation spells, it's astounding that she doesn't wear different garbs in every scene, like Kitty did back when she couldn't decide on a code name.

Back in Illyana 1.0's era, the artists often drew her with a stunningly diverse, Paris-catwalk worthy variety of outfits, often with a skull motif plus hairstyle, horn, and hoof variants etc.

Like Iron Man going through suit upgrades, her SoulArmour might be fairly adaptable, all the way up to the full-body-exosuit she shed at the end of Inferno when she became the LightChilde (plus there's the possibility she could wear tech armor under the mystic, like the space suit she picked up during the slumber party... As an intergalactic teleporter/crosstime traveler, there's no reason not to be decked out like Kang or Doom as Infamous Iron Man, whether by plundering dead worlds across space & time, or by ordering it custom made as befits a HellLord.

For that matter, shifting SoulSword appearance might be as easy as changing lightsaber color, although I never tired of waiting for her actually to ride the cricket-bat version around through the air, like the Silver Surfer does on "To Me"



Those 'data-circles' might be an homage to Cumberbatch in the MCU that the artist wanted to draw, but it could be any of a number of things, including T/O side effects (if she's not just pretending to be dealing with that) or a way to automatically clear a battlefield of dozens of hidden enemies (without chopping them up like Blink sometimes did, or as Magik did to Scythian.)

The original "light circles" were strobe-flash instantaneous, which has the advantage of being undodgeable, but the 'floating in air "Portal"-type' stepping disks have the advantage of redirecting momentum (why she doesn't use them for indoor skydiving & outdoor jump-flying has always seemed like a waste to me, although she did drop the soldiers in this scene from a bruising altitude), not to mention being impenetrable shields that can redirect attacks, gate in demon hordes, or dismember giant space-gods like Magus & Scythian.

During the era she held Limbo within her after curbstomping Dormammu, she used raw mystic energy without Portals to bridge space & time (with the special effect of being surrounded with images of demonic beings, including Cartman.)

There are also other invisible non-stepping disk Portals she's been able to see since Sapna, which would help her with interdimensional travel, and she also demonstrated the ability to stride across time (why she would do that rather than remotely scrying across time, I cannot say.)

Note other "killer apps":

Her power to teleport can't be effectively nullified by mutant collar or area neutralization field because
1) she could use a spell, not a Stepping Disk (maybe explaining the recent mystic symbols)
2) Several individuals have used the SoulSword Itself to summon stepping disks, so unless mystic wards prevent her from doing so, she could summon her Sword, then use it to teleport without mutant abilities.
3) If she lives through any given battle, by sitting on her throne in Limbo while scrying on the past where she was confined, she could summon a stepping disk to take herself out of the past to the point in the past in Limbo when she arrived, then use her HellLord powers to remove the restraining collar/bomb-jacket, then sit down on her throne to scy on herself in the past in confinement to teleport herself into Limbo etc etc... (time travel loops are always fun!-)

(This last trick might explain some of her instantaneous rescues; since time passes at an arbitrary rate in Limbo, she could review battles in slow motion, then port bullets out of the air etc, while sitting on her throne like a spectator with a remote control... Her escape from explosions, grabbing Cyclops out of the way of a dissintegration blast etc, suggest she can act at the speed of thought, or even backward in time like precognition, spidey-sense etc.)

The bomb-jacket & Danger's prison cell were just to relieve the anxiety of the other mutants; I suspect Cyclops & Illyana both knew it was just a test of her patience, which had already been tested in her time of frozen hell when she didn't eat or sleep for a year, or the Enchantress's binding wall & torture show (a rather blatant demonstration of Magik's full immortality as HellLord of Limbo.)

In the end, it was only the Ties That Bind (her loneliness & desire for a life with friends & family) that truly imprisoned her (especially love of Kitty & Piotr, plus the desire to earn respect from Scott. The whole Juggernaut, Phoenix Force & Black Vortex empowerment eras, plus various de- and re- empowerments, deaths, resurrections, and T/O infections might just be manipulations on her part to create Peers who can understand her world. "There are no snowflakes in Hell.")

Great post, I can see you have a deep and detailed knowledge of the character, Illyana it's a real powerhouse, this inspired me to post some cool images of her I saved in my pc:

magik02.jpg magik04.jpg magik05.jpg

[Daedra]

some more, hope you guys enjoy:

magik03.jpg magik06.jpg magik07.jpg

[G0RM]

Great post, I can see you have a deep and detailed knowledge of the character, Illyana it's a real powerhouse, this inspired me to post some cool images of her I saved in my pc:

magik02.jpg magik04.jpg magik05.jpg

I love those, Daedra!

The part where she does partial teleports, the one with Bobby here, or vanishing from Sam's (plus Black Knight's?) arms while they're flying, snagging Captain America's shield, or when she kept a dozen disks the size of fingernails floating around her head for practice once were fun to watch, before she started doing things like teleporting spaceships between galaxies, into the stomach of giants etc! (How about opening a disk inside someone's heart or brain? Maybe filling Tony Stark's armor with fire ants, crabs, lice, spiders, and bedbugs?)

Yes, her torturing Empath was one of her better power feats, definitely; lots of serious teleportation, magic & reality manipulation in that one.

Do you have access to pictures after their death & resurrection by Beyonder, under Emma with the Hellions? (I thinks it's just before the one where they haze Empath as a group.)

Magik had a couple great costume changes with the Hellions, and did her first serious intimidation of Manny there (cornrows with skulls woven in as I recall, another with horns with little jewels wrapped around them.)

[Daedra]

I love those, Daedra!

The part where she does partial teleports, the one with Bobby here, or vanishing from Sam's (plus Black Knight's?) arms while they're flying, snagging Captain America's shield, or when she kept a dozen disks the size of fingernails floating around her head for practice once were fun to watch, before she started doing things like teleporting spaceships between galaxies, into the stomach of giants etc! (How about opening a disk inside someone's heart or brain? Maybe filling Tony Stark's armor with fire ants, crabs, lice, spiders, and bedbugs?)

Yes, her torturing Empath was one of her better power feats, definitely; lots of serious teleportation, magic & reality manipulation in that one.

Do you have access to pictures after their death & resurrection by Beyonder, under Emma with the Hellions? (I thinks it's just before the one where they haze Empath as a group.)

Magik had a couple great costume changes with the Hellions, and did her first serious intimidation of Manny there (cornrows with skulls woven in as I recall, another with horns with little jewels wrapped around them.)

yes I remember that, I always loved how fluid Illyana look used to be, I have to say that in the entirety of her printed history Magic has always been drawn by interesting and talented artists

illi02.jpg

she also has quite an experience in fighting the transmode virus:

illi03.jpg illi05.jpg

[sungila]

"her eyes, her eyes" are blue

Has anyone ever, hmm...I wonder what Illyana's family tree would look like? Seriously, is that even possible...speaking of acorns...and no, I get what you mean GORM, but her sword is not an acorn. When she 'plants' it in Limbo and Paradise blooms...that's just Limbo bleeding.

[G0RM]

"her eyes, her eyes" are blue

Has anyone ever, hmm...I wonder what Illyana's family tree would look like? Seriously, is that even possible...speaking of acorns...and no, I get what you mean GORM, but her sword is not an acorn. When she 'plants' it in Limbo and Paradise blooms...that's just Limbo bleeding.

I was just thinking about that!

Blue eyed blond in a black haired family, to the best of my knowlege, but Mister Sinister knows for sure; her family line was 'bred' by Sinister, as the miniseries "Colossus: Bloodline" accounts.

The male line of the family goes back to Gregor Rasputin, the unkillable Mad Monk of the Russian Revolution ("Rah, Rah Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen" as the song goes.)

I suppose an acorn breaks when it blossoms, whereas the SoulSword is a catalyst, which promotes change in other things, but is itself left unchanged.

For that matter, regarding 'Unchanged', due to her refusal to remain the 'High Priestess' of His cult, the Beyonder unmade and erased the New Mutants from the universe, but the SoulSword, SoulArmour, and Beatrice Medalion passed to Kitty, and her memories of the New Mutants were unchanged, despite the Beyonder erasing all other memory of them (perhaps her mental shield also transfered?)

[Holt]

Looks like she's getting a new look.