What If Illyana was active during 90s X-Men?

[Rzerox21xx]

What if Inferno ended different and Illyana wasn't benched or she became Magik again during peak 90s X-MEN.

What team would she joined, my money would be Cable's X-FORCE athough I'm curious how Liefeld, Greg Capullo and Tony Daniel would designed her.

or if she went with her brother in X-MEN and imagine how Jim Lee would designed her.

oh man, I guess I asked this question cause it felt like a lost opportunity, I seen 90s X-MEN fanart which feature Magik in there with the teams despite her being either a little girl or dead. I'm just curious, I know her popularity blew up ever since she came back in the late 00s, and onward to 2010s. I was curious how she would be if she was a active member of the 90s teams. her appearance in the 90s Animated cartoon might be different too, she might have action figures and she might even be featured in the 90s Capcom Marvel fighting games and other X-men video games from the 90s like those awesome Genesis ones.

[TheRealWashout]

I think she likely would have ended up in Excalibur eventually. Or since she was a kid at the time, they may have sent her to Gen X with Artie and Leech.

[Rzerox21xx]

I think she likely would have ended up in Excalibur eventually. Or since she was a kid at the time, they may have sent her to Gen X with Artie and Leech.

but What if she wasn't deaged during Inferno and remain the same age as the other New Mutants that went on to become X-FORCE, or X-Factor with Rahne, or who knows.

[Triniking1234]

She still would've gotten benched like everyone not named Kitty or Sam.

[sunofdarkchild]

They got rid of her because Bob Harris attempted to separate the X-Men from anything to do with magic as much as possible. Keeping her around means getting rid of that mandate and so would greatly expand the scope of the stories the X-Men were around to tell in the 90s.

Assuming the New Mutants still left the mansion after Inferno and went with Cable if she wasn't deaged, then she would have stayed with them and with X-Force for a while. Had she survived, Magneto would have needed a different motivation to become a villain again in Fatal Attractions and Colossus wouldn't have left the team, so that story would be extremely different. Colossus still might not have been a regular team member in TAS since that show already had Rogue, which made him somewhat redundant, but Illyana probably would have gotten an episode to guest star in as Magik and not as a helpless little girl, and the show might have been allowed to use magic as a story concept more often if the comics were allowed to. She wouldn't have been a regular since she'd still be on X-Force in the comics.


In terms of X-Men Evolution, Colossus would be an X-Man instead of one of Magneto's acolytes since he would never have been one in the comics. As Colossus' younger sister and Kitty's best friend Illyana would be a regular recurring character at the least.

In the comics Illyana would likely join the main X-Men when the other New Mutants/X-Force first members did, and if history is anything to by she'd have stuck more than the other New Mutants and become a regular like Kitty and Colossus, both do to her greater popularity with writers and readers and due to her having a stronger connection to the X-Men through her brother and best friend.

They would likely kill the Rasputins' parents eventually since powerless loved ones always die, but it wouldn't have been in the time or manner it was done in the actual comics. Maybe something to do with Belasco, who would eventually return as an Illyana villain instead of the stupidity he was getting up to with Amanda and Margali in the 90s. Amanda benefits from not being the second Magik and does better staying as Daytripper. Amanda might still be alive today. There would be no stupid retcons about the soul sword.

[RamaBird]

They got rid of her because Bob Harris attempted to separate the X-Men from anything to do with magic as much as possible. Keeping her around means getting rid of that mandate and so would greatly expand the scope of the stories the X-Men were around to tell in the 90s.

I kind of think that was the right call.

Had she taken off in the 90's, during the X-treme Super 90s everything is big and bad era, she might not have the depth she has today. I think those years the quality of characters dropped a lot.

[Rzerox21xx]

I guess having her with X-FORCE during the road trip era from 1997 might have her defeat the purpose of a road trip due to her teleportation. lol

[sunofdarkchild]

The biggest question mark regarding Illyana had she not been deaged in Inferno is that she was designed with an endgame in mind - a final battle with Belasco in which she would either sacrifice herself to end his threat forever or end up becoming him. The biggest of the many problems with Inferno was how it cheated her out of her closure by replacing Belasco with N'Astirh. I saw someone compare that to replacing Voldemort with an all-new villain in the last Harry Potter book and I agree. The way she was brought back, by having her face Belasco one last time and end the Elder Gods, gave her that closure she should have had in 1989 but without requiring the sacrifice her original storyarc was building towards, but if Inferno had ended with her staying a teenaged sorceress that endgame would still have been in play. If they kept her character arc the way it was supposed to go she still would have died whenever they decided to have Belasco return to the X-books.

There's also the fact that Louise Simonson never intended for her to truly be deaged in Inferno. Her intention was that the plot holes with the deaging weren't plot holes since the teenaged and child Illyana were not the same and the teenaged Illyana actually stayed in Limbo to bring the realm under control. The child Illyana was supposed to be from an alternate timeline - which she technically is according to the latest continuity. Harris' mandate made it so that they couldn't go with what was intended there even if they wanted to. They could have had the little Illyana die of the Legacy Virus and still brought Magik back by revealing the original intention that she was still in Limbo ever since Inferno.

[Askani's Flame]

What team would she joined, my money would be Cable's X-FORCE athough I'm curious how Liefeld, Greg Capullo and Tony Daniel would designed her.

Well we do know an initial design as it was shown in the 100th issue of New Mutants. The back had an aged up Illyana drawn by Liefield. So there was intention to bring her back but it was denied.

I kind of think that was the right call.

Had she taken off in the 90's, during the X-treme Super 90s everything is big and bad era, she might not have the depth she has today. I think those years the quality of characters dropped a lot.

I agree. Well disappointing we had to wait decades for her, I don't know that we would have been treated to the insane push and character development that she got in the 2000's.

[Rzerox21xx]

Illyana would probably be featured in pinup of the annual Marvel Swimsuit issues from 1991 to 1995, since all of X-force were and GEN X in 95. Depending on the artist, I still remember cringey Rob Liefeld pin up of Boom Boom which makes me wonder if she's the right age. lol

Arthur Adams did kinda drew Illyana in a somewhat showy bikini in New Mutants Annuals in 85.

[ComeOnBunny]

I wonder what would have happened if Little Illyana never died of the Legacy Virus.

[AdamFTF]

It's kind of hard to answer this as it was also the age of the Legacy Virus and the death of little Illyana was this big, punctuating moment of that. It showed that even a child could die from it, not just grown villains like Mastermind or Pyro. It was a big moment during a year when the X-Men were facing a lot of misfortune. It drove Collosus to question his dedication to Xavier's cause. It was even the first in a wave of moments that would contribute to the character development of Jubilee leading up to her leaving to join Generation X. That whole storyline and everything surrounding it would probably have been different.