Illyana Rasputina: Magik Appreciation 2020

[244]

So I am not too up-to-date with the latest X-craziness, but Krakoans can now resurrect pretty much any mutant with their Resurrection Protocols, right? So would there be anything to stop them bringing back kid Illyana - the one who died to Legacy virus? I mean, she is still legit dead, Illyana 2.0 is a different person, no? She did say that she had to 'sacrifice her own existence' for the kid Illyana, implying that they could not co-exist in same timeline or something, but I would this really be a problem? Wasn't there at one point like 3 or 4 different Hank McCoys running around?

I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up. Magik’s character is convoluted as it is.

[c-lei]

I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up. Magik’s character is convoluted as it is.

Kid Illyana was a really,really bad idea that should've never seen the light of day.

[Oldandevil]

My point was not to establish whether-or-not Illyana has reabsorbed her soul, only that she is in possession of it. It has been accounted for during her entire lifetime. Establishing that the soul of Earth 616’s Illyana (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0) is unique to her and has a consistent timeline is important in understanding why the child Illyana must be a clone or an AR version. The Illyana who died in UXM 303 had her own pure, innocent soul but not the soul of our Illyana.

[Ikari]

I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up. Magik’s character is convoluted as it is.

Yeah, multiple versions of popular characters running around is totally not an X-book thing!
But yes, I agree, if she were to brought back it should be only for one-off story where they interact a bit, things would be awkward and at the end kid version is given to foster family to live a safe childhood and not seen again.

Kid Illyana was a really,really bad idea that should've never seen the light of day.

I don't think it was a bad resolution for her story at the time, but the way it was followed up certainly was. Ie. not doing anything with her except killing her off with which seemed like a committee decision. 'So we need somebody to die to Legacy virus, who should it be? -I know, lets use Illyana, we can't use her anyway and she's useless to us now'.

[sunofdarkchild]

I've had an idea for a while for a fic in which after Illyana got deaged Belasco came back seeing it as his second chance to train her and turn her into his dark disciple, with Kitty wielding the soul sword being his primary opposition. At the end of the story little Illyana would try to pick up the soul sword to fight Belasco off but wouldn't be able to hold it because she's too small. However, by touching the sword which was an extension of her own soul she'd regain all the memories from her older self and thereby the knowledge of how to fight back against Belasco and drive him off. Magik would be sort-of back. She'd be able to use her spells more freely than when she was older because the damage which had been done to her soul in Limbo would still be gone, but she wouldn't be able to use her sword because it's still too heavy for her or her stepping disks because she's still too young for her mutant power to manifest. Kitty would keep the sword until Illyana became old enough to wield it again, and the X-Men and New Mutants would be unsure if they should treat her like a child or like her older self.

As for the Legacy Virus, there were plenty of reasons for her to be the victim. Deaths in fiction mean the most when they affect the most people, and Illyana fit that bill very well. She had strong connections with members of the main X-Men, X-Force, and Excalibur, and the bond she had with Magneto helped to justify the decision to make him turn into a full villain again. In terms of causing the most pain to largest number of people at the time she was one of the best choices for killing off.

[c-lei]

I've had an idea for a while for a fic in which after Illyana got deaged Belasco came back seeing it as his second chance to train her and turn her into his dark disciple, with Kitty wielding the soul sword being his primary opposition. At the end of the story little Illyana would try to pick up the soul sword to fight Belasco off but wouldn't be able to hold it because she's too small. However, by touching the sword which was an extension of her own soul she'd regain all the memories from her older self and thereby the knowledge of how to fight back against Belasco and drive him off. Magik would be sort-of back. She'd be able to use her spells more freely than when she was older because the damage which had been done to her soul in Limbo would still be gone, but she wouldn't be able to use her sword because it's still too heavy for her or her stepping disks because she's still too young for her mutant power to manifest. Kitty would keep the sword until Illyana became old enough to wield it again, and the X-Men and New Mutants would be unsure if they should treat her like a child or like her older self.

As for the Legacy Virus, there were plenty of reasons for her to be the victim. Deaths in fiction mean the most when they affect the most people, and Illyana fit that bill very well. She had strong connections with members of the main X-Men, X-Force, and Excalibur, and the bond she had with Magneto helped to justify the decision to make him turn into a full villain again. In terms of causing the most pain to largest number of people at the time she was one of the best choices for killing off.

And all of this this is exactly why Kid Illyana was such a horrible idea. It's what basically nearly turned all the X-titles into a unreadable mess for years to come for all the reasons you just mentioned.

[sunofdarkchild]

Part 3 of my New Mutants film rewrite is up.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1369014...s-film-rewrite

[juan678]

https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/commen...ite_like_this/

[Andru]

I just saw it on Nakayama's IG..AMAZING!!!

Here is a cleaner version...

Magik001.jpg

[juan678]

[sunofdarkchild]

That is what the movie should have done in general. Play up the mystery about the actual mysterious character, not the toothless mystery about the freaking every-girl.

[G0RM]

Finally

November 17, available digitally

[Ikari]

Quite frankly I don't understand why that scene was cut, it's not like the movie was overlong anyway...but I suppose they wanted to save Illyana mysteries for the sequel which of course will never come. They did not want to pull all triggers at once and it made sense to start with Dani. It also reflects the original New Mutants run, where there were things about Illyana which others didn't learn about until Inferno.

[sunofdarkchild]

The first X-Men movie showed how to do it right. Rogue was POV character but for most of the movie the mystery was about Wolverine. This is what made the twist that Magneto wanted Rogue all along work and allowed there to be an even split in focus between the main character and the character everyone actually wanted to see, even if the other characters suffered. New Mutants failed primarily because of how much focus is given to Dani at the expense of every other character. Imagine if Rogue was the total focus of the first X-Men and Wolverine was a bit part. That's what New Mutants was. If the POV character is the answer to the mystery, then it should be a shocking twist and not blatantly obvious when the movie starts, and if the POV character is the focus of the mystery, then that character should not be an everyman character who has nothing mysterious about them. The mystery surrounding Dani is the plot of New Mutants, and there's no hook to it, no reason to be all invested. The movie makes the answer obvious from the start and never presents any possible alternative answers to throw us off. They could have implied the place was actually haunted, or that Reyes was behind it, or Illyana was doing it, or that the Bear was behind everything. But they never do. The only questions the film raises are 'what's causing these weird things' and 'what's Dani's power?' Even if someone who never heard of any of these characters went and saw the movie, that limited set of questions makes the answer as obvious as 1+1. There's also 'who's behind Reyes' but that's clearly not meant for this film but a hypothetical sequel.

X-Men 2 is where some of the mysteries about Wolverine's past were answered. They could have done something like that, but instead of doing the smart thing and making Illyana their Wolverine they made her the Cyclops of the movie and left it to Dani to carry the entire movie, a task which she simply couldn't do.

[Ikari]

I think they did not want to play the 'haunted house' hypothesis much because it would have been way too obvious and would have come across forced. Similarly, putting plot focus on Illyana on first movie would have been a mistake if the idea was to make more of them (as you noted in the case of Wolverine and X-men movies).
Since it was obvious that Dani had to have some kind of power, they did not even try to hide she was behind it all: the mystery was precise nature of her threat. I agree it could have been done better, the scares were bit too basic and they should have dropped bit more hints about the bear itself. As it was, its appearence was bit of an anticlimax.