YAS!!!Magik's story at it's most basic level is that of an abuse victim attempting not to become the same as her abuser. Moving beyond that it is a story about whether good can come from evil, whether it is possible to use power that is inherently evil to do good. Beyond that it is the story of a person facing the same dilemma Jean did in the Dark Phoenix Saga and making the exact opposite choice - having to maintain total control at all times or risk destroying the world. Where Jean chose to end her life then and there Illyana chose to say 'someday I'll fall, but not today' and to keep living and fighting. One of the main appeals of her character in the 80s was that she was designed with an endpoint in mind which was unusual for for a superhero character and gave her a sense of inevitability and danger that was and still remains rare. It ultimately did not matter what she did, her ending was pre-ordained like a character from a Greek tragedy. That particular aspect no longer applies in quite the same way. She's still a character who is not going to get a happy ending, but her story is no longer building towards a single inevitable tragic conclusion in part because of how much she's grown since those days. But the other aspects still apply. She slips occasionally and becomes more like Belasco, having to then struggle even harder to stop being like him. The dark stain on her soul still taints every good thing she does. When she asks a child she finds stranded on an island 'How many sleeps' that child was there, that line comes from an understanding of the child's situation based on her being stranded in a frozen wilderness for a year. When she puts Doug through tough love training to get him ready for the tournament, that carries the background of her having not only seen many friends and loved ones die, but having had to mercy kill several of them and never wanting to have to go through that again. It also has a background of her going very easy on Doug compared to how tough her own sword training was. Her sword isn't just a flashy weapon, it's a piece of her soul and a reminder of what she had to sacrifice to end the years of abuse she suffered as a child.
You talk about Gambit and self-hate and trust issues. Magik was doing all of that years earlier. When she came back from Limbo the X-Men did not trust her because they couldn't be sure she wasn't brainwashed over the years and sent back as a trojan horse. The New Mutants didn't trust her because having spent half her life in Limbo she didn't understand normal human behavior and therefore acted strangely. Then when she revealed her sorceress powers they feared her even more and some of them outright hated her. As much as that hurt her, she felt they were right to fear and hate her and hated herself just as much. That self-hatred is what motivates her worst actions. When Belasco recreates her as a soulless beast, she steals a part of Pixie's soul to get revenge on him for giving her such a wretched existence. But knowing what she's done, she later asks Pixie to kill her as atonement for that act. Her abuse of Colossus under Gillen was a giant plea of 'look at me! can't you see I'm nothing but a monster?' Sometimes she earns the mistrust of others through her own actions and then has to work harder to earn it back even as she feels she doesn't deserve it. That's also the background for her conversation with Glob when he talks about his abuse and how angry he is at himself for being angry. Her advice about a little anger being ok and needing to look at the good as well as the bad is based on having gone through all of that herself.
All the aggressive attitude, one liners, and cool visuals are just the surface built on top of that deep edifice.
let 'em Know Hunty!!
The Spiderman thing just seemed like it was an obvious update to the character.
The black costumes the XMen rocked for a while wasnt that big a deal IMHO. They definitely paired very well with the direction Morrison took the team. Eh Wolverine always looked like a white muscular brunette dude.