Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina: MAGIK appreciation 2021

[WallStreeter]

With the Kulan Gath arc of Savage Avengers complete Illyana did indeed get the deciding blow that won the day for the good guys. Though what Kang and Conan do at the end might erase both the current and even the Claremont Kulan Gath stories from history. Not to mention the way the series handled her was odd. The zero issue being a reprint of the 80s story framed in a manner that emphasized her history with Gath made it look like she'd be very important, but she was only around for the fight with the dragon Saudurang and disappeared from the series after that. So her getting the kill shot, while making some sense thanks her teleportation power, comes somewhat out of nowhere since she'd been an after thought at most for the previous 10 issues. Plus, the fact that she wasn't even in on the plan and just thought 'everyone's making a big deal about this knife, better stab him with it' makes it not a moment that reflects or shows her character growth. Her being the one to defeat Gath in combat could have been used to show how she's grown since the 80s Gath story, but the way it was handled killed any chance of that.

On the language thing, the way Claremont handled it never made sense. Instead of downloading Russian into the heads of all the X-Men, the smarter move would have been to just download english into the child's head. That way if something happened and she got lost she'd at least be able to ask for help. Xavier did more work to achieve a less useful result. Instead of teaching an entire language to more than half a dozen people just so they could communicate with Illyana, he could have achieved the same result by just teaching one person english, Illyana, and achieved the further result of better acclimating her to life in America and better ensured her safety. That he was able to teach her english telepathically after she came back from Limbo was a plot hole even at the time, since even though Claremont hadn't decided what exactly happened to her in Limbo yet, her psyshields which Xavier couldn't breach no matter how hard he tried were established right away. When the Magik mini finally came out it specified whenever she spoke Russian and most of the time she just spoke English, so it seems Claremont changed his mind at retconned Xavier teaching her english to before Limbo, which should have been the case to begin with.

Illyana learned and became fluent in the languages required for spell-casting in Limbo. We also see in the Zell Wells run that she knows the language that's specific to the demons of Limbo. It's not much of a stretch to think that that is the language she spoke most in Limbo and the one that is most familiar to her.

Or Claremont and later writers knew what doing by portraying her as having spoken Russian all that time. Strip away her Russian accent and you have a basic white American girl. They were attempting to portray ethic diversity by making characters from different countries and having them have accents. For the same reason Rogue keeps her Southern accent to portray the culture she is from.

[sunofdarkchild]

Or Claremont and later writers knew what doing by portraying her as having spoken Russian all that time. Strip away her Russian accent and you have a basic white American girl. They were attempting to portray ethic diversity by making characters from different countries and having them have accents. For the same reason Rogue keeps her Southern accent to portray the culture she is from.

I find it hard to believe Claremont was being so careful to keep her distinctively not American when he was the one who turned her into a stereotypical 80s mall girl for no reason. Even if that was what he was trying to do, it doesn't change the in-story problems with how it was handled. Xavier chose the stupidest and most irresponsible route. In the real world, any halfway decent teacher would make teaching the foreign student the native language a priority. He didn't. And even if that was the reason, there were better ways for Claremont to keep her distinct, from accenting her speech the way her brother's speech is sometimes accented, having her still talk in Russian most of the time since most of her conversations would still be with her brother, to including Russian phrases in her English dialogue. Having Xavier not even try to teach her English just makes him a bad teacher and guardian and was inviting something bad to happen to her.

[WallStreeter]

I find it hard to believe Claremont was being so careful to keep her distinctively not American when he was the one who turned her into a stereotypical 80s mall girl for no reason. Even if that was what he was trying to do, it doesn't change the in-story problems with how it was handled. Xavier chose the stupidest and most irresponsible route. In the real world, any halfway decent teacher would make teaching the foreign student the native language a priority. He didn't. And even if that was the reason, there were better ways for Claremont to keep her distinct, from accenting her speech the way her brother's speech is sometimes accented, having her still talk in Russian most of the time since most of her conversations would still be with her brother, to including Russian phrases in her English dialogue. Having Xavier not even try to teach her English just makes him a bad teacher and guardian and was inviting something bad to happen to her.

We are about 40 years too late to change that. Lol. What’s your issue with her having an accent? She grew up in Limbo, where words were magically translated and Cat and Storm already spoke Russian anyway.

[sunofdarkchild]

We are about 40 years too late to change that. Lol. What’s your issue with her having an accent? She grew up in Limbo, where words were magically translated and Cat and Storm already spoke Russian anyway.

What are you talking about? We had an entire discussion on the last page in which 4 of us agreed that it doesn't make much sense for her to have a Russian accent now given the time she spent away from Russia in the US and especially Limbo. None of us said anything about being upset by that. In my first post I said her accent should be 'Limbolease,' and in the post you just responded to I even said giving her a more pronounced accent when speaking English would have been a better choice than not teaching her English at all. Heck, if she was more obviously Russian and less stereotypically American after returning from Limbo it would have been better and she wouldn't have ping-ponged between too weird for anyone to understand and stereotypical 80s mall girl. The issue of Xavier teaching her English telepathically was brought up as was the question of what languages she spoke in Limbo, so I gave my thoughts on those issues as well, that the way Claremont handled the language teaching was problematic and seemed to be retconned into a version that makes more sense, and the fact that the instances when Russian was spoken in the Magik mini were specifically highlighted means that those were the only times Russian was spoken. Going off the mini itself everyone, Illyana included, just spoke English the rest of the time. Later comics like the Zeb Wells run show that Limbo has it's own language which Illyana is fluent in, so it's possible that that's what was spoken for most of the series. The issue of Xavier's telepathic teaching has nothing to do with what accent she should have since it's the age at which she left Russia that made 4 of us say she shouldn't have a Russian accent now. It's that issue alone, Xavier's stupidity and irresponsibility, that actually bothers me and it seems that Claremont agreed since he depicted Illyana as already knowing English when he went back and wrote the Magik mini.

[Aetherna]

Or Claremont and later writers knew what doing by portraying her as having spoken Russian all that time. Strip away her Russian accent and you have a basic white American girl. They were attempting to portray ethic diversity by making characters from different countries and having them have accents. For the same reason Rogue keeps her Southern accent to portray the culture she is from.

Claremont pretty much never had her speak any russian after her abduction. She acted and spoke like a very sterotypical american teenager in the new mutants.

It's also really weird imo to argue that her "ethnicness" can only be portrayed by giving her an accent. Do you truly believe she'd be a "basic white American girl?" if the only thing different about her was how she spoke English? Particularly since this particular argument started in the first place because her hypothetical accent isn't really something that shows in her written dialogue so people had differing opinions. Illyana being Russian is a part of her character no matter what she sounds like, see any interaction she has with her family.

[rcaguy]

What are you talking about? We had an entire discussion on the last page in which 4 of us agreed that it doesn't make much sense for her to have a Russian accent now given the time she spent away from Russia in the US and especially Limbo. None of us said anything about being upset by that. In my first post I said her accent should be 'Limbolease,' and in the post you just responded to I even said giving her a more pronounced accent when speaking English would have been a better choice than not teaching her English at all. Heck, if she was more obviously Russian and less stereotypically American after returning from Limbo it would have been better and she wouldn't have ping-ponged between too weird for anyone to understand and stereotypical 80s mall girl. The issue of Xavier teaching her English telepathically was brought up as was the question of what languages she spoke in Limbo, so I gave my thoughts on those issues as well, that the way Claremont handled the language teaching was problematic and seemed to be retconned into a version that makes more sense, and the fact that the instances when Russian was spoken in the Magik mini were specifically highlighted means that those were the only times Russian was spoken. Going off the mini itself everyone, Illyana included, just spoke English the rest of the time. Later comics like the Zeb Wells run show that Limbo has it's own language which Illyana is fluent in, so it's possible that that's what was spoken for most of the series. The issue of Xavier's telepathic teaching has nothing to do with what accent she should have since it's the age at which she left Russia that made 4 of us say she shouldn't have a Russian accent now. It's that issue alone, Xavier's stupidity and irresponsibility, that actually bothers me and it seems that Claremont agreed since he depicted Illyana as already knowing English when he went back and wrote the Magik mini.

Just becase she spoke english doesn't mean Illyana would ever speak it with an American (New York in this case) accent.

[sunofdarkchild]

Just becase she spoke english doesn't mean Illyana would ever speak it with an American (New York in this case) accent.

I don't understand. I complain about her being too much of an 80s American mall girl, I say multiple times that her accent should be primarily a Limbo accent. What part of that would imply I would think she should or want her to have an American accent? Is Limbo a neighborhood in New York? Is 'Limbolease' a variation of the Brooklyn accent?

[Aetherna]

Belasco was Italian so clearly Illyana should sound like she is a member of the Sopranos.

[borkbork]

I mean there's Brighton Beach, which is a Russian enclave of Brooklyn. Brooklyn-Russo English is interesting.