Magik Appreciation

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Uncanny X-Men #231 July 1988
"Dressed for Dinner"
Colossus is plagued with nightmares about his sister Illyana being dressed for a regal event before
being pushed into a massive oven to be cooked alive, leaving him to wonder if his sister is in trouble.
Going into the Outback to let off some steam, Colossus becomes red hot under the Australian sun
and when Rogue comes to check on him she burns her hand on his armored form.
She cautions him to be careful as he could possibly burn someone if he's not careful.
When he goes to look at his sketch book of his sister, his worries increase when
suddenly to his horror his super-hot body causes the sketchbook to go up in flames.
He rages, and when he sees Gateway watching him, he wonders if the mute Aboriginal is mocking him.
He is soon cooled off by Storm who summons a rain cloud to lower his temperature.
After discussing his apparent increases in power, Peter expresses his concern for Illyana's well being.
Storm denies his request to go and see her, telling him that in order for the X-Men to protect their loved
ones and be able to strike at their enemies, they must continue the illusion that they are deceased.
Upset by this, Colossus pushes aside his worries telling her that she is probably right, but can't help but wonder for certain.

Later, as the X-Men wash up after supper, the team notes how miserable Colossus has been
and convince Storm that they should let him go and check on Illyana. As soon as Storm agrees to allow this,
Gateway appears as if he read their minds and leads the X-Men to the hill where he meditates.
There he opens a portal to send Colossus to check on his sister.
Peter goes alone, with his comrades wishing him luck.

Colossus appears in Limbo, the demonic realm ruled by Illyana.

There Illyana is attempting to cast a necromantic spell to summon her brother's supposedly dead soul to help her with her current crisis.
While she is doing so, S'ym mocks her telling the young Darkchylde that he will soon usurp control of Limbo from her and rule it over her.
When Peter appears, Illyana believes that her spell has worked, little realizing that Peter is not really dead.
Colossus, seeing this as an ideal opportunity to maintain the X-Men's cover, decides to use this as a ruse.
When S'ym once more mocks her, Colossus goes into a fury and jumps down to attack him, smashing his technorganic form to bits.

Illyana is surprised that a "necromantic shade" could act so independently, however Colossus
covers for this telling her that he is the "essence" of her brother, so why wouldn't he act as he would.
He then asks why he was summoned to her, and she tells him that he needs his strength to help save the New Mutants.

Teleporting them both to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Colossus sees that it is slowly going through some kind of transformation.
Illyana explains that one day she was struggling to study and write a paper on Mikhail Bulgakov's story the Master and Margarita
when she was suddenly attacked by the characters from the book. Namely Azazello, Hehemoth and Koroviev.
Easily captured, she was taken to their leader, the witch known as Baba Yaga who had all the other New Mutants captured and bound.
She explains that she intends to cook them and eat them. When Illyana attempted to summon her Soul Sword, she found her magics block
and so she teleported away to Limbo, but was unable to rescue her friends. It was at this point she thought to summon Peter's "spirit" to help,
as mystical beings have a natural weakness to iron his armored form would be an ideal weapon to use.

Soon, Colossus is teleported above the school and he smashes through the schools roof and into the lap of his enemies who are working on
fattening up the captured New Mutants. Baba Yaga sends her minions on Peter while she absconds with the children so that she can toss them in her oven.
Colossus easily over powers his attackers and follows after Baba Yaga. When a pathway to her kitchen is too small for his Colossus form,
Peter forces himself to revert back to his human form to fit through.
In his vulnerable state, Yaga is able to easily over power him,
however before she can rip out his throat Peter returns to his organic steel form.
Contact with the steel of his body causes Baba Yaga to seemingly explode, ending her threat.
After Illyana uses her powers to restore the mansion, she teleports Colossus
and the New Mutants back to Limbo to reverse the spells Baba Yaga cast on the Mutants.

There Illyana acts ashamed of her demonic nature, telling him her brother that the only reason why she is good is because she chooses to be.
Peter tells his sister that's the point, and that he is proud of her, and that with work she can become something greater than a demon sorcerer
and that he will always love her. When she remarks that he is "dead", he tells her that nobody is ever truly dead as long as they are remembered.

When Gateway's portal opens up again Peter leaves his sister telling her to remember him.
Not willing to let her brother go, Illyana considers casting the spell again, but considers that she was
lucky as the spell should have made her Darkchilde side take full control, and dares not risk it again.
She instead frees her friends from Baba Yaga's magics and return the Mutants home so that they can follow her brothers example.

Down below, one of the Right soldiers banished to Limbo earlier believes S'ym to be dead and decides to take over as leader of the demon hordes.
However, S'ym has managed to reconstitute himself and kill the soldier. He laughs about how the barrier between Earth and Limbo are growing thinner
and that "Baba Yaga" was really a Limbo demon who broke through, and soon they all will and take over the Earth.

Story by Chris Claremont. Art by Rick Leonardi and Dan Green.

[sungila]

the barrier between Earth and Limbo grows thinner...

So much of what prologues Inferno was, so much better than the event itself and in the aftermath all that potential was lost, spent on a sprawling cram-in that lacked any essential depth or transformative power. Unlike its big event crossover predecessors that seemed to build upon the momentum that came before in meaningful ways...by the time of Inferno that possibly impossible momentum no longer coalesced into a sustainable stronger bigger and badder continuous new chapter...Inferno somehow fissured before hatching...cracked apart...spilled its fires...and bled out.

In this one issue alone there are a million incredibly realized ideas and possibilities all of which Inferno consumes greedily. This one issue!

What if? the primary focus of Inferno was here with Illyana from UXM#231, what if Magik's story was not swallowed up as dramatic and narrative fuel for the "Maddie" Pryor show - what if she wasn't...so hurried into being killed off and returned, retried, retro-ed and infantilized into a baby snowflake...what if that baby wasn't born again - with so little meaning purpose and strength that she's simply killed off for emotional impact by the virus...

Sadly, revisiting UXM #231 and Inferno...

But then again, maybe this was a good thing...really, in a lot of ways this protected Illyana from the worst of what was to come...and she came back resoundingly right around a minor new renaissance...and she still, today, preserves the best of the best of what she is and was and what the X-Men at their peak and peaking can be and still sometimes...and maybe someday too will be and are kinda sorta anyway.

[comicbookfan5878]

the barrier between Earth and Limbo grows thinner...

So much of what prologues Inferno was, so much better than the event itself and in the aftermath all that potential was lost, spent on a sprawling cram-in that lacked any essential depth or transformative power. Unlike its big event crossover predecessors that seemed to build upon the momentum that came before in meaningful ways...by the time of Inferno that possibly impossible momentum no longer coalesced into a sustainable stronger bigger and badder continuous new chapter...Inferno somehow fissured before hatching...cracked apart...spilled its fires...and bled out.

In this one issue alone there are a million incredibly realized ideas and possibilities all of which Inferno consumes greedily. This one issue!

What if? the primary focus of Inferno was here with Illyana from UXM#231, what if Magik's story was not swallowed up as dramatic and narrative fuel for the "Maddie" Pryor show - what if she wasn't...so hurried into being killed off and returned, retried, retro-ed and infantilized into a baby snowflake...what if that baby wasn't born again - with so little meaning purpose and strength that she's simply killed off for emotional impact by the virus...

Sadly, revisiting UXM #231 and Inferno...

But then again, maybe this was a good thing...really, in a lot of ways this protected Illyana from the worst of what was to come...and she came back resoundingly right around a minor new renaissance...and she still, today, preserves the best of the best of what she is and was and what the X-Men at their peak and peaking can be and still sometimes...and maybe someday too will be and are kinda sorta anyway.

You prove why I find Simonson to be the worst of all those writers who handled her character. She ruined her making her young again and thereby “expendable”. Claremont never would have cast her off, ever. Simonson is why we lost the character for 20 years.
What a well-written issue from Claremont you shared.

[Maestroneto]

Simonson was garbage but tbf the destruction of the New Mutants came from Bob Harras, who really hated that property for some reason.

[comicbookfan5878]

Simonson was garbage but tbf the destruction of the New Mutants came from Bob Harras, who really hated that property for some reason.

Him I loathe (within the context of comic book fandom). Bob Harras really sucked as an Editor.

[sunofdarkchild]

So I didn't get this issue, but apparently in the Holiday issue...

[sungila]

So I didn't get this issue, but apparently in the Holiday issue...

That's nice, she kept that doll all these years...hopefully it's not infectious.
Funny though isn't it? Having a stuffed doll of an actual friend?

Although, I think Kurt may have...
Uncanny-X-Men-168.jpg

Yup, he did...oh elf, unglaublich...

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Magik #1 Dec 1983
"Little Girl Lost"
Present 14 year-old Illyana Rasputin reflects on her time in Limbo between her kidnapping and rescue in Uncanny X-Men #160.
After Belasco pulled her six year-old self back through the portal, the aged sorceress Ororo

and the grown up ninja Kitty Pryde now going by "Cat" are able to get her away from Belasco's citadel, but not before he's able
to corrupt a piece of Illyana's soul, forming the first of five blood gems that will eventually allow his demonic masters to conquer reality.

In her garden sanctuary, Ororo attempts to break Belasco's hold on Illyana but is too weak to overcome the dark persona now infecting her mind.
Ororo and Cat argue over how to deal with Illyana. Cat believes she should be killed to spare her the nightmare they
and the other X-Men had suffered, but Ororo insists on teaching her the mystic arts to hopefully protect her and eventually defeat Belasco.

Ororo starts to train Illyana, taking them to the astral plane and showing her how her spells can create the plantlife of the garden
and heal Limbo's corruption, warning her never to use magic to make changes recklessly lest she give power to her dark half.
Illyana notes that glowing crystals surround their bodies representing their enchantment
and potential tie to Belasco, and that Ororo's crystal is already much larger.
When they return to their bodies, Illyana is already about a year older.

Later, Cat incapacitates Ororo and absconds with Illyana, telling her that she will get her home.

From his citadel, Belasco watches them and is pleased.

Script by Chris Claremont, pencils by John Buscema https://13thdimension.com/13-covers-...celebration-4/, inks by Tom Palmer

[G0RM]

Magik #1 Dec 1983
"Little Girl Lost"


In her garden sanctuary, Ororo attempts to break Belasco's hold on Illyana but is too weak to overcome the dark persona now infecting her mind.
Ororo and Cat argue over how to deal with Illyana. Cat believes she should be killed to spare her the nightmare they
and the other X-Men had suffered, but Ororo insists on teaching her the mystic arts to hopefully protect her and eventually defeat Belasco.

Ororo starts to train Illyana, taking them to the astral plane and showing her how her spells can create the plantlife of the garden
and heal Limbo's corruption, warning her never to use magic to make changes recklessly lest she give power to her dark half.
Illyana notes that glowing crystals surround their bodies representing their enchantment
and potential tie to Belasco, and that Ororo's crystal is already much larger.
When they return to their bodies, Illyana is already about a year older.


From his citadel, Belasco watches them and is pleased.

One thing I constantly wonder about is the one day/one year apprenticeship with Old Woman Storm.

Throughout every mention of Illyana/OWS *except* what we see on this page here, it seems that Magik went through a regular year of training in white magic with OWS.

One explanation I've considered is that what we see on the page is what Illyana 1.0 remembers, but isn't what actually happened: these might be false memories that were planted by OWS during training, or even absorbed from Oak during the last frozen year, slowly taking in OWS's magics while feeding on her greatest creation, before Magik finally manifested the SoulSword from the ashes of Oak.

Perhaps the most remarkable moment in Illyana 1.0's story was the moment Magik did NOT slay Belasco, which would have sprung the trap OWS fell into, killing a defeated opponent, which by some obscure rulebook for Dominion over Limbo, keeps power in control of the Incumbent HellLord...

Could OWS have planted post-hypnotic programming not to repeat her mistakes when Illyana battled Belasco?

Could Illyana even now be the catspaw of OWS from beyond the grave, running through her programming to defeat the Elder Gods while becoming Good?

(There's also the iconic moment in TNM #50 when Magik planted the SoulSword into the soil of Limbo, transforming all of the Splinter Realm into a Edenic garden, ironically the blade being an acorn after all!

[sungila]

One thing I constantly wonder about is the one day/one year apprenticeship with Old Woman Storm.

Throughout every mention of Illyana/OWS *except* what we see on this page here, it seems that Magik went through a regular year of training in white magic with OWS.

One explanation I've considered is that what we see on the page is what Illyana 1.0 remembers, but isn't what actually happened: these might be false memories that were planted by OWS during training, or even absorbed from Oak during the last frozen year, slowly taking in OWS's magics while feeding on her greatest creation, before Magik finally manifested the SoulSword from the ashes of Oak.

Perhaps the most remarkable moment in Illyana 1.0's story was the moment Magik did NOT slay Belasco, which would have sprung the trap OWS fell into, killing a defeated opponent, which by some obscure rulebook for Dominion over Limbo, keeps power in control of the Incumbent HellLord...

Could OWS have planted post-hypnotic programming not to repeat her mistakes when Illyana battled Belasco?

Could Illyana even now be the catspaw of OWS from beyond the grave, running through her programming to defeat the Elder Gods while becoming Good?

(There's also the ironic moment in TNM #50 when Magik planted the SoulSword in the soil of Limbo, transforming all of the Splinter Realm into a Edenic garden, ironically the blade being an acorn after all!

Magik's solo story is so very brutal & beautiful.

Over the years I've come to read it more as an artifact, a fairy tale, a photo album and self conversant language - a fabricated chronology and stand in scaffolding for Illyana's absent memory of childhood. A way of un-owning and stowing exclusively...a magic of creation twisted and linked in bonded exorcism/possession.

Imagine this bright night in winter, stars far away cold and unquiet, all sounds: shouts, cries, fires, steel and bone, hammerless bells, death throes, threats, hollow incantations, all this distress faded and bleached out by the breathless cold... a field of snow. That field of snow soft and re-animate as ash.

Feel it as a fever.
Ice burn.

Now imagine there is a portal of light...and in that light there is no shadow...no calling, no beckoning, no pulling hands, no holds...it offers no warmth...nothing...yet where it should give it gives way...impossible transport or death...what when the sands of time are shards of glass...and the smashing of the vase in un-mendable...all that careful collecting, all that should be real (friends, places, home and family, that education, those years) is ephemera in a frame, photos and scraps already yellowing and curling even in that dead of winter under the sheet of glass...the cabinet broken and bleeding out. Just static...just snow. Nothing.

And that light...that portal...that disc...why does she remember them as accidental, random...here and there...why does she not know them to be of her making...before she had intentional control...she cannot remember those seemingly random pools of light as projections from her own self...perhaps because that's impossible.

Maybe it was Illyana who rescued her brother who was rescuing her but too late and perhaps she transported them and the memory of that transport with that story we and she and her and they all tell...as origin.

When she enters the light...all this shatters...all those scraps of paper burn up on the breeze...and it's freaky silent...deathly still...the wind isn't wind but it's steady on the skin...rekindling...smoldering...7 years completely her own to posses...as she holds Limbo now...nobody has access to that becoming...by starving it into herself...even she, its container & contents, cannot hold it.

IMO, this story, Magik's first solo is her incantation, her suite, her ballet, strong and soft and practiced, elegant and delicate and ghostlike, smoke mirror seductive, miraculous but true to her body in flesh, her evidence as testimony and witness to the crimes of becoming Mutant...alien...orphan...human...apart...the last and first survivor of the broken vase. And I don't mean the flower.

tumblr_o8v4shZ7tO1shdts2o1_500.jpg

[CellarDweller]

So I didn't get this issue, but apparently in the Holiday issue...

So Jubilee has the Bamf doll again? Last I recall, she had given it back to Kitty. of course, that was a loooooooooooooong time ago, so I guess it made its way back to her.

[comicbookfan5878]

So Jubilee has the Bamf doll again? Last I recall, she had given it back to Kitty. of course, that was a loooooooooooooong time ago, so I guess it made its way back to her.

Have Magik and Jubilee had meaningful or interesting interactions since Magik’s return? Given Jubilee’s affection for the alternate (?) younger version who died, I am curious if there are any books that include them. Also, has Illyana ever reflected on her death or that of her younger self from the alternate timeline? So much potential for truly golden material there that I doubt was fully produced given the market of these comics.

[CellarDweller]

Have Magik and Jubilee had meaningful or interesting interactions since Magik’s return? Given Jubilee’s affection for the alternate (?) younger version who died, I am curious if there are any books that include them. Also, has Illyana ever reflected on her death or that of her younger self from the alternate timeline? So much potential for truly golden material there that I doubt was fully produced given the market of these comics.

I've never seen Magik or Jubilee have any sort of meaningful interactions. Would Jubilee want to talk to Magik about being there when her younger self died? Would Magik? I haven't read a lot of the X-Books in a while, would Magik even know what transpired that day with Kitty and Jubilee being by her bedside?

[G0RM]

I GOT MY WALGREENS MAGIK!!!

3rd time I looked for one, 2nd time in same store.

I just can't help but smile every time I look at the package: a reusable antidepressant!

[WallStreeter]

Simonson was garbage but tbf the destruction of the New Mutants came from Bob Harras, who really hated that property for some reason.

Harass hated the New Mutants because they had Magik (a mutant sorceress), Warlock (an alien), Mirage (a mutant who became a Valkryie). Notice Harass moved out of the pictures any alien X-Men (Longshot and Warlock), any magical connections (Magik, Mirage), sent Phoenix (Rachel) to the future. He wanted the X-Men to be about just the human/mutant struggle and hated stories that took away from that.