Illyana Rasputina/Magik Appreciation 2022

[From The Shadows]

Kind of strange that Magik would be considered underated. She appears in a lot of titles these days. She was also in Bendis and Gillen's X-Men runs if I remember correctly. She's the New Mutant member that made it to the big time. Well, to me at least.

Well, she got her own Jim Lee card way back when.

[sunofdarkchild]

The X-Wife Podcast: The Claremont Run - Magik

[Aetherna]

The fact that they really have Fox X-men characters in the next Doctor Strange movie just makes me sad that Magik likely isn't prominent enough for Anya Taylor-Joy to get a cameo in the movie. She would actually make thematic sense in a mystical movie tackling the multiverse

[sunofdarkchild]

The fact that they really have Fox X-men characters in the next Doctor Strange movie just makes me sad that Magik likely isn't prominent enough for Anya Taylor-Joy to get a cameo in the movie. She would actually make thematic sense in a mystical movie tackling the multiverse

We'll see. The rumor mill is still saying that Magik will have a 3-5 minute appearance along with many other characters like Mr. Fantastic. If she isn't in the movie at all, that's probably Josh Boone's fault for deliberately getting rid of everything that makes her a good character in her first big shot.

[sunofdarkchild]

Cover and solicit for New Mutants 26, coming out May 25.

new mutants 26.jpg

Vita Ayala and Rod Reis’s acclaimed run heats up in NEW MUTANTS #26. While the queen is away, demons will play! A new queen has taken the throne of Limbo — Madelyne Pryor, A.K.A. the Goblin Queen! Meanwhile, separated from Limbo, Magik faces an enemy she thought she had banished long ago...


The banishing part sure makes it sound like Belasco's coming back.

[RamaBird]

The fact that they really have Fox X-men characters in the next Doctor Strange movie just makes me sad that Magik likely isn't prominent enough for Anya Taylor-Joy to get a cameo in the movie. She would actually make thematic sense in a mystical movie tackling the multiverse

It's not that Magik isn't prominent enough, it's that that movie sucked! In a well written movie, Magik will definitely break out!

[Andru]

Cover and solicit for New Mutants 26, coming out May 25.

new mutants 26.jpg

Vita Ayala and Rod Reis’s acclaimed run heats up in NEW MUTANTS #26. While the queen is away, demons will play! A new queen has taken the throne of Limbo — Madelyne Pryor, A.K.A. the Goblin Queen! Meanwhile, separated from Limbo, Magik faces an enemy she thought she had banished long ago...


The banishing part sure makes it sound like Belasco's coming back.

I LOVE this cover! Thank you for sharing!

[BobbysWorld]

As sunofdarkchild pointed out in the solicits thread, Belasco tends to sniff out the second Illyana is weakened or loses her grip on Limbo to try and make a play for it again, so even though we last saw him in Man-Thing's grip.....there's plenty of ways he could have gotten free and escaped into the wind offpanel since then, if Ayala wanted to go that route.

And in THAT vein, like.....imagine if the solicits are just doing their usual coy thing with 'an enemy she thought she had banished long ago' and Belasco's return ISN'T a surprise to her. Like, just musing here, but if Illyana somehow got word (or had a ward set up to alert her if Belasco made an appearance somewhere) that Belasco had gotten free again and was in hiding somewhere......rather than just sit on her ass and wait for him to inevitably pop up and make another power grab......this current scenario would work perfectly as a baited trap.

Like Illyana hatches a plan with Madelyne that puts Madelyne on the throne of Limbo, which Belasco is primed to see as a sign of Illyana being weak and vulnerable, how else could such a thing have happened.....but in actuality it was bait to draw Belasco out of hiding, allowing Illyana to take care of him once and for all, possibly while Madelyne for her side of the bargain gets a chance to take her ultimate revenge on S'ym for his attempts to manipulate and use her so long ago.

[sunofdarkchild]

As sunofdarkchild pointed out in the solicits thread, Belasco tends to sniff out the second Illyana is weakened or loses her grip on Limbo to try and make a play for it again, so even though we last saw him in Man-Thing's grip.....there's plenty of ways he could have gotten free and escaped into the wind offpanel since then, if Ayala wanted to go that route.

And in THAT vein, like.....imagine if the solicits are just doing their usual coy thing with 'an enemy she thought she had banished long ago' and Belasco's return ISN'T a surprise to her. Like, just musing here, but if Illyana somehow got word (or had a ward set up to alert her if Belasco made an appearance somewhere) that Belasco had gotten free again and was in hiding somewhere......rather than just sit on her ass and wait for him to inevitably pop up and make another power grab......this current scenario would work perfectly as a baited trap.

Like Illyana hatches a plan with Madelyne that puts Madelyne on the throne of Limbo, which Belasco is primed to see as a sign of Illyana being weak and vulnerable, how else could such a thing have happened.....but in actuality it was bait to draw Belasco out of hiding, allowing Illyana to take care of him once and for all, possibly while Madelyne for her side of the bargain gets a chance to take her ultimate revenge on S'ym for his attempts to manipulate and use her so long ago.

We'll see: The solicit for the trade says "The Labors of Magik! Since the founding of the island nation of Krakoa, Illyana Rasputin has been focused on mutant affairs and world-building — but she hasn’t spent much time on her other-dimensional throne in Limbo. And someone has been eyeing the empty seat! Now, Magik must fight for her hellish kingdom — and her very life — in a classic hero’s journey featuring some of the most hated villains in New Mutants history! The biggest resurrection in Krakoan history is about to shatter both Limbo and its ruler — and you’re gonna love to see it!"


If this is a story about a fight with Belasco, then I'm actually a little miffed it's in New Mutants and not the opening arc for a Magik ongoing. Having Belasco would make for a great jumping on point because it provides a natural avenue to recap her origin for new readers. Now if by some miracle they do decide to give Illyana her own series, they'll have already used this card, and that's not something they can repeat anytime soon since it's literally the third time they'd have ever fought and the first time since 2007. I kind of get it. They're looking to increase sales of New Mutants, Magik is the biggest draw of the title, and they want new readers to jump on even though it's issue 25.

[sunofdarkchild]

New Mutants Truth or Death has been added to comixology today, if anyone is interested in purchasing that crap.

[Fokken]

Cover and solicit for New Mutants 26, coming out May 25.

new mutants 26.jpg

Vita Ayala and Rod Reis’s acclaimed run heats up in NEW MUTANTS #26. While the queen is away, demons will play! A new queen has taken the throne of Limbo — Madelyne Pryor, A.K.A. the Goblin Queen! Meanwhile, separated from Limbo, Magik faces an enemy she thought she had banished long ago...


The banishing part sure makes it sound like Belasco's coming back.

Very cool visual for the cover with the Soulsword shattering and reflecting assorted bits from her past.

When I saw the classic full armor and the horned Darkchild persona, I thought maybe the "enemy" she thought she banished was herself. The Darkchild, rather.
As far as serious rogues from her past are concerned that she may have "banished" I suppose the likely candidates are Belasco, S'ym, maybe Belasco's daughter(?) or maybe the Elder Gods(????!) or Dormamu?

[sunofdarkchild]

Very cool visual for the cover with the Soulsword shattering and reflecting assorted bits from her past.

When I saw the classic full armor and the horned Darkchild persona, I thought maybe the "enemy" she thought she banished was herself. The Darkchild, rather.
As far as serious rogues from her past are concerned that she may have "banished" I suppose the likely candidates are Belasco, S'ym, maybe Belasco's daughter(?) or maybe the Elder Gods(????!) or Dormamu?

In terms of 'banished' the only enemy that word really applies to is Belasco. She banished him from Limbo. The word has never been used in relation to any of her other enemies and doesn't make sense when applied to them. The 'long ago' line also strongly implies it'll be Belasco. The Darckchild last took over in the story immediately preceding Krakoa, and that's if the 'Zombie Queen of New Genosha' doesn't count as the Darkchild. Her fight with Belasco in which she banished him from Limbo is the moment that best suits both the banishing and the 'long ago' aspects, since pretty much everything since her return could be said to have been recent.

This could in a sense mean that the events of Quest for Magik are being ignored entirely and this is being treated as their first real encounter since their first fight in 1984. I've actually had that sense for a while that the fact that she was dead for so long and came back wrong was slowly being phased out so that her origin and time with the New Mutants in the 80s would be more directly relevant to her current status and character growth. From a certain point of view it could be said that their encounter in Quest for Magik happened to a different person and Illyana is now the person Belasco was seeking in that story and who he rejected the Darkchild for not being, so this could be considered their second encounter.

Of course, all of this assumes that the solicitations are honest when Marvel has a terrible problem with false advertising and will have solicits which say 'x character does x' when that character never even appears in the issue the solicit is for.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

This panel captures why I love Magik (she totally just wants to make out with Ghost Rider)

https://why-i-love-comics.tumblr.com...52566528/embed

[mugiwara]

This panel captures why I love Magik (she totally just wants to make out with Ghost Rider)

https://why-i-love-comics.tumblr.com...52566528/embed

Glob Herman actively searching for a lighter.

[sunofdarkchild]

There is a fundamental problem with bringing Belasco back that was created by Simonson's depiction of Illyana but is even worse nowadays. It is the problem pointed out by this video essay about Batman.



The big threat Belasco always posed was the moral conundrum. Yes, he could destroy the world and torture Illyana in a thousand ways, but the real problem was that there was no way to end his threat without becoming him. In the final confrontation, Illyana would be forced to kill him, and thereby lose what remained of her soul and become an even worse monster. It was a catch-22, the only way out would have been to take herself out at the same time she killed Belasco.

That threat is gone, and it has been since Fall of the Mutants. Simonson thought Illyana had killed Belasco in her origin, and so her killing in anger following Doug's death became not a big deal. She crossed the line that should have damned her forever, and even her assault on Forge was only a problem because he was a good guy. In Inferno, her succumbing more and more to her corruption only really manifested physically. Her personality stayed the same throughout, turning the Darkchild into exactly the same thing as Cosmar's problem and making her sacrifice pointless. It was no longer about the threat she'd become if she crossed the line, only that she'd lose the ability to look human.

Unfortunately, while the writers who have handled her since her return succeeded in restoring the Darkchild to its original threat, a more violent, animalistic personality which endangers everything, none of them used the opportunity to restore her original morals. After she got her soul back, killing should have become a problem again, and her avoiding killing in anger how she protected her newly recovered soul. This more than anything is why Gillen making her more crazy after she got her soul back was such a mistake. It made getting her soul back not matter and effectively killed any chance of fixing the most egregious of Simonson's mistakes in her characterization. It's not like she even kills that much. The only person she kills during the Bendis run is old Deadpool. In the Lemire run she kills an old sorcerer and Sapna - though the latter doesn't count since it's the same as killing Cat and Ororo. In the Rosenberg runs she doesn't willingly kill anyone during Dead Souls, but she does kill a government soldier in Uncanny right before her mutant power was destroyed. It's how she talks about killing, treating it as no big deal and needing to be reminded by others 'kill no human,' that's the bigger problem, and combined with the real kills makes it so that killing carries no risk of turning her into the Darkchild, even killing in anger.

If the only person she'd killed since Rise of the New Mutants had been Sapna, Belasco's return would be a much bigger deal. When the Darkchild killed him she had no soul whatsoever and nothing to lose. She couldn't become any more damned than she already was. That would be completely different now. Now she'd have something to lose. Now facing Belasco would pose the same dilemma it did back in Magik issue 4. Now she'd have to truly risk everything to stop him. This would be the moment everything she'd built since 2001 would be on the line. This would be the moment she'd face that choice again, knowing that a repeat of how she killed Belasco when she had no soul would be to go back to what she was then, But instead there is no dilemma about killing him. She can kill him no problem since she can kill pretty much anyone with no problem. And that was the only way in which he could have been the threat he's supposed to be. The threat of her dying in combat with him is gone since the resurrection protocols haven't gone anywhere and she'd be instantly moved to the front of the que. Her character growth, reaching a place where he no longer defines her and she's basically moved past him, means that his presence can't make her freeze or panic or turn into the Darkchild from remembering her trauma like what happened when S'ym first attacked the mansion. Doing so would betray her development over the years and make her statements like "he doesn't matter" and "we are beyond this" meaningless.

Now, I'm sure a good writer can still pull it off, have him strike specifically when she's at her weakest or lowest point, use his knowledge of her to hit her exactly where it hurts, and maybe even find ways to naturally bring her old traumas to the fore by putting her in situations where she's forced to relive them. But that's not the same, and even if done perfectly, it's nothing that couldn't be done with N'Astirh, Witchfire, or pretty much any enemy capable of learning about her and making plans. The things that make Belasco such a singular threat and enemy are gone, not because he's been overused like many of Batman's enemies, but because of the way Illyana's character has developed, both in terms of good developments, and in terms of terrible writing mistakes. An Illyana who kills without consequence is not an Illyana who has much of anything to worry about from Belasco. Just as the Joker is not the Joker if Batman suddenly has no problem with killing, Belasco is not Belasco if Magik has no problem with killing.