Illyana Rasputina/Magik Appreciation 2022

[sunofdarkchild]

Bendis run

[sunofdarkchild]

And finally, Krakoa.

[sunofdarkchild]

Cover and solicitation for New Mutants 27 in June



Fall into the looking glass. With her Soulsword shattered, Magik spirals into unfamiliar territory as she confronts her legacy in Limbo – dragging Mirage and Wolfsbane down with her! And while Magik faces the demons of her past, present, and future…Madelyne Pryor inches closer to the throne.

[WallStreeter]

Cover and solicitation for New Mutants 27 in June



Fall into the looking glass. With her Soulsword shattered, Magik spirals into unfamiliar territory as she confronts her legacy in Limbo – dragging Mirage and Wolfsbane down with her! And while Magik faces the demons of her past, present, and future…Madelyne Pryor inches closer to the throne.

Ideas on who the evil bunny thing is? Is it Karma's brother Tran?

[WallStreeter]

So Wong making the soulsword disappear in Strange Academy was foreshadowing, towards it's shattering and remaing shattered for a few issues. I'm sure she's going to eventually rebuild it.

[WallStreeter]

Marvel really has too many reality warpers and overpowered people on the 'good guys' side. These days the Beyonder wouldn't be anything special but part of large club. Why was King in Black or Man-Thing or Arrako ever a threat? Let's say Thor and Dr. Strange are the most powerful people the good guys have at their disposal. No reality warpers or Phoenix Force. No pulling a Legion from the Zeb Wells run.

Limbo as a threat has always been more than just the demons. In Inferno and Quest for Magik the villains attempted to merge Limbo and earth. That's why mail boxes began eating people, why the X-Men's personalities changed in Inferno to be nastier and more bloodthirsty, why the statue of liberty grew much taller. That's a very different kind of threat than a simple army of mindless demons.

There are plenty of reasons why in normal continuity demonic dimensions don't merge with Earth or regular dimensions. There are gods and cosmic forces who prevent it. And so do their agents, people like the sorcerer supreme.

Dr. Strange, the Ancient One, Clea, all regularly prevent demonic dimensions from merging with other dimensions. So have Thor and the Asgardians. So has the Omniversal Guardian.

[sunofdarkchild]

History shows very clearly that Limbo and earth merging and the demons invading would be a very big threat even to Doctor Strange. They had a cutaway to Dr. Strange during Quest for Magik specifically to have him emphasize how big a threat Belasco merging earth and Limbo was and to say that he didn't know if he could stop it. With Inferno as well, Marvel covered how Dr. Strange would have dealt with it if Illyana's sacrifice failed and the X-Men lost. Strange was unable to stop it himself. His solution was very similar to Illyana's solution to the Elder Gods, to summon the Phoenix Force to wipe out the demons and purge earth of the influence of Limbo, and a huge number of heroes, including Thor and She-Hulk, were killed in the attempt. Even then the plan almost failed because Madelyn took control of the Phoenix before Rachel could and if S'ym didn't kill Madelyn Rachel would never have gotten the chance to end the demon invasion.

Most stories involving demonic dimensions merging with earth are treated as down to the wire affairs where the good guys narrowly avert catastrophe at the last moment, as are most superhero stories in general. Marvel characters are not One Punch Man, always winning with the opening blow. The sorcerer supreme can be surpassed by a very wide margin by another sorcerer like Kulan Gath, and will often need to enlist the help of other heroes and sorcerers. It's the nature of the medium and the stories that there will always be magical threats that are beyond Dr. Strange's power until the very end of the story and which require no small amount of luck to defeat. And the victories will be not only hard-won, but often the result of something which is difficult or even impossible to repeat. There would be no point in having a Marvel universe in the first place if Doctor Strange or people like him were treated as a universal automatic win button.

[WallStreeter]

History shows very clearly that Limbo and earth merging and the demons invading would be a very big threat even to Doctor Strange. They had a cutaway to Dr. Strange during Quest for Magik specifically to have him emphasize how big a threat Belasco merging earth and Limbo was and to say that he didn't know if he could stop it. With Inferno as well, Marvel covered how Dr. Strange would have dealt with it if Illyana's sacrifice failed and the X-Men lost. Strange was unable to stop it himself. His solution was very similar to Illyana's solution to the Elder Gods, to summon the Phoenix Force to wipe out the demons and purge earth of the influence of Limbo, and a huge number of heroes, including Thor and She-Hulk, were killed in the attempt. Even then the plan almost failed because Madelyn took control of the Phoenix before Rachel could and if S'ym didn't kill Madelyn Rachel would never have gotten the chance to end the demon invasion.

Most stories involving demonic dimensions merging with earth are treated as down to the wire affairs where the good guys narrowly avert catastrophe at the last moment, as are most superhero stories in general. Marvel characters are not One Punch Man, always winning with the opening blow. The sorcerer supreme can be surpassed by a very wide margin by another sorcerer like Kulan Gath, and will often need to enlist the help of other heroes and sorcerers. It's the nature of the medium and the stories that there will always be magical threats that are beyond Dr. Strange's power until the very end of the story and which require no small amount of luck to defeat. And the victories will be not only hard-won, but often the result of something which is difficult or even impossible to repeat. There would be no point in having a Marvel universe in the first place if Doctor Strange or people like him were treated as a universal automatic win button.

Dr. Strange or people like him may not instantly win, but they will always win because a demonic dimension merged with Earth effectively DESTROYS earth, and thus Marvel's comics sales.

So somehow or someway, any time of demonic attack on Earth will always be defeated way or another. Dr. Strange still defeated Kulan Gath, who has never defeated the heroes outright and who never will.

In a one issue What If Darkchilde or Kulan Gath or whatever demon can win, because that doesn't destroy the books that are Marvel's bred and butter.

[Fokken]

I'm really looking forward to reading a soulsword-less Yana. Very curious to see what she does and how she handles not being able to slice and dice.

[sunofdarkchild]

I'm really looking forward to reading a soulsword-less Yana. Very curious to see what she does and how she handles not being able to slice and dice.

If she really wanted to Illyana could always just create a new sword. It would not be the same or as powerful, but conjuring weapons is child's play for her. Something I'd like to see with this sort of story is an exploration of why she uses her soul sword so much as opposed to her vast arsenal of spells. Is she still scared that if she uses too much magic it could turn her into the Darkchild like in the 80s, even with her later training under Dr. Strange? Is it a result of Cat's attitude being somewhat ingrained in her over the 2 years they trained together? Cat's entire message was magic is an untrustworthy power and steel is more reliable. If Illyana fights the way she does because even subconsciously she's internalized Cat's views on magic that would be an interesting character insight. As nice as it would be to see Illyana cut loose with her spells, I'm much more interested in that sort of character exploration than seeing new or more spells.

[sunofdarkchild]

From the forgotten character expressions thread, does anyone want Illyana to go back to having expressions like 'spawn of the abyss' and 'spit and hades' instead of her modern swearing?

[Andru]

From the forgotten character expressions thread, does anyone want Illyana to go back to having expressions like 'spawn of the abyss' and 'spit and hades' instead of her modern swearing?

Absolutely!

If you couldn't already tell from my user title

[sunofdarkchild]

So, this is what Illyana will be wearing to this year's Hellfire Gala.



I really don't like this gala outfit. There was a subtle beauty to to the way the flowing fabric represented horns without actually being horns last year. This is far too in your face with it's demonic horns and tail, absurd spikyness, and whatever the heck they've done to her face.

[Dipter]

I like the scary element. The face make-up is pretty unique

[Fokken]

Illyana getting designed by Dauterman, and being featured on the cover, and inevitably getting a showcase cover like the previous Dauterman gala covers, has me believing she'll be important. Maybe even up for election??