Illyana Rasputina/Magik Appreciation 2022

[Aetherna]

in the preview of Strange Academy #15 spoilers:

Wong managed to disable Magik's Soulsword, with a gesture, lol. Marvel treats Illyana as a point guard in the mystical world.

end of spoilers

Relevant pages (I assume posting preview images is fine?):





It's fine, Illyana just dismissed her soulsword so that Wong could make a point to the students (huffs copium)


But yeah I'm really not a fan of the soulsword being something other people can disrupt with a vague gesture. Feel free to make her sorcery weaker than an opponent through some mysto-babble but the connection between Magik and her sword being severed should be treated like a much more serious event if it were to happen and require more than a handwave.

e; Also apparently these pages show that the Soulhilt and the Soulblade are two distinct parts of the Soulsword. Wow, new lore! ^^

[ZephyrSurf]

I dont really think Skottie Young knows much of the magical world beyond surface level stuff considering the Soul Swords' main thing is being Anti-magic.

[sunofdarkchild]

I dont really think Skottie Young knows much of the magical world beyond surface level stuff considering the Soul Swords' main thing is being Anti-magic.

That itself is fine. It should be the job of Marvel's editors to catch and fix mistakes like this, however. Then again, I don't Marvel's editors have done an even halfway decent job in my entire lifetime and they made some pretty colossal errors in the period before I was born as well, such as when no one corrected Louise Simonsen to tell her Illyana didn't kill Belasco.

[Stormy]

Relevant pages (I assume posting preview images is fine?):





It's fine, Illyana just dismissed her soulsword so that Wong could make a point to the students (huffs copium)


But yeah I'm really not a fan of the soulsword being something other people can disrupt with a vague gesture. Feel free to make her sorcery weaker than an opponent through some mysto-babble but the connection between Magik and her sword being severed should be treated like a much more serious event if it were to happen and require more than a handwave.

e; Also apparently these pages show that the Soulhilt and the Soulblade are two distinct parts of the Soulsword. Wow, new lore! ^^

I don't know if it should be interpreted that way, but from the way she spoke to Wong as soon as her sword "canceled", to me it was more of a spell than herself, but her point of view is still valid. Magik is one of my favorite characters, what pisses me off is the way Marvel writes her, Illyana trained with better mystic teachers, read a lot of books that are kept in Limbo, and Xoffice treats her like she's a point guard, almost a troglodyte who only thinks with his sword (or rather, his mutant power), one of the reasons I consider Xoffice kinda bad for writing mystical characters.

[sunofdarkchild]

I don't know if it should be interpreted that way, but from the way she spoke to Wong as soon as her sword "canceled", to me it was more of a spell than herself, but her point of view is still valid. Magik is one of my favorite characters, what pisses me off is the way Marvel writes her, Illyana trained with better mystic teachers, read a lot of books that are kept in Limbo, and Xoffice treats her like she's a point guard, almost a troglodyte who only thinks with his sword (or rather, his mutant power), one of the reasons I consider Xoffice kinda bad for writing mystical characters.

The soul sword is one of the most powerful mystical artifacts in the entire Marvel universe. While I'd like to see more sorcery and less simple sword-swinging from Illyana, in-canon the sword is more effective and faster than spell-casting, just like her mutant power is more effective than using the teleportation spell she taught Pixie. This scene is wrong and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the soul sword is and what it does. What Wong does is impossible. If it were possible Bealsco would have done it, Dr. Strange would have done it, and many other sorcerers would have done it long ago. If it were possible Dr. Doom, Margali Szafaldos, Belasco, and others would never have sought the soul sword for themselves and it would have been of no benefit to them. If it were possible all the talk about how the soul sword was the only thing which could kill Belasco in Quest for Magik would be a joke. It makes the soul sword unable to fulfill its primary function. It is like if Mjolnir suddenly became a paperweight that had no effect on the weather, The X-Men writers are going to rightly ignore that this ever happened. Any writer with any knowledge of Illyana and the soul sword from before this is going to ignore that it ever happened. That is why we are unanimous in saying this is an act and not real. It undermines the last 40 years of stories regarding both Illyana and the soul sword for a joke that isn't even that funny.

[jwatson]

you know i think illyana's role looking over some of my stuff is of an interesting character that is always around but never get's the focus to feel complete. Hopefully this will be a great year for Magick, i think Vita will do great things in New Mutants with her.

Some illayana sketches i found, i don't think i rarely share the stuff with her in it much.

excal.jpg
excaliburwhatif.jpg

[sunofdarkchild]

you know i think illyana's role looking over some of my stuff is of an interesting character that is always around but never get's the focus to feel complete. Hopefully this will be a great year for Magick, i think Vita will do great things in New Mutants with her.

Some illayana sketches i found, i don't think i rarely share the stuff with her in it much.

excal.jpg
excaliburwhatif.jpg

That's an interesting point. While Illyana has been very prominent, the last time she was the focus of a story was New Mutants Dead Souls, which was practically a stealth solo for her. The focus was on her development as a leader, with an entire issue dedicated to how she dealt with the death of someone under her command. All of the plot point from that series were dropped when Rosenberg returned to them in Uncanny. While Illyana did a lot of cool things there, the focus was all on Wolverine and Cyclops. For all the appearances she's made in the Krakoa era, she's never been the focal character of any story. The closest she's come was the DOX New Mutants issue, which was more about Glob than her, and the New Mutants X of Swords tie-in, which was more about Doug than her. The only on-panel development she's gotten has been her fantastic letter to the Quiet Council.

In general she hasn't gotten that many stories that focused on her. There was Quest for Magik, X-Infernus, the Zeb Wells New Mutants run, I guess her 'there are no snowflakes in hell speech,' but I consider that more about Colossus than her since the focus was on him and she was wallpaper until that moment, the Dormmamu arc and her subsequent training with Dr. Strange, the story where she and Kitty team up and save Bo from monster island, her making up with Colossus in Uncanny 600, the Sapna storyline, and Dead Souls. That's it. 9 stories in the last 15 years. A major shift in her development, her becoming completely at peace with herself for the first time ever, happened off-panel and what we have been seeing are the results of this development, which is a big part of why I wrote those 2 fics about how she became a captain and Kitty admitting she prefers the older Illyana to the younger one, to provide the context behind this radical change.

[jwatson]

That's an interesting point. While Illyana has been very prominent, the last time she was the focus of a story was New Mutants Dead Souls, which was practically a stealth solo for her. The focus was on her development as a leader, with an entire issue dedicated to how she dealt with the death of someone under her command. All of the plot point from that series were dropped when Rosenberg returned to them in Uncanny. While Illyana did a lot of cool things there, the focus was all on Wolverine and Cyclops. For all the appearances she's made in the Krakoa era, she's never been the focal character of any story. The closest she's come was the DOX New Mutants issue, which was more about Glob than her, and the New Mutants X of Swords tie-in, which was more about Doug than her. The only on-panel development she's gotten has been her fantastic letter to the Quiet Council.

In general she hasn't gotten that many stories that focused on her. There was Quest for Magik, X-Infernus, the Zeb Wells New Mutants run, I guess her 'there are no snowflakes in hell speech,' but I consider that more about Colossus than her since the focus was on him and she was wallpaper until that moment, the Dormmamu arc and her subsequent training with Dr. Strange, the story where she and Kitty team up and save Bo from monster island, her making up with Colossus in Uncanny 600, the Sapna storyline, and Dead Souls. That's it. 9 stories in the last 15 years. A major shift in her development, her becoming completely at peace with herself for the first time ever, happened off-panel and what we have been seeing are the results of this development, which is a big part of why I wrote those 2 fics about how she became a captain and Kitty admitting she prefers the older Illyana to the younger one, to provide the context behind this radical change.

This is pretty much the perfect way of putting it. When i sketch the x-men it is fully from my memory with absolutely no reference so in a way your kind of seeing how i actually see the xmen and i noticed a lot of my stuff last year and the year before illayana is there but she is very incomplete and you honestly could not have said it better. She needs more point of view.

[WallStreeter]

I don't know if it should be interpreted that way, but from the way she spoke to Wong as soon as her sword "canceled", to me it was more of a spell than herself, but her point of view is still valid. Magik is one of my favorite characters, what pisses me off is the way Marvel writes her, Illyana trained with better mystic teachers, read a lot of books that are kept in Limbo, and Xoffice treats her like she's a point guard, almost a troglodyte who only thinks with his sword (or rather, his mutant power), one of the reasons I consider Xoffice kinda bad for writing mystical characters.

Illyana is shown as too reliant on her soulsword. If this is followed up on, it’s a good moment for the character.

[Galerion]

Illyana is shown as too reliant on her soulsword. If this is followed up on, it’s a good moment for the character.

This is actually a great point. In Marvel Future Revolution she obviously has all kinds of magic based abilities and her sword. What really took me by surprise though is that even basic attacks are only with her sword when she is actually in melee range. If the opponent is not she will put the sword away and will fire magic bolts at the enemy. That is a lot more logical and effective than trying to rush in with a melee weapon all the time.
Would be great for comics to follow suit and not force rushing with a sword as the default mode of attack.

[andreikes]

I'm loving playing with her in Marvel Future Revoltuipn

[ZephyrSurf]

Illyana is shown as too reliant on her soulsword. If this is followed up on, it’s a good moment for the character.

You can point out an over-reliance without undermining what something is inherently supposed to do.

[sunofdarkchild]

In theory having a situation that teaches her to rely on her sword less is good. The way to do that is not to take away the properties that make the soul sword what it is, but to set up a situation where the sword's attributes are not of any use. If Wong was floating high in the air and had a spell which prevented Illyana from teleporting, that would force her to resort to spells. If Wong created a barrier which would damage whoever broke it, that would also force her to think outside the box and break through without getting close. But character development for Illyana is the last thing on Skottie Young's mind. The only purpose this scene was meant to serve was as a cheap joke, and that's all Illyana is in the very brief cameos she makes in Strange Academy. In all likelihood Wong's act will be completely ignored and never referenced again - certainly by the X-book staff who are knowledgeable enough to know it should be impossible. Marvel will act like it never happened.


In terms of using more spells, the fact that Illyana avoids using spells unless she has no choice is part of her character. Unlike other sorcerers she doesn't use spells willy-nilly. She would rather stick to her mutant power and sword. In the old days this had to do with her magic being inherently black and therefore dangerous to use even under the best of circumstances. Since her training under Doctor Strange that doesn't apply anymore, but she still only casts spells when necessary. Maybe it's a result of the lessons she learned from Ooro and Cat in Limbo. Cat was very distrustful of sorcery and taught Illyana to only trust in steel. And Ororo did her best to drill into Illyana's head that magic must never be abused. and to use magic to change things on a whim is wrong. The best way to deal with getting her to cast more spells and use her sword less is by calling back to those lessons and having her realize that maybe she took those teachings too far. That would be real character growth.

[Aetherna]

Illyana is shown as too reliant on her soulsword. If this is followed up on, it’s a good moment for the character.

Magik is not going to have deep character development in Strange Academy lol. The teachers are extremely secondary in that book.

The writer just had a moment he thought looked cool in his head but doesn't work very well with the established canon. It happens.

[WallStreeter]

Magik is not going to have deep character development in Strange Academy lol. The teachers are extremely secondary in that book.

The writer just had a moment he thought looked cool in his head but doesn't work very well with the established canon. It happens.

Or maybe it will be followed up on. She will need more than her soulsword to take on the Goblin Queen.

Basically, Wong is right you can’t rely on a sword in a serious magic duel. You just can’t.