New Mutants 28 Spilers/Review

[sunofdarkchild]

We open with the gang hiding in a cave while Illyana still tries to manifest her soul sword. She can form many other kinds of weapons but not the one that symbolizes her escape from Belasco. It's been weeks and Illyana has been training Maddie in how to use magic in the interim.

They decide they've reached the point where they have to storm the castle to take Limbo back, but Dani's still angsty over giving Limbo to Maddie. Maddie says Krakoa, because it has Sinister and the Summers brothers in such prominent positions, is to her what Limbo is to Illyana and Limbo is where she can find purpose away from all of them. Colossus offers his support for Maddie and she and Illyana do the ritual to make Maddie ruler, even though they know someone else is ruling Limbo at the moment.

The final fairytale page has the group facing a shadow in a final battle.

As they pass through the front gate of Castle Belasco, Magik casts a spell that puts the demons surrounding the gate to sleep. Dani says Magik should use her magic more in battle, but Illyana says using her soul sword is using her magic.

More demons arrive and they fight. Illyana goes through another door to face S'ym, picking up a random sword off the ground. He grabs her arm and makes her drop it, and while she's focused on him someone hits her on the head from behind with his soul mace. Turn the page and...

It's Illyana, the third alternate version of her in this storyarc, quoting Sun Tzu non-stop. The others try to help but she quickly binds them in place.

Data page showing the history of 'Queen Illyana Rasputina,' a version who decided to stay in Limbo to rule it after beating Belasco instead of returning to Earth. While she remained an ally of the X-Men and New Mutants, she became more evil than the 616 'Yana, kidnapping the Enchantress to learn how to control the Darkchild power and then murdering her once that was done. The page cuts off during the part about that timeline's version of Inferno, so the story remains incomplete. When side by side the evil version looks like an adult while the real Yana looks like a teenager.

From her explanation, it seems that this alternate Illyana was created by Limbo itself in response to the real Illyana's neglectful rulership and possibly to ensure an Illyana would continue to rule it instead of Madelyne. She declares that for her to live she has to fully take control of Limbo, and for that she has to kill the real Illyana.

They have a fist-fight, the evil version who wasn't bludgeoned with a magical mace easily overpowering the one with a concussion, and quote Sun Tzu at each other some more. Illyana reveals they had a plan to deal with whoever was pulling S'ym's strings as Maddie stabs the big bad from behind with a magic scythe.

Illyana absorbs the essence of her counterpart, which seems to have been at least partially stolen from her when the soul sword broke. It combines with thing her younger self gave her last issue and she undergoes a magical girl anime transformation into her new form, with her soul sword reforged. The gold coloring comes from the upgrade from the gift little Illyana gave her.

The surrounding demons react in fear and pledge their loyalty to Illyana again. She says she's not in charge anymore but goes to punish S'ym anyway, Colossus holding him while she either kills or tortures him.

Wrap up. Illyana writes a letter to the Quiet Council informing them about Maddie being the new ruler of Limbo. Maddie cannot threaten Krakoa in any way, and Illyana will be both keeping an eye on her and continuing to teach her magic. Her stepping disks seem to function as usual, but she isn't sure yet what effect giving up Limbo will have on them so will continue practicing. She says she wants to teach magic to more people o Krakoa, especially so mutants won't be defenseless when mutant-power-dampening tech is used on them.

Colossus and Illyana meet. Piotr has noticed something is wrong as a result of Mikhail's control. He doesn't remember what he does when under that control and is becoming afraid. He wants to patch things up with Illyana because his love for her is constant and therefore a source of stability he needs right now. Illyana says she's spent her life acting angry to hide her pain and is tired of doing that. They agree that since Krakoa is supposed to be about second chances they should use it to repair their relationship.

In Limbo, a demon who is fed up with all the changes in leadership tries to rally the other demons to take control of Limbo from Maddie, but she cuts his head off with her Scythe and declares she will be staying in Limbo to rule unlike Illyana who stayed on Earth as much as possible. She sits on the throne as the demons chant 'long live the queen.'

The last flashback pages reveal that the demon who stole Illyana's brush was saved by Illyana from S'ym's wrath when she was young, making him eternally gratitude. He learned of the importance of the storybook in giving her hope and resolved to create it in the past, stealing her brush and hair and using them to create the little goblin and imbue it with the knowledge and memories to write the storybook in the first place.

[sunofdarkchild]

Review: I feel that many of my problems with issue 26 resurfaced here. The Sun Tzu quotes kill the issue, because they kill off any potential the idea of an alternate Illyana who decided to stay in Limbo had. There's no real contrast between the two, no ideological debate, no exploration as to which choice was the better one because all the space which should have been used for those things is taken up by the incessant quoting of a person who isn't relevant to the story at all. There is nothing to be learned about any character from these quotes. Every last one of them could have and should have been replaced with dialogue unique to these Illyanas. Once again it seems like Illyana doesn't learn anything or grow in facing this villain, because any dialogue which would demonstrate that is replaced by Sun Tzu. It's problematic from a storytelling perspective that Illyana gets her soul sword back and seemingly a new powerup - after the fight is already over and after not doing anything to earn those things. It's like if Goku unlocked super saiyan after Frieza was already beaten and without going through the trauma of Krillin's death. And that problem could have been fixed by just getting rid of the Sun Tzu quotes and putting in dialogue that was actually relevant. All the panels could have been the same and the issue would still have been so much better and more cathartic with these changes to the dialogue.

Because of this, I don't feel that Illyana grew or learned or that she is in any real kind of different place than she was at the start of the arc. She gave up Limbo like she always intended and there was never any doubt. She's going to teach magic, which she already said she was going to do before this arc even started. She didn't earn getting her soul sword back or her new outfit/power, all of those were just given to her after Maddie killed the villain. The only issue in which she learned anything or had any character growth was issue 3 when her younger self admired who she had become, and that wasn't relevant at all either here. Outside of the end of issue 27, this arc is missing those moments where stories and characters earn their victories, where they learn and grow.

[Exodus]

maybe it is just me but this arc never seem to have a real plot or purpose besides the first issue and over-all premise: Illyana will hand over limbo to Madelyne. And so she did. Everything else has been an unnecessary (boring) detour. What a letdown. Could have been amazing but was just kinda "blah"...

I enjoyed the nostalgia of being remembered of 1980s INFERNO and that Madelyne finally got the chance to find a place in this world while staying sketchy and maybe evil. I prefer her as a villain (and already miss her 80s costume a lot and painfully).

[ericng]

I feel that this arc was pretty boring. It was already prewritten that Maddie would become the ruler of Limbo.

Doug is the best person to learn magic because magic is just a language and this ability was actually touched on by Zeb Wells.

[sunofdarkchild]

The premise of the group having to go through a different time period/part of Limbo each issue could have made for a great longer storyarc like the cross-time caper where each issue is a self-contained story while advancing the plot slightly. There is so much that could have been done and it wouldn't have mattered if 1 issue wasn't up to snuff or didn't advance the plot in any meaningful way. Having that premise and then only doing 2 issue with it is an odd choice. Given it was a 4-issue arc with the 1st and last issues absolutely having to stay in the same place and time, I think it should have focused on just the conflict with S'ym and Queen Illyana and not bother with the time shenanigans. Then the story would have been tighter and there would have been more time to develop and explore the villain instead of introducing her halfway through the final issue and killing her off in a couple of pages.

[WallStreeter]

I loved it. I never expected Illyana to grow from this arc. I took it at face value she would transfer Limbo to Madelyne. Madelyne shows growth in that she did not murder the heroes. She saved Illyana.

The others were there to show Madelyne isn’t stark raving mad. I loved this arc. Long live the Queen!

[Glio]

Maddie's rants would have more weight if only she weren't about to team up with Ben Reilly for new misdeeds.

[ZephyrSurf]

My only real issue is with Queen Illyana, specifically in not really getting how she ended up here. (I suppose the data page describes it, but the version I got cuts off the end.) The lack of context really makes her hard to relate to and just kinda exist as a villain that's there to give Illyana a power up

Otherwise, I quite enjoyed this issue. Especially the talk between Illyana and Piotr

[WallStreeter]

Queen Illyana was not there to matter. Limbo keeps an imprint of previous rulers, and Illyana mentioned having to dissipiate versions of Madelyne. Because she was so busy with her Krakoan duties snd teaching Dr. Strange, she was not around to dissipate an evil version of herself. It nearly cost her her life, buy Maddie, the new ruler of Limbo ended it with a soul weapon Illyana taught her to make.

It was about Madelyne’s rise to power and actually earning being Queen of Limbo, as opposed to it simply being given to her. And she saves the XMen there, instead of harming people.

[WallStreeter]

Maddie's rants would have more weight if only she weren't about to team up with Ben Reilly for new misdeeds.

She was never going to immediately be Glenda, good witch of the North. But Dark Web doesn’t contradict anything she said her. Age stoop can choose to do good things, after Dark Web.

[sunofdarkchild]

An arc called 'The Labors of Magik,' in which they encounter 3 alternate versions of Magik, 1 per issue, in which only Magik does anything at all for the first 3 and half issues, which has her losing her soul sword and going on a journey to get it back, with multiple characters talking about how something is broken in her and needs to be fixed, which has her assume a new costume to show how she's grown and overcome her past traumas, is not about Magik but is instead all about a character who did nothing until getting the 1 blow in the final issue? That's an interesting interpretation to say the least.

[Glio]

She was never going to immediately be Glenda, good witch of the North. But Dark Web doesn’t contradict anything she said her. Age stoop can choose to do good things, after Dark Web.

"don't do harm to Krakoa" but then she choose to **** the live of Spider-Man is not really a big effort.

[Kingdom X]

While the plot didn’t exactly hit for me there were very good emotional beats with both Madelyne and Magik. Also someone has FINALLY addressed the Piotr plot and how he perceives what’s happening to him. Unfortunately, the two characters who went through the deepest transformation are both now in the hands of other writers who seem to be taking them back to more basic characterizations.

[Devaishwarya]

I loved this issue. I appreciate Vita tying things up quickly and succinctly. With regards to her new look...I like that Reis made the gold more golden and the yellow less yellowy.

[Fokken]

I loved this issue. I appreciate Vita tying things up quickly and succinctly. With regards to her new look...I like that Reis made the gold more golden and the yellow less yellowy.

YES!!!
The effectiveness of the new color scheme relies heavily on the temperature of that pallet! The suit must be a soft cool yellow. The armor has to be warm, bordering on a caramel tone to contrast. It is a delicate balance that not every future colorist will necessarily commit to.