Illyana Rasputina/Magik Appreciation 2023

[sunofdarkchild]

She may no longer be the Queen of Limbo, but she remains queen in our hearts. With her critically acclaimed role in the Midnight Suns videogame and her return to the main X-Men team, Magik's star continues to rise, and the future looks bright for our little snowflake. Here's to a great 2023.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2022
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2021
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2020
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2019
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...k-Appreciation

[Phoenixx9]

Happy New Year Illyana!

[Frontier]

Happy New Year to Illyana and her fans .

[sunofdarkchild]

Here are my top ten Magikal moments of 2022

10. Casually causing a nuclear explosion while kicking Deadpool off of Krakoa. A cute reminder of just how powerful she is.

9. Getting a new costume that actually fits her character and powers to replace the Bachalo monstrosity. This would be higher if she earned it instead of having it given to her because someone else took care of the bad guy.

8. Saving the world together with other sorcerers supreme in the finale of Death of Dr. Strange

7. Her 'get bent' and flipping the bird to a Limbo demon

6. Making Perro realize he can't take her on alone after he was trashing the X-Men

5. Beating Dani and a transformed Rahne while blindfolded.

4. Her focus on the big picture and protecting Krakoa after experiencing the trauma of having her soul sword shattered.

3. Her general leadership skills being highlighted in X-Men and Midnight Suns. Her leadership was crucial in the fight against the Hex and the stone golem and she was compared to Captain America and was complimented on being a good leader by Wolverine.

2. Past Illyana telling Magik she would be proud to become her. This is the most emotional and cathartic moment she's had possibly since she destroyed the Elder Gods. Whatever my complaints about Labors of Magik, this a moment I treasure and is up there with 2021's letter to the Quiet Council.

1. The Midnight Suns videogame. I could have done a top 10 moments just from the game with things like the birthday party and the final goodbye. Between the 150 hours I've put into the game so far and my joy at finally seeing Illyana be handled well in other media with a wider reach than comics I had to put the game at #1.

[sunofdarkchild]

In horrible retcon news - Belasco created his own soul sword long before Illyana, the Elder Gods took it away from him and hid it, apparently they are alive again and just have their attention turned elsewhere, and now he's asked Back Cat and Mary Jane to find his soul sword for him so he can become ruler of Limbo again.

I hate everything about this. I've long thought that Belasco should create his own soul sword specifically to make him a credible threat to Illyana again, but that should have been only after he discovered how she did it. Him having his own soul sword all along cheapens the very concept of the soul sword - which is something that Marvel has been all-too-willing to do recently. This does nothing to make him more of a threat and all it does is put another soul sword out there for someone else to take for no purpose. His line about his "former patrons" having their attention elsewhere strongly implies that the Elder Gods are randomly back as if the Zeb Wells run never happened. Why does Marvel even have editors if they let stuff like this happen?

[NOCTPHOENIX]

We stan our demon queen here.

[rcaguy]

Shrug. Why should Illyana be the only one to visualize her soul weapon/focus as being a sword? It *IS* a rather common object. Ororo just choose a acorn/tree as her focus. This whole retcon does suck though.

[ZephyrSurf]

Shrug. Why should Illyana be the only one to visualize her soul weapon/focus as being a sword? It *IS* a rather common object. Ororo just choose a acorn/tree as her focus. This whole retcon does suck though.

darkchild's issue isn't Illyana being the only one with a Soul Sword. The issue is a retcon that Belasco always had one even before Illyana even created her own.

[rcaguy]

darkchild's issue isn't Illyana being the only one with a Soul Sword. The issue is a retcon that Belasco always had one even before Illyana even created her own.

What's the big deal? Belasco *IS* older than Illyana and doing magic for far longer after all.

There's *NO* conflict here especially since Belasco appears to have lost the sword long before he ever met Illyana.

[ZephyrSurf]

What's the big deal? Belasco *IS* older than Illyana after all.

The big deal is that the Soul Sword was the crux of the climax of Illyana's initial story. It was the personification of power that was foreign to Belasco and allowed her to wrest control of limbo and herself from him. The entire point of the soul sword creation was Illyana applying the teaching Ororo taught to her that was foreign to Belasco.

This is only exacerbated further by later appearances where it's clear Belasco and his minions want the Soul Sword because it's so unique

[Odd Rödney]

Happy New Year to Magik! The best of the X-Men!!!

[rcaguy]

The big deal is that the Soul Sword was the crux of the climax of Illyana's initial story. It was the personification of power that was foreign to Belasco and allowed her to wrest control of limbo and herself from him. The entire point of the soul sword creation was Illyana applying the teaching Ororo taught to her that was foreign to Belasco.

This is only exacerbated further by later appearances where it's clear Belasco and his minions want the Soul Sword because it's so unique

How the hell does Belasco having a soul sword which he later lost freaking change anything with Illyana's initial story? All it does is make Belasco less of the incompetent moron you and others seem to want to present him as being.

In case you forgot, Ororo created her acorn/tree from teachings she learned from Belasco. (Hint,Hint)

[sunofdarkchild]

The problems with this retcon are manifold. The revelation that Belasco had or has his own soul sword should have been a major 'oh crap' moment. It should have been a sign that he was indeed a major threat again, that his intelligence allowed him to figure out just what Illyana did and his power allowed him to replicate it. Instead it's treated as a toy the Elder Gods gave him and then took away like he's a child. He didn't do any of it on his own but was simply told exactly how to do it. The power in him possessing his own soul sword is entirely absent when he doesn't even have it, never got a chance to use it before it was unceremoniously taken from him, needs the help of these people to get it back, and is for 100% certain not going to be ruling Limbo like he wants when the story ends.

The revelation that Belasco has known all along how to create a soul sword messes up his entire continuity and makes him look like an idiot. Illyana proved in Quest for Magik that you don't even need to use your own soul to create a soul sword with her use of Pixie's soul, and Labors of Magik proved you don't even need a pure or human soul since Queen Illyana was able to use S'ym's soul to create a soul weapon powerful enough to shatter the soul sword. If Belasco actually knows how to do it, he should have been able to create a new soul sword or soul weapon using literally anyone else's soul years and years ago.

The man who once singlehandedly escaped a trans-dimensional exile, slaughtered his way through an ocean of demons, defeated and expelled the ruler of Limbo, dragged the mansion and all of its inhabitants into Limbo and proceeded to torture and continuously murder and resurrect the New X-Men and did all of that because that's just how strong his rage and desire were, is now reduced to asking Black Cat and Mary Jane Watson for help finding his keys. That's a pretty far fall from intimidating and memorable into becoming a bad joke. This is a an inconsequential tie-in that leans into comedy more than anything else, and that's what they decided to waste Belasco and the idea of him having a soul sword on rather than trying at all to make it meaningful or consequential. It should have been: 'Here is my soul sword, gaze upon it and despair.' Instead it's 'oops, I left my soul sword in my other pants, clumsy me, ha ha."

This is like if Lord of the Rings had Morgoth teach Sauron how to make the One Ring, take the ring from him immediately and hide it, and after several millennia of irrelevance Sauron asks the first two random hobbits he meets for help finding his lost ring and both he and the ring are so inconsequential that Gandalf and Aragorn never even notice Sauron or his search for it.

[rcaguy]

The problems with this retcon are manifold. The revelation that Belasco had or has his own soul sword should have been a major 'oh crap' moment. It should have been a sign that he was indeed a major threat again, that his intelligence allowed him to figure out just what Illyana did and his power allowed him to replicate it. Instead it's treated as a toy the Elder Gods gave him and then took away like he's a child. He didn't do any of it on his own but was simply told exactly how to do it. The power in him possessing his own soul sword is entirely absent when he doesn't even have it, never got a chance to use it before it was unceremoniously taken from him, needs the help of these people to get it back, and is for 100% certain not going to be ruling Limbo like he wants when the story ends.

The revelation that Belasco has known all along how to create a soul sword messes up his entire continuity and makes him look like an idiot. Illyana proved in Quest for Magik that you don't even need to use your own soul to create a soul sword with her use of Pixie's soul, and Labors of Magik proved you don't even need a pure or human soul since Queen Illyana was able to use S'ym's soul to create a soul weapon powerful enough to shatter the soul sword. If Belasco actually knows how to do it, he should have been able to create a new soul sword or soul weapon using literally anyone else's soul years and years ago.

The man who once singlehandedly escaped a trans-dimensional exile, slaughtered his way through an ocean of demons, defeated and expelled the ruler of Limbo, dragged the mansion and all of its inhabitants into Limbo and proceeded to torture and continuously murder and resurrect the New X-Men and did all of that because that's just how strong his rage and desire were, is now reduced to asking Black Cat and Mary Jane Watson for help finding his keys. That's a pretty far fall from intimidating and memorable into becoming a bad joke. This is a an inconsequential tie-in that leans into comedy more than anything else, and that's what they decided to waste Belasco and the idea of him having a soul sword on rather than trying at all to make it meaningful or consequential. It should have been: 'Here is my soul sword, gaze upon it and despair.' Instead it's 'oops, I left my soul sword in my other pants, clumsy me, ha ha."

This is like if Lord of the Rings had Morgoth teach Sauron how to make the One Ring, take the ring from him immediately and hide it, and after several millennia of irrelevance Sauron asks the first two random hobbits he meets for help finding his lost ring and both he and the ring are so inconsequential that Gandalf and Aragorn never even notice Sauron or his search for it.

Dude,this changes *NOTHING* whatsoever. Go back and reread the Magik limited series itself. It basically *SAYS* Belasco taught Ororo everything she knew,inculding how to create her acorn/tree which Illyana says her Soul Sword was based on https://peerlesspower.blogspot.com/2...darkchild.html which makes Ororo's "Master Spell" a modified version of Belasco's Master Spell-which was apparently *HIS* Soul Sword.

You *DO* realize that Belasco most likely had a Master Spell of his own if he wanted to teach Ororo the concept of it?

[sunofdarkchild]

An X-Men Leader Literally Went Through Hell to Become a Hero