Illyana Rasputina/Magik Appreciation 2024

[sunofdarkchild]

In and of itself the idea of Illyana becoming the X-Men's big bad is not completely without merit. The point of her character is that she struggles with a dark side and that the only reason she isn't the worst of all villains is that her willpower and desire to be good are that strong. There is room for a story where her strength finally fails like Frodo's does when he finally reaches Mount Doom and he gives into the temptation of the ring rather than destroy it.

The biggest problem is that the best times for such a story have long passed. The original Inferno was the best time to do it, when she was at her lowest believing her brother and Doug were dead, facing a never-ending rebellion in Limbo, had practically no control over her powers, and was beginning to kill her enemies and forgetting everything she learned during her original captivity in Limbo. But Inferno depicted her as heroic throughout no matter how much her physical appearance changed, and it ended with her making a heroic sacrifice.

The second-best time would have been immediately after her 'there are no snowflakes in hell' speech, as that was when she was at her most unheroic and had given up on even trying to be good. Ever since then, she has been on an arc of becoming more heroic and more mentally stable and gaining control over her powers.

During the Bendis era, Illyana started trying to be good again and trained with Doctor Strange to finally control her power.

Since then, she has seen her brother killed in battle, witnessed a slow-moving genocide of her people with the terrigen mists, been forced to mercy-kill her beloved student Sapna, been betrayed by one of her best friends and made a prisoner of the US government, and witnessed her soulmate Kitty die at Shaw's hands, all without turning in. Even when her mutant side was destroyed and she became a feral beast for a time, she didn't kill Juggernaught and threatened no one outside of the single room where the event occurred and presumably got herself under control again.

And now, we had a story where she transformed and got a more heroic costume to show her more heroic nature, and a story where when given true godlike power she is not tempted at all and uses that power only to heal and restore before giving it up. Plus she has given up control of Limbo entirely in the first story, and without Limbo she will not make anywhere near as good a villain as she would have in 1988 or 2012.

So unlike Frodo, who was steadily getting worse until he finally succumbed, Illyana has been on the complete opposite path and is not in a place where it is realistic at all for her to give in to her dark side. Any story where she becomes the villain has to be triggered by an event that is even more traumatic than the death of Colossus in Battle of the Atom, the death of Kitty in Marauders, or the death of Sapna. A betrayal by someone close to her can't be the trigger either since that was already covered by Karma's betrayal in New Mutants Dead Souls. Without such a traumatic trigger, the story would fail from page 1 and be nothing more than editorially mandate crap that has nothing to do with character development or anything resembling good writing. It would be like Superman turning evil in Injustice because he got up on the wrong side of the bed and not because the Joker tricked him into accidentally killing Lois.

Assuming such an appropriately traumatizing trigger can be found, the first thing they'd need to do just to establish her as an effective villain is to have her reconquer Limbo from Maddie, undoing everything The Labors of Magik accomplished. This is another factor that an evil Magik story cannot go without. Conquering Limbo from its current ruler would go a long way towards establishing her power on the individual level, and again, it is only as the commander of the demon armies of Limbo that this kind of story can work at all.

And even if they handle it perfectly, with a perfect setup that explains exactly why she'd go evil now and the perfect use of her as a threatening but tragic villain, it would likely still not be worth undoing all the character development of the last 11 years, wasting one of their best heroes, and getting rid of what looks like a good thing they've got going with Maddie right now, just for a 'Magik goes bad' story. Even a perfect story would seem out of place, out of character, and like an editor has an ax to grind rather than a natural story or character development, since it would go against everything that's been done with the character since 2013.

Basically, in theory such a story could have worked many years ago. In practice, it can't work anymore and doing it now would be a huge mistake.

[sunofdarkchild]

On a happier note, the Artgerm Magik variant of Fall of the House of X#1 is one of the hottest comics of the week in terms of value. This seems to happen pretty often where Magik variant covers become highly sought-after and go up in value upon release. The comic itself doesn't have her in it and isn't good, so I don't recommend getting it unless you really need to know what happens from the comic and not from online spoilers.

https://comicbookinvest.com/2024/01/...10-comics-379/

[Thirteen]

My first exposure to Bill Sienkiewicz, Limbo and Darkchilde. Love at first sight NEW MUTANTS #30

[sunofdarkchild]

Preview image from the latest X-Men Monday, possibly of the Illyana-Kitty teamup issue, though I hope it's from a sooner issue because I'd rather not wait until March for Illyana to start reacting to everything going on with Orchis when she's been back on earth since December.

[Fokken]

CONCERNING!!!! Yana whatchoo doin' with them horns, huh??

[sunofdarkchild]

I wouldn't be too worried yet. Unyielding rage is a pretty understandable response to everything Orchis has done and the default response of pretty much everyone right now. Colossus is out there making causal jokes while murdering Orchis goons with Wolverine.

[Fokken]

I WILL say that I LOVE what the shadows are doing with that image. The sharp angles are really selling the vibe.

[sunofdarkchild]

Playing devil's advocate, if they are going to make her a villain after June, now would be the time to start setting it up. Actually, that would have been before she gave up control of Limbo and instead of her giving up Limbo, but if they're going to do it at all then it has to be set up as early as humanly possible to not be a complete disaster.

[ZephyrSurf]

noticed the design is very Immortal X-men prophecy

[Fokken]

Playing devil's advocate, if they are going to make her a villain after June, now would be the time to start setting it up. Actually, that would have been before she gave up control of Limbo and instead of her giving up Limbo, but if they're going to do it at all then it has to be set up as early as humanly possible to not be a complete disaster.

I mean, if Orchis wins and mutants are back to hiding etc etc, I could understand Illyana going apeshit and being an "evil mutant" I suppose.

[JB]

noticed the design is very Immortal X-men prophecy

Oh snap I forgot about that.

[Fokken]

It would be WILD if Illyana becoming "evil" was the result of seeing Kate and Piotr going full kill mode, and relenting to her darker impulses causes her to lose control and give in fully to her Darkchild self.

[JB]

It would be WILD if Illyana becoming "evil" was the result of seeing Kate and Piotr going full kill mode, and relenting to her darker impulses causes her to lose control and give in fully to her Darkchild self.

Oooo that's really interesting.

[sunofdarkchild]

The more I think about it, the more I don't want any potential 'Illyana becomes the villain' story. Even if it is a temporary thing, doing it at all takes away from her character and would make her just another hero who had a period where they were a villain. No longer would she be the person who could have become the worst villain but doesn't thanks to her own willpower. No longer would she be uniquely well-suited to carry her specific burden. The fact that she'd given in at all would prove that she's not special in resisting the darkness she carries. She'd be no different from Colossus who couldn't handle the Juggernaut's powers. And once they've gone to the villain well, if she survives and becomes good again, she'll be less interesting since the threat of her dark side taking over will be gone or neutered by seeing exactly what happened and her being defeated or turned good again. And if she dies, then they'd have wasted the character. In pretty much every possible way it would be a lose-lose.

The only way I can see myself even giving such a story a chance is if they do it by bringing back Belasco, have him do something horrible that causes Illyana to kill him in anger, and that is what turns her evil. Basically, fulfill the original setup and do it the way Claremont originally intended. Anything else will fail miserably. And even that is problematic after all this time and how she otherwise seems to have outgrown Belasco as a threat. It goes to show how terrible of an idea it is now that this would be the best way to do it and the only way it can work even in theory.

[Fokken]

What WAS Illyana's Realms of X development (if any) ?
I did not follow through with that story and I've seen some folks drawl comparisons to that story and the horned art in the AIPT article


Also: Omfg, someone on my twitter time line pointed out that the image of Yana COULD be from the Dead X-Men mini series. So it could be her from somewhere else in the timestream. That's probably it.