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[jsg2295]

Duggan's latest "Buffy" episode. "Punch, Kick, Quip, Slide, Quip, Quip, Ironic Aside, stab..."

He loves putting fake "handicaps" on the characters as poor plot devices. Magik should be leaping in and out of portals and silently slicing Orchis troops, but I guess Duggan had to keep it to a minimum because Phil "Paper Doll" Noto can't draw action sequences.

Let's see if predictable Duggan can resist having Kitty and Illyana make out during the next two issues (hopefully Duggan's last). #flush

Magik can’t use teleportation…or magic I guess because of the nanobots in her bloodstream…I think?
I’m counting down to 35 with the hope that everything goes back to normal after Moria X …or whatever Roman numeral she is …is neutralized.

[Frontier]

This has really devolved into a generic action blockbuster comic.

[jsg2295]

I just noticed …she’s going down a wire with a sharp as hell sword and using her hand to hold on to the blade and support her body weight….lol…how is she not chopping off her fingers or cutting the rope/wire?!!! Man this storyline can’t end fast enough for me.

[HomoSuperior]

I just noticed …she’s going down a wire with a sharp as hell sword and using her hand to hold on to the blade and support her body weight….lol…how is she not chopping off her fingers or cutting the rope/wire?!!! Man this storyline can’t end fast enough for me.

Yeah, any rhyme or reason to the soulsword died a lonnnng time ago. It's now whatever the writer wants it to be.
And that artwork's deadpan tone is reminiscent of 80's Saturday morning Spider-man cartoons; just wrong for the gritty action that is supposed to be happening. It puts the 'no' in nostalgia.

[sunofdarkchild]

One interesting detail, the soul sword only glows in 1 panel, where she has cut a large hole in the wall (side note, but why is the panel of her cutting through the wall skipped over? It would be cool to see and not having it makes the scene less coherent). Plenty of artists leave out the glow altogether, but I don't think I've ever seen an artist have it glow in just one panel and not glow in all the others. If that's something that can be turned on and off at will that's new. But then when she uses it to block the bullet or laser blast it's back to not glowing, implying that it's still 'on' which makes the 1 panel of it glowing make even less sense.

[Thirteen]

One interesting detail, the soul sword only glows in 1 panel, where she has cut a large hole in the wall (side note, but why is the panel of her cutting through the wall skipped over? It would be cool to see and not having it makes the scene less coherent). Plenty of artists leave out the glow altogether, but I don't think I've ever seen an artist have it glow in just one panel and not glow in all the others. If that's something that can be turned on and off at will that's new. But then when she uses it to block the bullet or laser blast it's back to not glowing, implying that it's still 'on' which makes the 1 panel of it glowing make even less sense.

I'm reading that as being the differentiation of when the Soulssword is just being used as a regular physical weapon as opposed to activated "magic". It glows for the latter.

What's up with her speech bubbles though? I'm hearing Tara Strong's Raven (Teen Titans) voice as I read the dialogue.

[sunofdarkchild]

I'm reading that as being the differentiation of when the Soulssword is just being used as a regular physical weapon as opposed to activated "magic". It glows for the latter.

What's up with her speech bubbles though? I'm hearing Tara Strong's Raven (Teen Titans) voice as I read the dialogue.

The speech bubbles are just a reflection of her being exhausted.

The thing is that the sword has never been just a physical weapon. It's made from pure energy. Even if Illyana was actively limiting its capabilities like keeping it from harming non-magical beings in the old days it still glowed so brightly human eyes couldn't even look directly at it. The only 'off-switch' was to unmanifest it. Then again, Marvel has increasingly been treating the soul sword as nothing more than a big dumb club since Bachalo made it oversized and stupidly depicted it as sheathed on her back when she wasn't actively using it for no reason.

[Quill-Han-Vos]

I like Noto but his style isn't for this book IMO

Just like the way his style wasn't a good fit for the end of Remender's Uncanny X-Force.

[Thundershot]

And it looks like we're just pretending Realm of X never happened even though the issue seems to open with a direct reference to the fact that she was off-world until 'now.'

Based on the whole Kurt conversation from a couple weeks ago, I think it’s apparent that Duggan didn’t read those FoX minis before he started writing this final arc.

That works out because I didn’t read Realm of X either. lol Way too many filler minis that were essentially meaningless..

[Thirteen]

The speech bubbles are just a reflection of her being exhausted.

The thing is that the sword has never been just a physical weapon. It's made from pure energy. Even if Illyana was actively limiting its capabilities like keeping it from harming non-magical beings in the old days it still glowed so brightly human eyes couldn't even look directly at it. The only 'off-switch' was to unmanifest it. Then again, Marvel has increasingly been treating the soul sword as nothing more than a big dumb club since Bachalo made it oversized and stupidly depicted it as sheathed on her back when she wasn't actively using it for no reason.

Is that the current interpretation of the Soulsword's former "magic only" effectiveness? During the classic Illyana run, it could only affect magical entities just because of its basic nature.




IIRC it wasn't until Illyana was brought back as a (soulless?) young adult in NM vol 3, that her use of the Soulsword had expanded parameters.

[Uncanny X-Man]

I'm always suspish when characters start killing people so easily, even though it might be in Illyana's character in this case, but also thinking about what's been happening across Duggan's books - it makes me wonder if there might be a retcon/history-rewriting coming to wash all the extremes away. It is after all what they're trying to accomplish over in Rise of the Powers of X...

[Frontier]

I'm always suspish when characters start killing people so easily, even though it might be in Illyana's character in this case, but also thinking about what's been happening across Duggan's books - it makes me wonder if there might be a retcon/history-rewriting coming to wash all the extremes away. It is after all what they're trying to accomplish over in Rise of the Powers of X...

Ordinarily you would hope that once everything is settled characters will actually address what happened and their actions...but it'll probably all be swept under the rug.

[SturdyMike89]

Duggan's latest "Buffy" episode. "Punch, Kick, Quip, Slide, Quip, Quip, Ironic Aside, stab..."

He loves putting fake "handicaps" on the characters as poor plot devices. Magik should be leaping in and out of portals and silently slicing Orchis troops, but I guess Duggan had to keep it to a minimum because Phil "Paper Doll" Noto can't draw action sequences.

Let's see if predictable Duggan can resist having Kitty and Illyana make out during the next two issues (hopefully Duggan's last). #flush

Well, Kitty and Illyana have been a popular ship for decades so them getting together wouldn't be too out of line. They are (canonically) soulmates after all. I have been a fan of the pairing myself for decades. Though you are right about Duggan he needs to go.

[jsg2295]

I'm always suspish when characters start killing people so easily, even though it might be in Illyana's character in this case, but also thinking about what's been happening across Duggan's books - it makes me wonder if there might be a retcon/history-rewriting coming to wash all the extremes away. It is after all what they're trying to accomplish over in Rise of the Powers of X...

It’s pretty much what they did before krakoa and Hickman…how soon people forget Rick Remender…Cyclops even lost an eye in that one…of course this will all be reset….but it doesn’t excuse the horrible “comedy” lines between the X-men as they murder people. Much less the bad characterization.

[sunofdarkchild]

Is that the current interpretation of the Soulsword's former "magic only" effectiveness? During the classic Illyana run, it could only affect magical entities just because of its basic nature.




IIRC it wasn't until Illyana was brought back as a (soulless?) young adult in NM vol 3, that her use of the Soulsword had expanded parameters.

The soulsword began affecting nonmagical objects and people between Fall of the Mutants and Inferno, as a sign of her growing loss of control over her powers. Specifically, issue 66 when she tried to kill Forge. The rest of the New Mutants immediately questioned why the sword was shattering non-magical rocks and creating demonic faces on the broken pieces. It was also at this point that other beings could start to wield the sword instead of just Illyana since it was part of her soul and Kitty since she had a soul-bond with Illyana. The sword was never depicted with its previous rules after this.

The idea that Illyana was always actively limiting herself and lying about her limitations has always been the simplest in-universe explanation for how inconsistently she was written. 6 or 7 issues after she joined the New Mutants she suddenly started talking about her magic not working on earth and many times said that her powers didn't work at all on earth, except for all the times she cast spells before then and after then, and if her claims were true the New Mutants would never have found out she was a sorceress in the first place since they only found out due to a spell she cast on earth. The out-of-universe reason is if she stayed as powerful as she was from issues 14-20 she would have solved every problem the New Mutants faced with ease and there wouldn't have been much for the other characters to do, so Claremont depowered her in order to fit her into the team book. But it never really made sense for the character even beyond the inconsistencies of her saying she can't cast any spells 1 issue and having no problem casting spells the next. Since the point of her character arc is that she's an apocalypse maiden who is deathly afraid that her powers will wipe out all life on earth, making her powerless on earth would defeat the entire point of her character. Since she is so afraid of her powers, lying about their limits so as to not use them would be very in-character for her and explain every inconsistency regarding her powers in the 80s.

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