New Mutants #14: Secret Magik

New Mutants #14 starts with a brief recap of the Magik limited series, for those who haven't read that, and picks up exactly as it finished, with Xavier declaring a snow day. It's Illyana's birthday, whatever that means (she's 15 now - but her experience in Limbo was undateable - is it just that Xavier decided she's more or less 14 and now this is her next birthday?)

While Xavier is worrying about Illyana (perhaps something he should have been doing more of recently), S'ym - Belasco's head minion - turns up, takes down Xavier, and lays in wait for Illyana. Oh dear. She uses her mutant power to bring the New Mutants into the mansion (and in a curious bit of timey-wimey, intersecting with a bit of Magik #3), where they start the requisite punching. Teamwork, as usual, proves key. Magma gets to use her powers in controlled combat for the first time, by making a mini-volcano inside, busting up the floorboards. I can see a small problem with that.

Magik recovers. Her spells prove ineffective, so she is forced to resort to the soulsword. With this she threatens S'ym into her service. Stevie Hunter witnessed all of this, so Magik rips a trick from Xavier's playbook and mindwipes her. All that is remembered is Magik's mutant power: the light circles. She keeps the magic to herself.

Magik #1-#4: A Snowflake's Chance

Kids. They grow up so fast these days, don't they?

We've had comics being set between previously released issues. We've had comics set between panels. The bulk of the Magik: Storm and Illyana miniseries is set between two parts of the same panel of Uncanny X-Men #160. In that, Illyana is lost in Limbo, and ages half a dozen years while the X-Men watch.

The experience has clearly affected her more than the X-Men suspect. Xavier noticed something odd with her on the scanner, she was honouring an absent friend's birthday (not the brood-fighting Kitty Pryde, although it was her birthday) in New Mutants #3, and then there was that incident with the Danger Room and the sword in Uncanny X-Men #171.

Illyana Nikolovna Rasputin (named here with the correct patronymic for the first time - they even retcon in a previous usage) recounts the tale of her experiences in Limbo - her friendship with an aged Ororo and an adult Kitty Pryde (calling herself Cat), their destruction at Belasco's hands, and her seeking revenge, which in itself corrupts her.

It's not a happily ever after. The Illyana who escapes is warped, and has become exactly that vision of future Illyana that Ororo and Cat had sought to prevent. She has learned all of Belasco's spells, can teleport with the aid of discs (her mutant power?), has created a Soulsword from a bit of herself, and started to grow horns and a tail. She escapes, at which point she appears with the X-Men. At a time and place of her own choosing, it seems.

This is a good story, the best thing I've read yet in the course of my reading for this blog, and it really lays out the character of Magik, who I always had difficulty grasping. By a happy coincidence, I read this the same week that Uncanny X-Men #18 dropped, which has Magik admit to trying to bring Colossus down to her level - perhaps trying to recreate the demonic Colossus she meets here in Limbo. "No snowflakes in hell", she says. She's not wrong.

Uncanny X-Men #160: Could it be Magik?

The last issue saw the X-Men suddenly summoned back to *Proto-Utopia because Xavier's coma has worsened. Uncanny X-Men #160 doesn't do anything with that, but ends up being one of the most important fill-in issues of all time.

Illyana (who apparently got migrated to Island M/Proto-Utopia with the rest of them, rather than being sent home to Siberia which might be the more sensible thing) triggers a device that sends her to a strange realm ruled by Belasco. The X-Men follow, fight Belasco and mostly win, but unfortunately end up with a 13-year-old Illyana, who has lived in Limbo for half her life, rather than the 6-year-old one that had run off. What has she learnt from Belasco in the mean-time, and more to the point, how on Earth are they going to explain that to her parents? While the last issue is providing the inspiration for BtVS, this then is Connor. She's got a medallion that'll go off when she hits womanhood and do all manner of unspecified sinister things, too.

This all only happens due to the X-Men being stupid. They've settled on this island that has risen from the deeps and has unusual architecture and is of unknown origin and have not even yet thoroughly explored it. The fault must be laid squarely at the doors of Professor X and Storm - both of whom were in a position to order the island to be checked out, and neither of whom did.

We get another name for Illyana this issue. She is "Illyana Natalyanovna", which along with the fact that she keeps calling her brother "Piotr Nikolievitch" implies that they don't quite understand how Russian names work yet. Apart from your basic first, given, name and surname/family name, Russians have a middle "patronymic" name, derived from the first name of their father, with -ovna (овна) or -evich (евич) appended. Natalyanovna is what, a matronymic? Which you might get for someone of unknown paternity. So not our little snowflake, then. Additionally, we're not sure what Russian name "Illyana" is supposed to represent. Ульяна (which might usually be translated Ulyana), possibly. Who knows?