A Look Back at Magik: Storm and Illyana Limited Series

I have been aware of the Magik: Storm and Illyana for many years, but this was my first time actually reading it.  Not long after I started getting into comics, Illyana fell victim to the Legacy Virus in Uncanny X-Men #303; at the time, I didn't really know much about the character, but the fan letters eulogizing her in subsequent issues intrigued me.  I started to collect back issues of New Mutants and started to piece together her character's journey throughout the years.  She was never one of my favorite characters, but she was a teleporting sorceress with a sword and was occasionally demonic --- it's not like I didn't think she was cool.  When I started this blog, I thought it would be fun and interesting (for me, anyway) to finally pick up some of the ancillary X-Men-related comics from the era I'm reviewing, and that's what brought me back to Magik: Storm and Illyana.


At its simplest, this exists to explain what happened to Illyana between panels in Uncanny X-Men #160; she was taken as a seven year-old to the dimension of Limbo and returned as a thirteen year-old, even though only a few minutes passed on Earth.  As the series explains, Illyana became the magical apprentice to the demonic lord of Limbo, Belasco, who corrupted her soul. 

Illyana eventually defeated Belasco, but never regained her innocence or the bits of her soul that had been sullied.  That's a pretty clear narrative, and it sets Illyana up with a tragic background that plants the seeds for her eventual tragic demise.  I like the basics of the plot, and I like what it does for the character.  It's less of a superhero tale and more of a swords-and-sorcery fantasy story, but there's nothing wrong with that.  The execution of that plot, though, is pretty rough.

The writing on the series was done by Chris Claremont, who co-created the character and made sure to feature her in both the pages of Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants before this series came out.  He formatted the story so that each issue has a different character teaching Illyana, until she is ready to act of her own accord.  Since there are only four issues in this series, having Belasco, Cat, and Storm take turns teaching in sequential issues makes the repetition of the theme obvious and boring.  Claremont also had a hard time selling the concept of Illyana actually having a dark side.  There are some panels where the art makes her look demonic --- and that does the lion's share of the work for this concept --- but the writing essentially has Illyana telling the readers that she loves Belasco, despite no evidence of it.  As the series ends, it is hinted that this has all been an introduction to her joining the New Mutants. 

If they had had any part to play in the story, that may have been exciting.  But they don't.

Despite having three different pencillers (John Buscema, Ron Frenz, and Sal Buscema), the art is fairly consistent throughout.  I'm assuming we have Tom Palmer's inking to thank for that.  Unfortunately, the artwork isn't anything special.  None of the artists have a good grasp on how to make Illyana age subtly; she looks like a little kid until they decide to give her breasts and a bikini.  Here's a typical page for you --- vaguely young Illyana, some swords, a monster, and dull backgrounds:

For a series that takes place in an alternate dimension and features sorcery and magic, there is precious little imaginative artwork here.  That's a damn shame.  If Marvel had assigned an artist with a tendency toward the surreal or imaginative (I'm thinking maybe Bill Sienkiewicz or Walt Simonson, given the time period) to this title --- this could have been a classic, even with dull writing. 

Perhaps I should back up and mention one of the oddest things about this limited series.  As mentioned above, this entire series takes place during a scene in Uncanny X-Men #160.  That was published in August 1982.  The first issue of this series was not published until December 1983, concurrently with Uncanny #176.  That's a long time to wait for a comic story to resolve itself, especially one about a character that wasn't very popular at the time.  In all fairness to the character, she was mainly kept in the background of scenes in that sixteen-month span, so there was no reason for her to become a fan favorite.

Why was this released so long after the story began in Uncanny #160?  I haven't found anything online that addresses this delay, but it is likely the result of Chris Claremont's workload at the time--- at this point, he was writing Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants and pretty much any special project that came up, like the Wolverine limited series and the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel, which both came out during the sixteen-month gap.  According to retrospective interviews with Claremont and others, it also seems likely that Claremont's desire to not let others write "his" characters also played a part; I'm sure this series could have been published earlier if he had been willing to take a "plotting" credit and outsource the scripting to another writer.  I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel's publishing policies played a large part, too.  It took them seven years to put out the Wolverine limited series, so I can imagine they were a bit more hesitant to publish a limited series that was not guaranteed to be a hit.  Any or all of these may have been factors in the timing of this comic, but I think it's safe to say that, once Claremont was given the green light to proceed, there was not much time left to actually make the comics.  Three pencilers in four issues is an obvious sign that there were problems getting these issues published on time; maybe Claremont spent too much time trying to make the script worthwhile, or (more likely) maybe there was a tight delivery window between when the first issue was started and when the last issue needed to be completed.

So how does this series rate, on the whole?  It's pretty inessential, to be honest.  You would think that an origin story like this would be must-read material, but everything here is presented in later comics, and those summaries feel more effective than this series.  It does help flesh out Limbo, but no writer (even Claremont) since has treated it like anything more than a generic Hell substitute.  It does explain the Soulsword a bit, so that's noteworthy; it's kind of weird that it was introduced in the pages of Uncanny, in retrospect, though. 

The comic definitely has a reason to exist --- Illyana's story had been begging to be told for a while --- but Claremont undermines the importance of this series by doing a good job summarizing it in future New Mutants issues.  I would recommend this for major Magik fans or completionists only.