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Magik

    Magik / Illyana Rasputina (commonly Anglicised as Rasputin) 

Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina / Magik / Darkchylde

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/illyana.jpg

Nationality: Russian, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975) note ; Magik (Storm and Illyana) #1 (December, 1983) note 

"Long have you tormented me, you ancient embodiments of evil. My soul was torn from me to purchase your freedom. I have prevented your release many times...but banishment will no longer sate me. You hunger for human fear...human suffering. Today you understand that we are not human. We are superior. Today you cease to be."
Magik

Illyana is the baby sister of Piotr Rasputin a.k.a. Colossus and Mikhail Rasputin, and just like her brothers, she is Russian. Illyana was an adorable little girl whose innocence drew the attention of the evil sorcerer Belasco. During a time when she was living with the X-Men, Belasco kidnapped her and made her his apprentice so that she might free his Eldritch Abomination patrons. She spent 7 years in a realm of Hell known as Limbo while only seconds passed on Earth, during which she learned sorcery and discovered her mutant teleportation power. She joined the New Mutants as Magik and served as a member for some time, though the nature of her abilities and Anti-Hero attitude unnerved her more religious teammates. Then, during Inferno (1988) she was de-aged back into a 7 year old and was later killed by the Legacy Virus. Then she later came back as a demon. It's very confusing.

In Avengers vs. X-Men, Illyana is chosen as one of the "Phoenix Five", a group of X-Men granted additional powers by the Phoenix Force. After Ms. Marvel is defeated by Rogue, Magik appears and gags the Avenger before teleporting her into Limbo, trapping her and terrifying Rogue. Following the defeat of Cyclops, she and Emma Frost have gone on the run (other members of Phoenix Five, Colossus has rejoined Wolverine's team, and Namor has gone home to Atlantis). She joined Cyclops' team of X-Men at the New Xavier School. In their quest to recruit new mutants to their cause, Illyana continued to aid Magneto and Cyclops. As a result of the Phoenix Force being used in conjunction with the Scarlet Witch's powers to bring back the mutants, she began experiencing changes to her powers. Unlike the others, she gained more power than she had prior to the Phoenix force, and she was now able to conjure energies directly from Limbo. Eventually, she came to realize that her power was broken as well, as she inadvertently brought her teammates to Limbo where they were forced to fight the demon Dormammu. She defeated him, but realized she needed help with her powers and teleported back in time to find a past version of Doctor Strange to teach her a greater understanding of magic as her mutant powers were linked to magic.

Her former teammate Karma organized another New Mutants team, and placed her in charge of it. A new team has since been formed, of which she is a mainstay, and leads it depending on the situation.

Illyana appeared in 2020's The New Mutants, played there by Anya Taylor-Joy.


  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: She was the most sexualized of the female New Mutants. She has never been seen pursuing a romance, but would wear the skimpiest outfits and a few times flirted with bad guys while threatening them with eternal torment. Her antics are mild by today's standards (well, except for the dental floss she'd wear as the Darkchylde), but it still becomes a little awkward considering her true age.
  • All for Nothing: In an attempt to appease the Beyonder's wrath for rejecting his gift, Illyana offers up her own life, asking him to spare the New Mutants. The others attack when he kills her, however, and whatever slim hope there was that he wouldn't kill the rest of them too are dashed.
  • Alternate Universe:
    • Age of Apocalypse: In this reality, after Apocalypse's attacks on Russia, Illyana is taken to the slave camp known as the Core located in Seattle, which provides energy for Apocalypse's empire.
    • During Excalibur's "Cross-Time Caper" storyline, the team encounters a childlike version of Illyana, clothed in the regalia of Dr. Strange, who runs an organized crime cartel in partnership with her friend Shadowcat.
    • Earth-4210: Illyana in this reality was a member of Exiles.
    • House of M: She's a member of a S.H.I.E.L.D. squadron of young mutants called the Hellions.
    • In What If? the X-Men Had Stayed In Asgard?, Illyana is one of the New Mutants who chooses to remain in the Realm Eternal. She eventually replaces the Enchantress as Asgard's supreme sorceress and assumes a secondary role as liaison between her teammate Danielle Moonstar, the new ruler of Hel, and Asgard.
    • In a 2006 issue of What If?, she is a member of a Soviet version of the Fantastic Four known as "The Ultimate Federalist Freedom Fighters".
    • Marvel Mangaverse: Illyana is a succubus and a Limbo denizen who tries to seduce Jena Pyre in X-Men: Phoenix – Legacy of Fire.
    • Earth-19121: Zombified and responsible for the survivors' inability to find the zombie source.
    • Earth-18133: In What If? Magik, she never gets involved with Charles Xavier and his school. Escaping Belasco, she becomes Stephen Strange's pupil, and eventually Sorcerer Supreme after his death in Doctor Strange: The End.
  • Anti-Hero: Nominal, if that, for the current version, who among other things gladly cut Pixie's completely innocent soul into two pieces, and admitted herself that she purely consists of "hurt and hatred given form". Possibly more Unscrupulous for the original, but seriously, she sent people to hell and was a legitimately genuinely evil being, fully accurately considered outright as far more so than several of the villains they fought by her own teammates. She softened later on, but god help you if you anger her.
  • Anti-Villain: Corrupted by evil, but usually fought against it.
    • The original inspiration for her character, according to Chris Claremont, was that Illyana absolutely was and is corrupt to her core, and over a long enough timeline, would eventually succumb to that corruption. She didn't want to, however. This is easy to see in the original New Mutants run, as even back then, Illyana was visibly more willing to use deadly force than any other member of the team.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Essentially what happened to her in Magik.
  • Ascended Extra: Before her story in Magik, Illyana Rasputin was just Colossus' sister who was playing in the farm, just about to be crushed by a runaway tractor, and then saved by the mutant who can turn his body into steel. She came to live with the X-Men when Ms. Locke, The Dragon to villain Arcade, kidnapped the X-Men's loved ones to blackmail them into rescuing her boss from Doctor Doom. After all that was dealt with, the political climate in Russia would have made things awkward if they returned to drop her back off. So they kept her around and she was with them when she was abducted by Belasco.
  • The Archmage: She's the Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo and once managed to defeat Doctor Strange there.
  • Badass Teacher: She has become a teacher in Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 and has become more powerful.
  • Berserk Button: She can be hostile even at the best of times, but do not harm children while she's around, as Dark Beast found out in Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5.
  • BFS: Illyana's Soulsword is a massive blade that was constructed from her life force forged in Limbo.
  • The Big Girl: Of Cyclops' new team after Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • Black Magician Girl: Even more so after training with Doctor Strange in the past.
  • Boxed Crook: During the Schism storyline, she was let out of the X-Brig to be a member of Cyclops' "Extinction Team", her costume wired with lethal fail-safes to prevent escape. This seemed to have both positive and negative impacts; after gaining new powers from the Phoenix Force, she did escape, and purged the Juggernaut's powers from her brother permanently and she remains a supporter of Cyclops and his revolutionary X-Men. Unfortunately, this didn't help her and Colossus reconcile; it actually made their relationship worse than ever, as he figured out she could have done that at any time and made him keep the Juggernaut powers to teach him a lesson. He said that he actually wants to see her dead. They later make up.
  • Break the Cutie: She just started as Colossus' little sister; after being sucked into Limbo (Belasco's dimension) while at Xavier's, she returned with new magic powers and a severely damaged mental state (to be fair to the team, time differences were so great, she appeared to only be gone a few seconds). She is then returned to Belasco's, where she undergoes a weird process that causes her to split into multiple beings, rather confusing, one being a soulless girl stuck in Belasco's dimension.
  • Broken Bird: Limbo was not kind to her.
  • Brother–Sister Team: Has team-up with her brother in Avengers vs. X-Men where they easily defeat Spider-Man.
  • Came Back Wrong: When she was brought back to life, she returned as an adult. She's a borderline sociopath who does things like murdering villains in cold blood.
  • Celibate Hero: Despite showing attraction to various boys during Chris Chlaremont's run on New Mutants, and the hint of Les Yay in her deep friendship with Kitty, Illyana has never seriously pursued any romantic relationship. It is possible that she purposefully suppresses her romantic feelings, as she does with the rest of her emotions to protect herself and any romantic partners from what it would mean to enter a relationship with the demon-sorcerer queen of Limbo.
    • She's much more aromantic than asexual, at least in the current run. She's definitely into sex, and has good friends, but she's shown no interest in a romantic partner relationship with anyone. Since the current run is about her overcoming her trauma, that seems to be part of her character.
  • Cleavage Window: Her new attire since she joined the New Charles Xavier School has become this, as seen in the current picture.
  • Cool Sword: Her Soulsword, forged from her very soul. It's incapable of cutting purely physical objects (though it still blocks things just fine), but it can cut through anything the least bit magical — artifacts, enchantments, demons, etc. — like a hot knife through butter. It also generates a kickass armor when she wills it. Illyana's own magical abilities are also enhanced while wielding the Soulsword. Finally, the sword is a symbol of her mastery over Limbo.
    • How powerful the Soulsword is and what it looks like, depends on the author. In Marvel Zombies: Resurrection (2019), after Magik died a depowered Franklin Richards picked it up then sliced the Silver Surfer and his surfboard in half with it. In Savage Avengers, the Soulsword became a bronze cleaver with a guarded hilt and it could only disrupt magic (she had to wait until her teammates knocked some scales off a dragon before she could stab it in the newly vulnerable section to disrupt the beast). After the Avengers vs. X-Men miniseries, the Soulsword hasn't covered her with armour.
  • Cool Teacher: Considered as such by Tempus and the Stepford Cuckoos in Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3.
  • Corrupt the Cutie: Part of Belasco's goal in bringing her to Limbo was to destroy her soul and turn her into a monster. Ultimately, he succeeded; thanks to her time in Limbo, she has gone from a sweet, innocent child to a ruthlessly insane demon sorceress. Toward the end of Avengers vs. X-Men, she chided her brother Colossus for giving up so much to save his "little snowflake". Not only was she beyond salvation, she reveled in her insanity. In her own words, "There are no snowflakes in hell!"
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: She and her brother gave this to Spider-Man in Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • Dark Action Girl: She kicks ass as much like other Action Girls in her team. But she has a Superpowered Evil Side, and although she won't let her evil side take over her completely, she is still the Token Evil Teammate of the X-Men.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: She has the power of evil, but she usually tries using it for the sake of good.
  • Depending on the Artist: Can be drawn or depicted as a older teenager or a young adult depending on who's doing the issue at the time. This also extends to her body, going from having regular sized breasts to matching up with Emma Frost herself.
  • Depending on the Writer: Typical of many characters in comics that have been around since The Bronze Age of Comic Books, in her case it's sometimes taken up a notch due to different ideas on how to portray a woman that has had her soul ripped out and infused with evil. This continues in more recent comics despite her soul being whole again, where she torments her brother at least in part because he refuses to see she's not the innocent little girl he once knew. She's sometimes shown to try to atone for the harm she might cause to her teammates and loved ones, but not always. What her Soulsword can affect also varies from writer to writer, with some writers having it only affecting the supernatural while others make it effective against anything it strikes.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: When her powers are affected by becoming a temporary host of the Phoenix Force, this affects Limbo, which in turn somehow affects the Dark Dimension. Cue the Level 6 Super Weight Dormammu invading Limbo in retaliation. She drives him out twice, the second time so forcibly that he hasn't tried since.
  • Dimension Lord: Of the Otherplace/Limbo.
  • Dragged Off to Hell: Dragged Off to Limbo is one of her favored punishments for enemies.
  • The Dreaded: Empath (a sociopathic monster who regularly mistreats others) is openly terrified of her after she took him to Limbo to punish him for his cruelty.
  • Easily Forgiven: Averted to one degree or other. She was imprisoned by Cyclops for her actions in New Mutants Vol. 3, and only conditionally allowed to work with a team. Her brother threatened to kill her after she revealed she could have severed his link to Cyttorak at any time. However, in Uncanny X-Men #600 they reconcile, and in general has been welcomed back by her teammates.
  • Emotion Suppression: Due to psychological trauma and dealing with the evil grafted onto her soul, she is inclined towards this.
  • Evil Costume Switch: When she becomes Darkchylde, and later when she joins the Phoenix Five in Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • Exposed to the Elements: In Magik, as punishment for her transgressions, Belasco left Illyana half-naked and deprived of her mutant teleporting powers in a frozen wasteland, and his magic would prevent her from freezing to death or starving, though she would fully feel the effects.
  • Forced into Evil: Originally, but she's pretty content with what she is now.
  • Forced to Watch: Dormammu forces her to watch as he orders his demons to kill her friends/students in Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #6.
  • Future Badass: Uatu the Watcher shows Hank McCoy a vision of possible futures, and in one, she became the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, likely as his successor, since he retrained her.
  • The Gadfly: She doesn't hesitate to snark, be rude, or outright insult even people she legitimately cares about.
  • Gambit Roulette:
    • Her entire Evil Plan in New Mutants. After Amara warned her about Project Purgatory, she goes back in time. First, she finds Legion and strikes a bargain with him. Then, she shows up on Utopia to warn them about Legion and a horrible future they need to prevent. This causes the New Mutants to reform, and she simply waits for Project Purgatory to show up and capture them all. She saves Karma, convincing her to release Legion so he can fulfill his side of their bargain. By killing the Elder Gods and returning the bloodstones to Illyana, completing her revenge and getting her back her soul. She admits this was her plan from the beginning.
    • In Fear Itself she volunteered to become the new Juggernaut since she knew her brother would take her place and damn himself. Once he admitted to himself that he knew what she felt like, she confessed this and dragged him to Limbo where she freed him from the role and returned him to normal, all to get across a point.
  • A God Am I: Downplayed. For all her fighting and magical prowess, she's still a Squishy Wizard, and has often been taken down by a Tap on the Head. Within Limbo, however, she is the dimension's Sorcerer Supreme and Dimension Lord who can alter its very landscape, command its hordes of demons note , free her brother from Cyttorak's hold, and drive out an invading Dormammu.
  • Godzilla Threshold: With no choice left in dealing with Dormammu, she had to take the entirety of Limbo inside of her and jump back in time to see Doctor Strange for help.
  • Gratuitous Russian: In Avengers vs. X-Men, when she and Black Widow fight on the Blue Area of the Moon (just before the Phoenix is torn apart by Iron Man), their dialogue switches back and forth between English and Russian in a quite liberal way.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Before her corruption by Belasco, Illyana was a sweet and innocent young child, with the malice she later struggled with entirely absent from her character.
  • Hell on Earth: She brings a portion of Limbo to Earth and uses it as a prison for the captured Avengers in Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: To save New York from the Inferno crisis, Illyana cast a time spell that essentially erased her teenage self from existence, banishing all demons back to Limbo and reverting her to a 7-year-old girl. She recovered eventually.
  • Hot as Hell: As Darkchylde, who looks like her regular human self except with a red demon tail, black ram's horns, and an extremely outfit.
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: In Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #19 when the team has their mutant powers nullified, somehow, she resorts to using the spells that she learned from Dr. Strange.
  • Irony: Yes, the X-Men's Token Evil Teammate was once Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
  • Jerk Justifications: A rare case of arguably entirely valid ones. She didn't want to be that way, it was entirely forced upon her, and seriously legitimately not her fault. She generally did what she could to keep it at bay.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She legitimately does want what's best for mutants under Cyclops' new team in Uncanny X-Men and she does miss her brother.
  • Kick the Dog: After Avengers vs. X-Men, she casually freed Colossus of being the Juggernaut, showing she could have done so at any time and revealing that she intentionally let him suffer his ordeal just to teach him the same lesson in pain she went through.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: In the Brian Bendis' Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3. Despite being a genuinely evil person and having a very abrasive personality, she's loyal to Cyclops' side and the X-Men in general, regrets ruining her relationship with her brother and is thrilled to be with Kitty again.
  • Lady of Black Magic: A Magic Knight type with her Soulsword, as she's svelte and usually composed as well as Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo.
  • MacGuffin Super-Person: She's one of the most powerful teleporters in the Marvel Universe and the current ruler of Limbo. This makes her a huge prize to kidnap in other comics such as the Ove storyline in the Captain Marvel: The End setting of Carol Danvers or Marvel Zombies: Resurrection 2019
  • Magical Barefooter: In the last volume of Magik, she either loses or abandons her boots off page (despite being on a snowfield) and fights her battle with Belasco barefoot.
  • Magic Knight: She merges both her sword and sorcery skills quite well.
  • Manipulative Bitch: Her role in the New Mutants Vol. 3 series.
  • Mercy Kill: Illyana is forced to kill two of the Limbo-timeline X-Men: a Kitty transformed by Belasco into a barely sapient feline demon to save her own life; and Storm, to spare her becoming a Human Sacrifice.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: She resembles Heather O'Rourke a lot.
  • One-Winged Angel: Her Darkchylde form became increasingly demonic as time went on and her control of Limbo and her demonic side slipped.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's The Big Guy of most teams she's on, but Illyana herself tops at only 5'5, and Depending on the Artist is usually the shortest person on her team.
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: She went from seven to fourteen in the middle of a rescue attempt, due to a time rate differential between Earth and the hell-dimension in which she was trapped.
  • Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: She's really close with Kitty Pryde, to the point that Kitty was the only other being able to use her Soulsword until she reverted to childhood. Their bond ran so deep that when an angry Beyonder erased her and the New Mutants from existence, Kitty was the only one who remembered her.
  • Psychic Block Defense: After her initial return from Limbo, she possessed powerful psychic defenses due to her demonic side, enough to keep Charles Xavier from reading her thoughts, and resistance to psychic attacks (see The Dreaded above). After her death and resurrection by Belasco, these wards have been downplayed or forgotten.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • In revenge for the multiple levels of torment inflicted on her in Limbo, Illyana creates her Soulsword and attacks Belasco. He only survives due to her realizing that killing him is turning her into the Darkchylde, body and soul.
    • When Future!Colossus is killed in Battle of the Atom she flips out and goes after Future!Xavier with both Soul Swords.
  • Secret Test of Character: In Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #17, which opens with she teleporting the students to an unfamiliar location (Tabula Rasa) and telling them to "have fun". The test was to see what kind of survival skills and character the students have. Only one of them failed because he deliberately kept his phone despite being warned that S.H.I.E.L.D. would track them to it, which they did in 15 minutes.
  • Sensual Slav: In contrast to her brother Colossus, who's a Husky Russkie, she has become a svelte, dangerous-looking blonde in a midriff-baring black outfit.
  • Signature Headgear: The four hair decorations on the sides of her head, which she almost always has as Magik.
  • Sociopathic Hero: See Token Evil Teammate below.
  • Sorcerous Overlord: Supreme Sorcerer of the Otherplace/Limbo.
  • Storming the Castle: At the end of Magik, Illyana captured Belasco's castle, all by herself.
  • The Soulless: After she was re-created by Belasco as Darkchylde. She got better.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Her name is pronounced magic but with a k in place of the c. X of Swords reveals this isn't a stylistic choice. She genuinely thinks it's spelled that way and is blindsided when she fails a spelling challenge because of this.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: Her "Darkchylde" side is intelligent but malicious, though almost powerless on Earth, where her magic doesn't work very well. In the end it took over her and nearly ended the world in a major Crossover Event.
  • That Girl is Dead: As she was trying to get the point across to her brother that she wasn't his snowflake anymore...by damning him with the Juggernaut's power and then removing it only when she felt he had suffered enough of what she went through.
  • Time and Relative Dimensions in Space: She has the mutant ability to teleport herself and others through time and space from one location to another.
  • To Hell and Back: The way in which Illyana's teleportation ability works. Every being or object that's teleported via her Stepping Discs are brought to Limbo before their destination is chosen; and even on her good days, it's not a pleasant place to be.
  • Token Evil Teammate: A prominent example of the trope in Marvel. She's very much evil, and she often unnerves her allies with it. Very little is heroic about her, and is really only a "hero" because she's not on the side of the villains.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: She and Kitty Pryde are a subversion. Both are kick butt girly girls.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Deconstructed. Her death as a young girl seemed to be this trope, since it established what a Crapsack World the Marvel Universe was for mutants, seeing as how an innocent child could die like she did, but she was brought back to life later. She Came Back Wrong and as an adult, she's a borderline sociopath who does things like murdering villains in cold blood. Emma Frost admits that the only reason the X-Men put up with her hideous behavior is that they're all plagued with guilt over her death, especially Colossus. This eventually reached its zenith when Magik responded to her brother treating her like a Purity Sue by forcibly cursing him to be the new Juggernaut.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3, she started studying magic with Doctor Strange. In one possible future, she will have become Sorcerer Supreme of the Galaxy.
    • At some point her Soulsword has grown much bigger and it lost its old limitation - now it can also affects purely physical things as well as the supernatural. Though this could be more of a case of writers defaulting to Cool Sword.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: In Avengers vs. X-Men, she started imprisoning captured Avengers by having demons feed on their souls until they were comatose.
    • Took a Level in Kindness: By Dawn Of X, she seems to have warmed up to her friends and has also taken to her role as protector of the younger mutants of Krakoa. Best exemplified when she has a heart to heart with Glob Herman when he looses his temper on a racist anti mutant blogger that was releasing the location and names of mutants to the public.
  • Tough Spikes and Studs: Magik wears a spiky pauldron on one shoulder and has been depicted as a ruthless Anti-Hero (and sometimes Anti-Villain) for a long time.
  • Underwear of Power: Her Uncanny X-Men uniform, followed with Zettai Ryouiki to cover her remaining legs.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Emma explains that this is one reason the X-Men put up with her, in addition to Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
  • Worthy Opponent: She has repeatedly shown she has a large respect for Doctor Strange's prowess in the mystic arts despite being on opposite teams at the moment. She even takes lessons from him in the past to control her powers better.
  • You're Insane!: Colossus gives this to her in Avengers vs. X-Men. However, it results in an Insult Backfire, as that's what she wanted him to see in the first place.

Allies in Limbo

    Storm 

    Cat 

Enemies in Limbo

    Belasco 
See his entry in Marvel Comics: Demons.

    S'ym 
See his entry in Marvel Comics: Demons.

    Nightcrawler 


Alternative Title(s): Illyana Rasputin

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