Magik (1983) 4

Magik (1983) 4

Mar 1984

Darkchild

by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema, Tom Palmer, Tom Orzechowski, Ken Feduniewicz, Louise Jones

Cat is dead. Ororo is near death. Belasco hands Illyana a dagger. He wants her to steal her dying mentor’s soul before she expires. Illyana instead kills Ororo thus allowing her soul to go free. Belasco is enraged. Illyana use a light circle to escape back to Ororo’s garden with her body.

Illyana buries Ororo’s body in the garden. Belasco comes for Illyana. He uses Ororo’s corpse to attack her. Illyana is forced to flee the garden but Belasco pursues her with the corpses of the X-Men and eventually captures her. He performs the ceremony to capture the third of five bloodstones. Belasco leaves her in Ororo’s garden for now.

The garden is no longer protected by Ororo’s magic and starts to crumble and rot. The only thing left is the giant oak tree. The acorn from which it grew was created by Ororo’s magic. Illyana takes shelter next to the oak tree and tries to create an acorn of her own. She is unsuccessful. She takes energy from the tree in her attempts and it eventually dies.

Illyana finally comes to the realization that she needs to stop trying to imitate Ororo. She needs to use her magic to create an object of her own. She does just that as she summons a sword. She returns to Belasco’s citadel and attacks him. She uses her magic to steal Belasco’s magic. Her skin turns red, she grows horns and a tail. Belasco reverts to looking like an ordinary human.

She almost kills him but she remembers what happened to Ororo when she tried to kill him. He flees leaving her alone in his citadel. Illyana ponders what to do. She decides the time has come. She summons a light circle and transports herself home. She arrives back in her home dimension, seven years older than when she left although only a moment has passed for the X-Men.

Thoughts

This story had just 6 characters: Illyana, Ororo, Cat, Nightcrawler, Belasco, and Sy’m. It felt a bit bloated and very wordy. Claremont felt the need to explain a lot. There wasn’t much left for the artists to tell visually. I know that I read some of this series when it was first published but I don't recall if I read it all back then. I don’t regret reading it now but I’m not impressed by this story.