MAGIK vol 3 #4
“Reunion”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan

MAGIK

She said in narration at the end of last issue that Dani was the last person she wanted to see. That seems to be because she’s defensive about her deal with Liminal and doesn’t want to be judged by one of her oldest friends when she knows it’s a mistake. She tries to push back by complaining that Dani doesn’t trust her, but ultimately suggests that she accepted the deal mainly because she was desperate to escape his domain – after all, being trapped in someone else’s magical realm is a traumatic part of her origin story. Dani essentially suggests that Illyana let that sucker her into a bad deal and she should have looked for a better option; Illyana argues that it’s unfair to expect that of her, but privately seems to agree.

The idea seems to be that, as a result of Liminal’s deal, Darkchild is no longer suppressed by outright psychic or magical blocks, but nor is she in control. Instead Illyana has to actively resist the temptation. She initially talks about feeling Darkchild’s anger, and then immediately ascribes the anger to herself. Darkchild seems to be tied to her negative emotions, or perhaps her self-loathing generally – she starts to turn into Darkchild after feeling that Liminal has defeated her, and then gets talked down by Dani. At the end of the story, when she gets upset after overhearing Dani and Cal talking about her, her silhouette has Darkchilde horns.

Her teleporting powers and her sorcery are both malfunctioning. She blames the spread of Liminal’s energy for disrupting her powers, and the effort of suppressing Darkchild for interfering with her sorcery. Dani talks as though the actual cause is a mystery, and we shouldn’t necessarily assume that Illyana’s interpretation is correct.

Once calmed down, she uses Darkchild’s power to “ward the seal” that Liminal broke during the issue. It’s not really explained what that means in practice. In issue #1, it seemed to be some sort of holding measure to stop Liminal escaping in the meantime

Afterwards, Illyana frets about whether her time in Limbo has “put a fundamental flaw in me”. This broadly relates to Belasco corrupting her soul by conjuring demonic stones from it, but it’s also an echo of Liminal’s line in the previous issue: “I know your biggest fear is that no one will ever understand you. That there is something fundamentally wrong with you. But I understand.”

At school (i.e., as the New Mutants), Magik and Mirage came up with a move called “Hook and Dagger”, which apparently is a reference I ought to get. I don’t think it’s a reference to anything in particular. The flashback art seems to show Dani with her psychic bow, which would be wrong for the period.

SUPPORTING CAST

Dani Moonstar. We last saw her in the X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse. Since then, she’s joined the Society of the Eternal Dawn, which she says is the organisation that Cal’s grandmother was part of in issue #1. It hasn’t been named before, and it’s worth noting that while Dani here claims that the Society was actively recruiting her and that Liminal simply acted more quickly than they expected, Cal’s grandmother didn’t seem to be expecting any of this in issue #1.

Nonetheless, according to Dani, she “crossed paths” with the Society after leaving Krakoa, in circumstances which she doesn’t explain. She claims that the Society asked her to join because they knew about her experience fighting supernatural threats – the example shown in flashback is the Demon Bear from early issues of New Mutants, her early personal nemesis. It would be stretching a point to say that this one battle gives Dani any more experience in fighting supernatural threats than any other superhero who’s ever had a team-up with Dr Strange, but she was a Valkyrie for a time as well.

The Society have given her an “enchanted peach-wood bow” called Dawn Piercer, which enchants her psychic arrows so that they can repel demons.

Magik doesn’t trust the Society, possibly because Liminal presented them last issue as a cruel organisation who had banished him to his magical dimension (something that she obviously has problems with). She does, however, pick up on the oddity that they seem to have been actively recruiting Dani, yet did nothing to anticipate Liminal’s escape before this series.

Nonetheless, Dani seems to be very committed to her new role, and now wears the Society’s insignia on her right shoulder (with equal prominence to the X-Men symbol on her left).

Cal Isaacs. Dani asks him to keep an eye on Illyana.

VILLAINS

Liminal. Dani confirms his claim from last issue that killing mutants gives him more energy and makes it easier for him to escape.

He sends one of his generals to break the seal in Cloud Forest, Ecuador – but as he’s getting more powerful, she’s accompanied by a bunch of other demons, and the forest itself is becoming demonically transformed. While the local research station has some mutant staff that could be sacrificed to open the seal – this is one of those books where mutants are seemingly ubiquitous – he specifically instructs his general not to sacrifice them, but to wait for Illyana and Dani to arrive. The general has a stab at sacrificing Dani but, when Illyana and Dani put up too much of a fight, she defaults to killing one of the hostages, without any apparent concern that Liminal will be upset by this. Presumably the idea is that Liminal wanted Illyana to be confronted directly with her failure instead of just showing up too late, in order to help the Darkchild persona gain control.

The general is one of the two mages who were shown creating Liminal in the flashback last issue. Magik infers that she’s been incorporated into Liminal’s army as a punishment. She expects to “face my master’s rage” if she fails in her mission.