Magik #1 // Review
Illyana is having a conversation with her older brother. She knows it’s a dream. She can do whatever she wants with it. Of course...it has things that it wants to do with her as well in Magik #1. Writer Ashley Allen opens-up a whole new ongoing series for the little Russian girl who grew-up in the hell of Limbo and briefly became its ruler. The fantasy horror is brought vividly to page and panel by artist Germán Peralta and colorist Arthur Hesli. It’s an engaging opening for a promising new series that just might bring Illyana a bit of the popularity she has so richly deserved over the years.
There’s something sinister reaching out to Illyana in her dreams. It’s somethnig that she long thought dead. It’s there waiting for her. So is everyone else on the other side of dream: it’s her birthday. Cyclops and a few others are waiting for her in the kitchen. It’s a little surprise party first thing in the morning. How hard can it be to smile and blow out a candle? She’s another year older and she’s just a bit further away from the horror of her childhood...isn’t she?
Ashley Allen cleverly constructs a very sharp progression for the first issue of the new series. Nightmares of the past serve as foreshadowing at the opening of the issue. Then there’s a moment where she’s seen in her personal home life before moving on to life as a dark hero--first totally overpowering a minor threat and then totally in over her head for a much bigger threat that launches the end of the first issue into the series ahead. A very well-composed first issue. There’s a really strong feeling of fusion going on in Allen’s work. There have been various attempts at fusing a magical Doctor Strange type of story with a socially-conscious super-powered X-Men feeling. Not all of them have worked terribly well. Allen does a brilliant job with the fusion.
Peralta lets Illyana look every bit as vulnerable as she needs to look during certain scenes. The overall feeling, though, is of a woman who is totally in charge of some kind of overwhelming power and loving her ability to wield it in the service of those who might not be able to protect themselves. Hesli’s colors give the immersive atmosphere of Peralta’s art a warmth, luminescence and radiance that suits the title quite well.
What’s actually kind of cool about all of this is that there really is very little humor in the first issue. One might not expect humorlessness to be all that appealing, but there’s just enough of it around the edges of the action to keep her overall stature heroic in a beautifully roguish kind of way that should serve the center of a series quite well. The character created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema back in the early 1980s has always had a great deal of potential as a leading lady. It’s nice to see Allen and company giving her an opportunity to shine once more.
