Magik #9 // Review
A woman on the Vegas strip just pulled a couple of dragons out of her mouth. It wasn’t anything that she was doing onstage or anything like that. She was on top of the Vegas Eiffel Tower at the time. People might have thought of it as being some kind of weird promotion for an upcoming stage show or something like that...were this not the Marvel Universe. This sort of thing pops-up and you head for cover or you become a fatality in a margin of a panel. There ARE heroes to help, out though. Once of them happens to be the title character in Magik #9. Writer Ashley Allen and artist Germán Peralta are joined by colorist Arthur Hesli in another fun action issue.
Magik and Dani are working with weapons given to them by the Eternal Dawn. It’s an occult group that they are reluctantly working with in the interest of being able to aid Magik’s friend Cal who has become possessed by a magical entity calling itself Liminal. So it’s complicated. Thankfully, they don’t have to work that closely with Eternal Dawn in order to get what they need. They’re perfectly capable of finding their own destiny and aiding their friend on their own. Things are going to prove to be a bit more challenging than they might have anticipated, though...
Allen works her way through a very interesting couple of encounters in the course of the issue. True magic in Las Vegas is kind of a clever idea for an opening scene. The camaraderie between Illyana and Dani there's a lot of fun to watch and that they are certainly is sense that the two characters have known each other for a long time. That's it fun for anyone who is familiar with them going way back into their early days in The New Mutants. Allen moves away from this a bit as she gets more into the background of ancillary elements in the plot. And, granted, there's a lot going on there that has to do with the central conflict. But it really doesn't have as much of an appeal as the two characters at the heart of the title. So it does drag a bit as peripheral concern concerns are explored.
Peralta has done his homework in rendering a very well researched opening scene on the Vegas strip. There are some very dramatic angles which come to play in dazzlingly dynamic fight scene. There's a powerful sense of gravity that is shooting through everything as a heroes with fantastic powers fight glowing dragons. It's really a lot of fun. And the color that comes to bear in the course of that combat is really impressive as well. Hesli’s glowing, neon outlined auras call to mind some of the production design of the magic in Big Trouble in Little China, which is a welcome visual. Magik looks gorgeous and graceful shooting across the page,
Allen has deviated a bit in spending so much time exploring some of the background of the villains and the darkness. But the story reaches its climax next issue. It'll just be kind of fun to see where it is that Allen is taking it after this. The current storyline has been a great deal of fun. It's just going to be nice to see it. Come to a close. There is so much potential with this particular character and her relationship with Dani that could be a lot of fun to explore in. a variety of different adventures.
