Magik #1: Monsters Stir Within and Without…

Magik has a long and convoluted history with Limbo and her dark side of her soul known as Darkchylde. During Krakoa, Illyana gave up her rulership of Limbo and the Darkchylde seemed to suppressed or gone forever. Writer Ashley Allen chooses to pick things up there and say: What if that wasn’t true, what if Darkchylde was simply waiting for the right time to emerge. Traumatic dark dreams, an other year older. Magik has always been a woman of action and she usually wins when there’s action but what not this time. Magik is drawn  to investigate disappearances of mutants in the Alaskan town of Juneau where hate against mutants is once again reared it’s ugly head.

It’s a dark, violent opener with demons, death and dark Magic galore as Illyana finds herself between hateful humans, and a bunch of demons, as she comes face to face with a new deadly servant of a mysterious demon called the Liminal who is doing their best to escape a prison created by a secret society of magic users in the town many years before. Allen gives artist German Peralta the chance to show off plenty of nightmarish action as Magik and the demon Crow dual, all the while having the Darkchylde whispering temptation in Magik’s ear. Allen does an excellent job of showing Magik at her toughest but she tempers this with internal doubt and actual loss as despite Magik’s best efforts several people die and the first seal is broken. The confrontation leaves a bloody Magik with several dead bodies on her hands and an angry young man with a book of magical notes that he doesn’t understand from a grandmother who has died before she could teach him anything! Except to give him a warning: Don’t trust the Darkchylde…

German Peralta is a superb artist and this issue is no exception He is very good at communicating her emotional state through facial expression. I’ve always thought of Illyana as having a very hard edged beauty and I get that from the art in this book. He balances that hard beauty with the darkness of Darkchylde, and as we open they are two very distinct things but as the Darkchylde rises to the surface through the issue, they start to physically become one. The demon’s are all suitably horrifying red eyed troublemakers and Peralta gets to show us Peach Momoko’s crow demon design in action. He’s an interesting character, A bird demon with a cowboy’s swagger and magic he uses in conjunction with his demonic six shooters to make Magik’s life difficult. Peralta gets to show off Magik physically kicking butt but also doing Magic which quite honestly is awesome because we hardly ever see her cast a spell. Colorist Arthur Hesli smartly uses a darker palette and the battle between Magik and The Crow Demon is a rainbow of hellish hues in blood red, devilish green, malevolent pinks and putrid purples. Letterer Ariana Maher plays with font type and with the help of Hesli makes it easy to distinguish the several forms of narrative exposition from internal monologue to magical spell casting to Illyana’s inner voice versus Darkchylde’s voice. it’s a good looking book to match a well written script that leaves you with lots of questions and wanting to know more.