Quest for Magik (Part Two of Two)

[nothingbutcake]

When we last left off, Sooraya and Cessily were fighting Belasco like the fierce ladies they are.  Illyana was excising Megan's soul, and Noriko, Julian, and O*N*E are trying to figure out a way to save everyone from Limbo.  (Also, mods, I have more than seven pages from each of two issues here, but they each had thirty pages of content including Endangered Species, where Beast is running around doing SCIENCE! to save the mutant population.  I can try to cut it back down if that does not count.)

They find Amanda Sefton, who was in a coma and on the verge of death.  Noriko shocks her back.  Amanda says that "Belasco is coming for the children," and that they need to find Nightcrawler, who has the Soulsword.  But he's in SPACE.  "They're dead, then.  The X-Men...the students...they're all dead."

"Shut up and get dressed.  You're taking us to Limbo."

As she tears out Megan's soul, Illyana explains that Belasco when he kidnapped her, he wanted to put together all five pieces of her soul to bring the elder gods to Earth.  Ruth warns that Illyana is lying, she wants the power all to herself, she is taking everything.

"You and I, little Pixie...we will use your innocence against Belasco.  Innocence is power."

Love the D: face from Illyana.  While she blasts Santo with magic:

Yeah, I don't know.

Meanwhile, Sooraya and Cessily are getting nowhere with Belasco while Josh casts Curaga and kills Belasco.  Sooraya doubts, "You cannot kill the Devil," who bursts into green light.

On Earth, Amanda is casting a teleportation spell and Julian is warned to keep an eye on Noriko.  He says, "You know how Trance is... [David] could be fine, Nori."  He asks if she is going to be okay.  "Ask me again once I've turned Belasco into a smoking black pile of ash."

Illyana explains that when Belasco took back Limbo, he summoned everything he could find of her, but her soul was missing.  Belasco got Darkchild instead.  "That's messed up.  If you went into a church, would you catch on fire?" asks Santo.  Belasco wants Illyana's soul; he wants everything that she was, "And I'm going to kill him before he gets it."  Illyana cannot bring them to Belasco's castle, but Megan can.  The creation of the bloodstone has made a hole in her soul, which was filled with black magic, plus now she has a Soulsword "of sorts."

And that is how Pixie is now one of the X-Men's teleporters.

Belasco comes back and tells the children that he doesn't give a fuck about them.  And this is what he will do to find Illyana:

Amanda ports her, a O*N*E sentinel, Nori, and Julian into Limbo.  They're surrounded by demons.

Meanwhile,

and Belasco is about to punish Sooraya when

Belasco catches Nori and Julian but then

Belasco is offended Darkchild would even show up again and he calls a full-out brawl between his demons and the students.  He says it was a mistake to let Darkchild live.

Turns out Belasco is so desperate for Illyana because he wuvs her, awwww.  "The thought that she had returned...it was too much.  You didn't even realize that what you saw wasn't real."

Belasco fights off the Cuckoos (though I don't know why they didn't free Martha too) and is officially tired of this.  The sentinel guy can see New York appearing in Limbo and Dr. Strange does not know if he can stop the merging of Earth and Limbo in time.

Illyana is the ruler of Limbo once again, and the X-Men arrive (I don't know how?) just in time to angst.

Back at the Xavier Institute, the entire building is fine as though nothing happened.

Also, Illyana wants to get her soul back?

I may also put up scans from the issues after this.  It has the same art style as the prelude to Quest for Magik in my last post.  I like them because there are clarifications, unicorns, and general teenagers with PTSD fun.

Suggested tags: Creator: Chris Yost, Creator: Craig Kyle, Creator: Skottie Young, Title: New X-Men, char: anole/victor borkowski, char: pixie/megan gwynn, char: blindfold/ruth aldine, char: magik/illyana rasputin, char: rockslide/santo vaccarro, char: match/ben hammil, char: wolfcub/nicholas gleason, char: belasco, char: elixir/josh foley, char: dust/sooraya qadir, char: mercury/cessily kincaid, char: prodigy/david alleyne, char: colossus/piotr rasputin

Do the Cuckoos not have a tag?

Comments

[greenmask]

I'm not sure I quite buy her suggested internal conflict.

But bliiiiimey, these kids' lives! D:

At least Professor X TRIED to get Kitty off the team and out of danger back in the 80s..

[nothingbutcake]

Yeah, I don't get her sudden about face, "I just remembered I'm innocent except for the soullessness thing" just because she was slammed into rock a couple times.

[crabby_lioness]

Seemed more like, "Now that I've got a piece of a soul I can once again experience the feelings that go along with it."

That's classic fairy tale magic.

[greenmask]

Poorly expressed, if that's it.

[nothingbutcake]

I was under the impression that a bloodstone was a bloodstone and no longer a piece of a soul, plus she certainly did not seem like she was feeling less evil while draining the rest of Pixie, though maybe Santo's attack provided an opportunity for her to stop and feel it.

But I can see that is a possibility.

[halloweenjack]

Icons for one mood...

[halloweenjack]

...and for another.

[rordulum]

Those two panels of Ilyana reacting to Piotr always kill me. Perfect work from Skottie Young.

And I've always loved that the first manifestation of Pixie losing part of her soul is that she almost calls someone a 'bitch'.

[ravenous_raven]

And I've always loved that the first manifestation of Pixie losing part of her soul is that she almost calls someone a 'bitch'.

Why, is Pixie really soft-spoken?

[rordulum]

Well, she'd not had that much characterization before this arc, but the little that had been done portrayed her as a real innocent. Sweet and naive, even after M-Day.

But with her clapping her hand over her mouth in horror, and Anole acting shocked, I've always believed that's what Kyle & Yost were going for, there.

[ravenous_raven]

Ah, ok then. Thanks for the clarification!

[blake_reitz]

This arc was brutal, but I really liked it.

[starwolf_oakley]

I could be wrong, but Belasco was once a regular human, right? He was some kind of Dark Ages wizard and he rules Limbo as part of his nefarious plan to bring the Elder Gods to Earth. Am I remembering this right?

Yeah, this arc

[nefrekeptah]

You know, I read a review of this arc a while back, on the old "X-Axis" website. Didn't agree with all of it, but he did have a good point; this arc was much longer than it needed to be. It went on four issues (five, counting the intro) when it could easily have been told in two. Much of the arc was just Belasco torturing the X-kids, demanding to know where Illyana is, the kids having no idea what he's talking about, and Belasco doing the whole thing all over again.

That, and the mass murder of the students in earlier arcs kinda took away alot of the tension in the arc (not to mention that there was no way in hell X-23 was going to stay dead).