When X-Men: Blood Hunt Magik #1 begins, Illyana Rasputina is reminiscing about a childhood story of the warrior knight Ilya Muromets. He was a sickly child confined to bed for 33 years until he was miraculously healed by two strangers and gifted with super strength. From there, he became a hero who fought against darkness. I like how Illyana remembers her childhood innocence through stories, especially since she did something similar during the “Labors of Magik” arc in New Mutants. Having battled her own version of darkness, it makes sense that she’d relate to the story of Ilya Muromets.
The comic then goes to modern day Siberia, where two children are on the run from vampires. The perpetual night makes colorist Yen Nitro’s bleak greys, blues, and whites look especially sinister on the vampires and the cold Siberian weather. Before the vampires can hunt the children, Illyana appears before them. After some impressive hand-to-hand combat enhanced by Illyana’s snarky dialogue, the vampires use their speed to get the drop on Illyana.
Soon Illyana and the children, who introduce themselves as Anya and Nikolai, find themselves captured and caged in a wagon heading to an unknown location. As Anya and Nikolai tell Illyana of the vampires destroyed their home, Illyana empathizes and promises to protect them. Illyana shines best as a character when her protective side comes out, especially when it comes to children.
A man screaming for help interupts their heart-to-heart, before promptly being killed by a vampire. The murder is even more grim when one of the children recognizes the vampire as a woman named Irina, a fellow villager. As the children plead for Irina to see reason, they arrive at the vampire stronghold and are chosen for the next vampire hunt. As their parents spot them, it is then the parents turn to plead for the safety of their children, but their cries go unheeded as the vampire’s leader returns and kills the children’s father. The leader, soon revealed to be the (vampire) warrior knight Ilya, boasts how these hunts are the vampires’ reward after being in hiding for so long.
After saying how Illyana and the children will be released into the forest to be given a fighting chance, Ilya confirms that he is indeed the warrior that Magik was told about as a child. This means that the two strangers that “cured” Illya were most likely vampires. It just goes to show that some stories have a darker twist that you never knew about.
Magik and the children run into the forest, where she tells them to run and hide. In an impressive standalone page, Magik summons her soulsword and armor and says, “What a poor decision to cross my path. For my hunt has finally begun and you are first on my list.”
Then, a series of panels show Magik making quick work of the vampires via decapitations. I love how her golden sword looks like hellfire here and in the next page where she uses magic to burn a vampire head and the rest of the vampire corpses. She also scares the children, but repeats her earlier order to stay hidden before heading back to Illya’s stronghold.
Once there, Magik wastes no time teleporting to the meeting room where Ilya and his vampire cronies are, making an impressive entrance as she stabs a vampire in the head and lands on the ground. She challenges IIya directly. Magik is again overcome by vampire speed as he flips the giant meeting table and hits her with his sword, slamming her against a wall.
Magik quickly gets her bearings and manges to block another sword strike with her Soulsword before taking a swing. IIya dodges it and commends Magik’s skill by saying she is a worthy kill. As he continues talking, Magik swiftly summons a portal under one of IIya’s feet so he appears beneath Magik’s foot.
It is here that Magik points her Soulsword down at Illya and calmly says that she is going to enjoy taking him apart slowly and painfully. Travis Lanham’s lettering puts emotional heft to Magik’s threat through the use of bold text and italics that is effective. It also scares the shit out of IIya, who tries to flee. Magik scoffs, “I sat in a **** cage for two hours just for you to run away? Fine, let’s see who’s really faster.”
As Magik summons a portal we get some great internal dialogue accompanied by visually striking art from Yen Nitro, showing synergy between them and writer Ashley Allen. Magik uses gravity to speed herself up through her portals and swiftly decapitate IIya. She also remarks to the remaining vampires, “Please tell me this isn’t a situation where by killing your leader I’m now the de-facto queen.” To IIlyana’s annoyance, this gets no response. So she gives the vampires a head start before chasing them down.
The comic ends with a final, moving internal monologue from Magik as she thinks of how stories got her through her trauma in Limbo. “In my mind, IIya would become IlIyana, and I would think of my future. With her life renewed — with her new start — she would dedicate herself to fighting the monsters threatening the land, even if those around her thought she was one.”
It is a mark of how far IIyana has come as a survivor of childhood trauma and also a displaced mutant. Let’s hope IIyana can continue moving forward in future comic books.
Latonya Pennington is a freelance contributor whose comics criticism can be found at Women Write About Comics, Comic Book Herald, Newsarama and Shelfdust, among others.
