BIOGRAPHY - Page 5
Events were transpiring that would bring both Illyana and Piotr’s problems to a head and change their relationship forever. After the Phoenix Force had been detected headed to Earth, the X-Men and Avengers started fighting over what to do about it. Magik naturally sided with her fellow mutants in the belief that the Phoenix would restart the mutant race once more. The disagreement came to a head when Avengers came to Utopia, in force, to press the issue. Cyclops, however, did not back down, resulting in a fight breaking out, with Doctor Strange specifically targeting Magik. When she teleported to Limbo, Strange foolishly followed her and was easily beaten by the sorceress. Taking Strange’s unconscious body back to Utopia, Illyana cast a spell to switch appearances with him. The subterfuge lasted long enough for her to get close to her teammates and teleport them away before they were all arrested by Captain America. [Avengers vs. X-Men #1-3]
The quest was on to find Hope Summers, whom many believed was the intended host of the Phoenix Force. Magik teleported teams of X-Men all over the world in search for her but it was not on Earth where she was eventually tracked down; it was the moon. Magik teleported a select group of X-Men there just in time to see the Phoenix Force arrive. The Avengers had also found Hope and the two sides fought, with Magik taking on Black Widow. Things took a surprising turn when Iron Man tried to destroy the Phoenix Force, only for it to shatter it into five pieces. The fragments sought the nearest suitable vessels, which turned out to be Namor, Cyclops, Colossus, 
Emma Frost and Magik, all of whom were soon dubbed the “Phoenix Five.” The change was immediate and the Five vowed to heal the world of its troubles, much to the skepticism of the Avengers. [Avengers vs. X-Men #4-5, Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #12-13, AvX: Vs #3]
The Phoenix Five made good on their word as they travelled the world, fixing many of its problems. Magik personally used her power to transform the barren wastelands in Africa into bountiful farmland that would solve the world’s hunger problems. The Avengers didn’t see their efforts in a positive light, though, as they knew that sooner or later the Five would lose control and start hurting people. The Avengers organized a resistance and quickly became wanted criminals in the Five’s eyes. [Avengers vs. X-Men #6]
Magik and the others also took the fight to Sinister, but he initially proved to be even too powerful for them. Capturing them in a machine that was designed to harness the Phoenix’s energy, they were helpless, but the intervention of their fellow X-Men saved them. Magik and the rest of the Five repaid Sinister by incinerating him. [Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #15-17]
The Phoenix Five soon actively started to hunt down the renegade Avengers, and one by one they were being captured. Nevertheless, when Magik faced off against the Scarlet Witch, she was 
seriously injured by the witch’s spells. Magik was saved by the timely arrival of Emma, but the ordeal had left her shaken and convinced that Wanda needed to die. Unfortunately, the Avengers’ concerns were starting to come true, as the Five began to lose control of themselves. Namor was the first to act out, taking out a long-gestating grudge against Wakanada by destroying the capital city. The Avengers were on site to stop him and eventually managed to beat him down, forcing his fraction of the Phoenix Force to leave him. Surprisingly, the fragment’s energy was absorbed between Magik and the remaining Phoenix hosts, meaning that each time one fell the others grew stronger. [Avengers vs. X-Men #7-8]
By now, the war with the Avengers had become bitter and so many heroes had been taken captive that Magik had brought up a chunk of Limbo to Earth to serve as a prison. A small team of Avengers managed to break into the Limbo prison and find their captive teammates, but they were soon discovered by Magik and Colossus. The two were merciless in their attack and not even Professor X, who had sided with the Avengers, could deter them. The Avengers escaped thanks to Spider-Man, but now the web-slinger faced the wrath of the siblings alone. Though the fight was brutal, Colossus was holding back, despite Magik trying to goad him into killing the wall-crawler. As the two started to argue about the power of corruption, Spider-Man took the opportunity to egg them on, mentioning the fact they could be stronger if the other fell. This was enough of a temptation and the two attacked each other with such power that the Phoenix Force left both of them. [Avengers vs. X-Men #9]
The two weakened X-Men would have been captured had it not been for the timely arrival of 
Cyclops. Whilst he fought the Avengers, Magik teleported Colossus and herself to Siberia to gather their senses. Colossus immediately broke down over all the things he had done (or wanted to do) whilst empowered by the Phoenix. Seeing her brother in such despair brought a great sense of relief to Magik and she revealed she had orchestrated his misery from the start. As he stared at her in disbelief, she told him that she knew he would take her place if she offered herself to Cyttorak. Only if he were possessed by such an entity would he truly know what damnation felt like and only then would he finally be able to understand his sister.
Stunned, he called her insane but Illyana simply agreed with him gleefully. His surprise turned to anger and he attacked her with the full force of the Juggernaut, though she teleported him to 
Limbo before he could hurt her. It was there that she reminded him something that Cyttorak had once said about a Hell-lord being master of their own domain. As ruler of Limbo, she had total dominion and, with a swipe of her soulsword, she purged Cyttorak’s influence from her brother. Realizing that she could have done that at any time, Colossus vowed to kill his sister if he ever saw her again. Without a hint of regret in her voice, Magik declared that his lesson had been learned and she teleported away. [Uncanny X-Men (2nd series) #18, 20]
After taking Magik’s portion of the Phoenix Force, Cyclops soon beat down Emma to possess its full power, turning into Dark Phoenix. Filled with the madness of ultimate power, Cyclops rejected Professor X, who still spoke against him, by murdering him, reducing him to ashes. Like the others in the Phoenix Five, Cyclops too lost control and was eventually stopped by the Scarlet Witch and Hope, though the latter did manage to use the last of the Phoenix Force to restart the mutant race. While Cyclops was arrested and sent to prison, Magik managed to evade authorities and chose to side with other X-Men, like Magneto and Danger. Together, the three broke Cyclops out of prison and became wanted fugitives. [Avengers vs. X-Men #11-12, AvX: Consequences #1-5]
In spite of his recent fall from grace, Cyclops was adamant that his vision of the future was the right one and he set up a new school at a disused Weapon X facility in Canada. Even though she did not particularly care for the students, Magik opted to stay with him and teach at the school. After breaking Emma Frost out of prison, the quest was on to recruit as many new mutants into the school as possible. Magik was key in being able to get Cyclops to a newly emerged mutant before the authorities or Wolverine’s rival school got to them first. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #1-2]
In a short space of time, the small group of X-Men managed to kit out the Weapon X facility and save a number of new mutants. With a new direction in life, Magik opted to ditch her former yellow and black costume and go with something more ostentatious and intimidating. Life wasn’t easy, though, as she, along with the rest of her team, were wanted by authorities for her actions when possessed by the Phoenix. SHIELD, the Avengers and even the other teams of X-Men were actively looking for them, making every trip outside the facility a dangerous one. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #1-3]
Ever since the Phoenix Force had left them, the powers of the five possessed X-Men had started to fail them or at the very least become uncontrollable. That was except Magik’s, who still had the ability to teleport through Limbo without any issue, or so she thought. After a mission one day, she doubled over in pain before being forcibly pulled into Limbo against her will. She quickly realized that she was at the mercy of the dread Dormammu, who had moved into Limbo from his own Dark Dimension. After the Phoenix incident, Dormammu had sensed a power shift in Limbo and decided it was the perfect opportunity to invade the Hell-like dimension. Magik assumed that, since her teleportation ability worked fine, she had avoided the power failures that had plagued the others of the Phoenix Five. What she didn’t realize was that, as her powers were so 
intrinsically linked to the Limbo itself, her power failure was manifesting in the collapse of the dimension.
Dormammu attempted to kill Magik, believing that once she was gone then Limbo would be safe. By attacking Magik, though, he accidentally triggered her transformation into the Darkchilde persona. Now more powerful than ever the Darkchilde easily defeated Dormammu and banished him from the dimension, reclaiming her rule over Limbo.
Magik returned to Earth, under the impression the situation had been resolved. Sadly, it was actually only the start, as Dormammu pulled the same trick again, only this time dragging the entire group of X-Men and students into Limbo. Enraged by the earlier events, Dormammu was prepared this time and he subdued Magik whilst he set his Mindless One minions on the others. Magik was forced to watch as they fought for their lives. She quickly realized that it had been her arrogance and naivety that had put her friends in danger, a humbling experience for her. Learning from her mistakes, she tried something she had never done before and pulled the entire dimension of Limbo inside herself.
After sending her friends back to Earth, Magik turned her attention to Dormammu, who was now at the total mercy of the Darkchilde. He begged for her to strike a deal but she banished him from 
Limbo without a second thought. She had shown the evil entity that she was not to be trifled with again, but really she had come to the realization that she was still very much a novice when it came to her connection with Limbo. She decided that she needed a teacher, but unfortunately the best one around was Doctor Strange, who currently acted as part of the Avengers. Knowing that she couldn’t fully trust him, she decided to utilize the time-travel aspect of her powers and went back to a time before she had ever crossed paths with the X-Men. Seeking out that era’s Strange, she told her story to him and begged him to train her in the mystical arts, so that she would never be that helpless again. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #4-7]
Over the next few weeks, things got back to a relative normal for Magik, with the usual fights against Sentinels and SHIELD. The incident with the Phoenix still weighed a lot on everyone’s mind and Illyana felt compelled to help some of those affected move through it. Kitty Pryde in particular was grief-stricken over the death of Xavier, and so Illyana teleported her to their base so that she could confront Cyclops. Naturally, Cyclops was angry at Illyana’s audacity but the desired effect was eventually reached and the two made peace. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #18]
The relationship between Cyclops’ school and Wolverine’s was very strained, especially since a number of students had defected to Cyclops’ side. The two groups were forced together again when Beast brought the original five X-Men from the past and into the present. After a few weeks of the teens being in the present, another group of mutants arrived, claiming to be X-Men who had travelled from the future, to convince them to go back to their original time. Word soon 
reached Magik about this new group from the future but, when she saw an image of them, she knew something was up. Having done a few trips through time herself, she felt they were lying and so she left the other X-Men to argue between themselves about the situation.
Magik teleported herself, along with the teen versions of Iceman and Beast, to the future to get some answers for themselves. When they arrived in the future, Magik’s gut feeling was confirmed, as they countered the real X-Men, who informed them that the group she met were the Brotherhood. Taking the future X-Men back to her own time, Magik arrived to find the Brotherhood had made their move to forcibly send the original X-Men back in time.
In a strange twist of fate, Magik ended up fighting alongside a future version of her brother, who seemed to possess his own version of Magik’s soulsword. In the final fight between the various 
factions, the future Colossus was fatally injured by the Brotherhood, causing Magik to turn into Darkchilde in her rage. She was eventually calmed down before she did too much damage. In the end, the Brotherhood was defeated and the original X-Men were allowed to stay in the present day. Afterwards, Magik solemnly sent the body of Colossus back to the future. A small, silver-lining was that Kitty decided to transfer to Cyclops’ school, along with the original X-Men, meaning that Magik finally had her best friend with her again. [Battle of the Atom crossover]
Magik continued her tutelage with Doctor Strange in spite of her exhaustion from recent events. The training paid off, as she started expand her arcane knowledge, allowing her to implement spells in conjunction with her mutant powers. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #15, 19]