BIOGRAPHY - Page 6
The true cause of Magik’s power instability came to light when it was discovered that she had been infected with nano-sentinels. After falling unconscious and being examined by Beast, the nanotech was purged from Magik’s system and its origins traced back to Dark Beast. The evil version of Beast had a vendetta against the X-Men and had been playing the X-Men off against SHIELD for months. With the nano-sentinels gone, Illyana was able to gain control over Limbo once more. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #21-22]
When his last will and testament was read, it was discovered that Charles Xavier had been concealing a very powerful mutant from the rest of the X-Men. The mutant, Matthew Malloy, had omega-level powers but Xavier had been using his telepathy to prevent Malloy from using them. Now that Xavier was dead, Malloy was going unchecked and soon he became a threat to 
everyone. Cyclops was adamant that the boy could be saved and so he had Magik teleport them to somewhere quiet where they could talk.
Magik decided to travel back in time to speak to Doctor Strange, to see if he had any way of dampening Malloy’s ever-growing powers. Whilst he couldn’t help in that respect, he did show Illyana how to use the Eye of Agamotto, an artifact that would be able to look deep within Malloy to determine what kind of person he truly was. Unfortunately, Magik was unable to use it as, when she returned to Cyclops and Malloy, she was killed in a missile attack by SHIELD. Magik was saved when one of her students travelled back in time and explained the situation to a young Xavier. The telepath decided to make it so Malloy’s parents would never meet, thus preventing his birth and all the deaths (including Magik’s) that followed. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #23-31]
Recent events had made Cyclops re-evaluate what he was doing and so he decided to close down the school. Whilst the rest of the students and teachers argued between themselves, Magik decided to make herself useful and go find a new mutant who just appeared in Cerebro. She decided to take Kitty along too and confessed that she missed how close they used to be. The two women worked together to find a young girl who had been left to die after her powers emerged. They took her back to the Westchester school, at which point Kitty decided it would be a good time for Illyana to heal her wounds with Colossus. Finding him out in the woods, Illyana admitted that if she would have trained more in the past then she might not have been so weak when the Phoenix took her over. Colossus couldn’t help but forgive her and, after months of bad blood between them, the siblings were reunited again. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #34, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #600]
Magik’s allegiance was still with Cyclops, though, and she joined him when he received a distress call from Jamie Madrox. Travelling to Muir Island, the team found the whole place covered in 
Terrigen Mists, the sacred substance that allowed Inhumans to develop their powers. Magik was apprehensive about being around the mists for too long and she was proven right when they found Madrox dying from Terrigen exposure. It became clear that the Terrigen Mists, which had recently been released into Earth’s atmosphere, were deadly to mutants and Magik joined Cyclops and Emma in their mission to destroy them. The Mists were currently confined to two clouds that were circling the globe, so the team targeted one of them for destruction. Magik was forced to go up against the Inhuman royal family, who attempted to stop the team from destroying them. The X-Men prevailed but, in the fighting, Cyclops was killed and relations between mutants and Inhumans were to breaking point. [Death of X #1-4]
With nowhere else to go, Magik returned to the school at Westchester but now the situation had changed drastically. With the Earth’s atmosphere poisoned, it was decided that the X-Men needed a new home. Illyana, along with a group of other powerful magic users, moved the Westchester school into Limbo, as it was now surprisingly safer for mutants than Earth. She set up powerful shield around the school, now dubbed X-Haven, to prevent any of Limbo’s demons from getting through but it required a lot of concentration on her part.
Protecting the school and being the only active teleporter the X-Men had meant that Illyana was burdened with a great responsibility. She was the only one who could get to any mutants in need 
of help on Earth quickly and safely. One such mutant was a young girl named Sapna, who was being attacked by the local military in India. Magik managed to extract her before anyone was killed, but a close call with some gunfire startled Illyana as she realized that humans no longer feared mutants; they just hated them. Storm came to the same conclusion and decided that the X-Men needed to flesh out their ranks again to help with the situation. After the death of Cyclops, Colossus had returned to his parents’ farm in Russia in a bid to escape the chaotic life of the X-Men. Illyana found him though and it didn’t take her long to convince him to return to the team. [Extraordinary X-Men #1, #8]
Magik’s next recruit wasn’t as easy to locate as her brother though. The two of them located the apartment in which Nightcrawler had been living but they only discovered his severed tail lying in a pool of blood. Their investigation into his disappearance led them into the sewers and into the clutches of Mister Sinister and his new Marauders. Illyana and Colossus were caught off guard and captured by the evil geneticist, who had been working on his own solution to the Terrigen problem. He had been splicing Inhuman and mutant DNA together, trying to create a superior 
race, but his experiments had all led to failure. He hoped that Illyana would be made of sturdier stuff and lined her up to be his next test subject.
Magik’s absence from X-Haven, however, had not gone unnoticed, as the shield protecting the school weakened and the X-Men were soon forced to fight off a demonic invasion. A small group of X-Men were sent to retrieve Illyana and they found her just in time, saving her from certain death by Sinister’s genetic tampering. Illyana recovered from her ordeal quickly and even dealt a crippling blow to Sinister, saving her brother in the process and showing him she wasn’t exactly as helpless as he treated her. Returning to X-Haven, she re-erected the shields and brought some temporary peace to the school. [Extraordinary X-Men #2-5]
As a magical ally of Doctor Strange, Illyana was one of the many sorcerers called upon when a great threat to the magical world emerged. [Doctor Strange (4th series) #1-12]
Illyana started to strike up a friendship with Sapna, the young girl she had saved in India a few days before. After learning that Sapna’s mutant power enabled her to speak to and control demons, Illynana decided to take her on a tour of Limbo. During the excursion, Illyana realized 
there was much more to Sapna’s burgeoning powers then met the eye and she thought it best they meet with Doctor Strange. The meeting had to be put on hold, though, after Illyana was called upon to save a group of mutants who had been trapped on the enigmatic Weirdworld. Whilst navigating the strange floating island, Magik felt the energies of a wizard at work and tracked the old man down to his cave. He instantly recognized her as a powerful sorceress and claimed he could see who she was and what she will become. He attacked Illyana but, when she fought back, he vanished, leaving a cryptic warning that hinted that something dangerous was on the horizon for her and that Sapna would be at the center of it. Magik and the X-Men eventually managed to save the mutants on Weirdworld and return to X-Haven, but now Magik had even more questions about Sapna that desperately needed answering. [Extraordinary X-Men #6-7]
She immediately took Sapna to see Doctor Strange and, after a quick examination, he deduced that Sapna’s powers were actually linguistic but they had taken on a mystical quality as they had emerged in Limbo. However, when he probed deeper, he accidentally unleashed a demonic creature that attacked them. Without knowing how, Sapna managed to banish the demon, adding another confusing aspect to the event. Magik vowed to protect Sapna if it happened again, but was taken aback when Strange pointed out the demon had targeted Magik and not the young girl. [Extraordinary X-Men #8]
Whilst the other X-Men set off on a mission to the future, Illyana stayed behind to train Sapna in her abilities. The young girl was progressing at an extraordinary rate and the normally stoic Illyana couldn’t help but feel a little proud and also worried. When the X-Men’s mission turned sour, Magik decided she needed to follow them to the future to help. However, during her trip, she was attacked by some sorcerers, calling themselves the Daughters of Sapna. They gave her a dire warning that Sapna would soon leave her side and turn evil, dooming all of mankind. Magik refused to listen, adamant that she could prevent Sapna’s corruption. She continued on her mission to the future and arrived just in time to save the X-Men from Apocalypse’s forces. [Extraordinary X-Men #10-12]
Arriving back home, Magik discovered that Sapna had run away from the X-Men, as she had been having nightmares of her killing Illyana and destroying the X-Men. Magik and Storm managed to follow her trail into Limbo and then across numerous dimensions. During their travels, they ran across a group of mystics whose worlds had been devastated by a being called the World Eater. They attacked Magik, as they could sense the World Eater’s residue on her, despite her claims to the contrary.
Magik escaped them and finally found Sapna, but was shocked when the young girl attacked her, seemingly under possession of a demon. Sapna took Magik’s soulsword and travelled back to Earth, abandoning Storm and Illyana in a desolate dimension. When Magik recovered, she immediately felt guilt over not being able to protect Sapna from the evil entity that they now realized was the World Eater. Magik and Storm were forced to retrace their steps across the dimension to get back home. They met up with the mystics who had attacked them previously and formed an alliance to destroy the World Eater and save Sapna.
When they finally arrived back to X-Haven, they discovered that the World-Eater-possessed Sapna was attacking it with the full fury of Limbo behind her. Magik immediately confronted it and tried to get through to Sapna’s consciousness but the World Eater was too strong. With X-Haven and everyone inside it in danger, Illyana realized she had no other option and stabbed Sapna with the soul sword. The World Eater was destroyed by the magical sword but unfortunately Sapna was mortally wounded by it too. Illyana was devastated by the loss of her ward and her failure at protecting her. However, whilst taking a bit of time to gather her thoughts in Limbo, the soul sword spoke to Magik and she realized that Sapna’s consciousness was somehow trapped inside. [Extraordinary X-Men #13-16]
Illyana didn’t get much time to look into the situation, as the X-Men soon went to war with the Inhumans and Magik was crucial in helping contain any prisoners that were taken. However, 
during a fight with some of the Inhumans, Sapna spoke out to her and pulled her consciousness into the soul sword. Coming face to face with Sapna’s spirit Illyana, apologized for her failings and the fact that the young girl had to die to save everyone else. Sapna was surprisingly calm about it all but, when Illyana went to leave again Sapna, became angry and forced her to stay. Eventually, Magik managed to cast a spell that allowed Sapna’s spirit to leave the sword, although Illyana was the only one who could see her. [IvX #1-6, Extraordinary X-Men #19]
The Terrigen clouds in Earth’s atmosphere were eventually destroyed, meaning the X-Men could finally return. Magik teleported X-Haven back to New York, only this time she put it in the middle of Manhattan’s Central Park. [Extraordinary X-Men #20]
When the brainwashed Steve Rogers took over the nation and put it under Hydra rule, Magik joined the mutant refuge of New Tian. Whilst her teleportation ability was dampened by Hydra technology, her magical prowess gave the X-Men a crucial advantage when they had to break Sunfire out of prison. Using magic to sneak in, they fought Rogers’ Avengers, with Illyana facing off against Vision and the Scarlet Witch. [Secret Empire: United #1]
When Roger's Hydra-ruled America fell Magik rejoined the main group of X-Men again in New York. Soon after the X-Men gained a prisoner in the form of Dark Beast, and Magik was charged 
with watching over him. However, he soon managed to escape from his confinement, causing Magik to blame herself as it happened on her watch. She caught a lucky break when she heard word that he had begun making trouble for the Secret Warriors, a group fo Inhumans led by Daisy Johnson, aka Quake. Magik teleported to the group's location and declared that she would be joining their team for as long as it took to recapture Dark Beast. The soon tracked McCoy down but things became complicated when it was discovered he was working for Mister Sinister. The evil geneticist was studying Inhuman DNA and he had kidnapped a group of children to experiment on. Striking a chord with Magik's own childhood trauma, she and the Secret Warriors took on Sinister and put an end to his schemes. Whilst Sinister ultimately escaped, Dark Beast had been recaptured, and so Magik parted way with the Warriors. [Secret Warriors (2nd series) #8-12]
Whilst she may be keeping a relatively low profile at the moment, it's only a matter of time before an evil mutant (or demon) finds themselves staring at the sharp end of Magik's soulsword.