As Mentioned on Episode 19 – Acorns and Swords

Man, Illyana gives exactly ZERO FUCKS that Belasco is in the middle of another story arc. He’s all ‘Finally, my plan!’ and she’s all ‘Hey, this is MY mini-series!’

I’m curious how that plays out in Kazar 29.

As a kid, I knew who Rasputin was, if for no other reason that Rasputin Records was on the same street where I bought X-Men. And I knew that Colossus’s name was Piotr Rasputin. But the two guys were so different, I don’t think it occurred to me for a moment that Piotr, as a character, would have ever had any connection to the infamous “mad monk.”

Illyana first showed up as “name” character when I was 13 myself, but I remember I had trouble liking her. I’m not sure I would have been able to articulate this at that age, but I thought Kitty was cool because she’d proven herself several times over as one of team. She might get teased or act silly, but when it came down to X-business she was no mere sidekick or mascot. I also thought her power was dope; the ability to go anywhere you wanted and not be confined or restricted in one’s movements no doubt had psychological appeal for a 13-year old.

But by contrast, Illyana seemed to me back then as if she was getting suddenly foisted onto the reader—declared an important character by fiat. I’m not sure if I at that age I was conceptually down with spin-off miniseries; I mean, I bought them and read them, but I don’t think I accepted them as fully legit. X-Men and the Micronauts was published at the same time as Magik, so I got the impression miniseries were somehow gimmicky. Again, to compare, Kitty had come up gradually through the main storyline; that was part of what made her legit in my mind.

I think the fact that magic was Illyana’s power, plot device, and even her name (spelling it with a “k” seemed pretentious to me, just like “daemonic” instead of “demonic”) made it worse. I also wasn’t comfortable as a 13 year-old with this casual mingling of magic and science in my fiction; this was the age of the original Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which gave impressively scientific-sounding explanations and diagrams for just about everything. It was largely technobabble, of course, but it was a powerful exercise in world-building and seemed to integrate the idea of superheroes with the SF I was reading. To suddenly establish an important character “because Magik” didn’t sit with me at all. I had felt the same way about things like Dracula’s appearance; I was like, “Dracula, right, whatever. Next issue, I hope it’s a real X-Men story.”

I bring all this up not to resurrect fan rants from the first Reagan administration ^_^ but because your show makes me reflect on the different ways I felt about the X-Men when I was reading it “in real time.” Nowadays, we can look back as adult fans, and see the series itself as one of the great superhero books that became a phenomenal multi-branched franchise. But if you look at the actual ads that ran in Marvel comics in 1983-84, it’s clear that kids and teens were still expected to be the main readership, rather than comic fans per se. That was probably part of the appeal of X-Men–you were, in fact, a kid reading a comic book, but Claremont was giving you something more sophisticated.

OMG guys. I just discovered your podcast and I could not be more thrilled. I’ve been working my way through the X-books from UXM #1 for the past couple years. Right now I’m in the late 80s, just post Fall of the Mutants. I am starting at the beginning of your podcast today!

Also, Bill Sienkewitz drawing Illyana, just to die for. I love the Demon Bear storyline, of course, but the sleepover/Warlock episode, just beautiful – the whole Rahne makeover sequence, so fun. And you touched on this in this podcast, but Sienkewitz’s ability to draw such a range of teenage girls – and his Amara in Magma form, and that panel of Illyana trying to work out how to fight the bear in the Demon Bear saga, with her hair flipped by the wind – to die for! I wish he’d drawn a Sandman storyline…