‘X-Men: Blood Hunt – Magik’ #1 Is Entertaining But Flawed — Review

The X-Men are in a weird place to be participating in a big linewide crossover event. They are stuck in a limbo (lowercase “L”) between publishing initiatives, the Krakoan Era officially ended but the From the Ashes relaunch still looming. As such, there are no actual X-Men books being published at the moment to tie-in to the larger Blood Hunt event, in which the blotting of the Sun by Dark Force energy leads to a worldwide uprising of vampires. There are no set teams, no status quo, no ongoing plotlines to be disrupted or furthered by the events of the crossover. As such, it falls to these character-specific one-shots, like the arduously-named X-Men: Blood Hunt – Magik #1, to carry the X-Men’s banner through the event. 

Thankfully, writer Ashley Allen turns the limitation of the X-Men’s nebulous state into an advantage. Without any larger X-related stuff to ping off, the focus of the tale lies squarely on its title character. Written chiefly from Illyana’s perspective, when the issue centers its action on her, it succeeds; when it stretches out to examine the broader circumstances of the Blood Hunt status quo, it falters. In short, Illyana fighting vampires? Fun. Spending time on the nuances of vampire society? Less so. 

The issue opens with Illyana, via narrative captions, recounting a bedtime story her father used to tell her of a medieval knight. He overcome a great sickness to become a hero capable of banishing the darkness, a knight for whom the similarities of his name — Ilya — with her own was not lost on young Illyana. To say that the knight of the bedtime story turns up as the villain of this story, his legendary rejuvenation actually the result of becoming a vampire, is hardly a spoiler; that’s expected just based of basic storytelling structure. That this old story Illyana liked as a child turns out to be a true story involving a vampire that she just happens to cross swords with during Marvel’s big vampire event is so dumb it circles back around to being awesome. Of course Illyana learns this childhood hero is a bad guy and fights him. She is the X-Men’s Goth princess,; this is all just another day at the office for her. 

Allen is also smart to complicate matters a bit by not presenting Illyana as a straight-up hero. While her overall goal in the story involves saving a pair of young kids from being hunted and shutting down the Siberian vampire community led by Ilya that has overtaken the kids’ hometown, the Illyana/vampire conflict is presented very much as a battle between monsters. The children, upon seeing Illyana, fully revealed in her superhero garb — Soulsword drawn and eyes red — flee, thinking she’s some kind of witch. She revels in the violence and taunts her foes. Her foes are vampires, so we don’t much care that she’s toying with them, and Allen doesn’t have the room to fully engage in an exploration of Illyana’s dark side, but the fact that she’s not exactly Captain America in this situation adds the tiniest bit of nuance to an otherwise straightforward story.

Art-wise, the comic is a bit of a mixed bag. Artist Jesús Hervás struggles at times with the storytelling, particularly during action sequences, with the flow of movement from panel to panel disjointed, making it harder to follow what’s happening. There’s a sequence towards the end in which Illyana uses her teleportation powers in a novel way, but the visual depiction of it is unclear, requiring the captions to do more of the heavy lifting to explain what we’re seeing. More effective is the coloring from Yen Nitro, who suitably washes everything out in various shades of blues and grays (appropriate for a sun-less Siberian setting), which allows Illyana, with her blonde hair, bright yellow uniform and red eyes, to pop off the page whenever she appears in action. She becomes a literal light in the darkness, the visual as well as narrative focus of the story.

In the end, X-Men: Blood Hunt – Magik #1 is unlikely required reading either for fans of the larger X-Men universe or anyone closely following the ins and outs of the Blood Hunt event. But the backdrop of that event — and the limbo-esque non-status quo of the X-Men at the moment — does give Illyana room to shine. As a character study, this is hardly deep or nuanced. But it keeps the character at the center of the action, and fans of Magik likely won’t be disappointed. As cash grab event tie-ins go, it could definitely be worse.