Writer Ashley Allen
Artist German Peralta
Color Artist Arthur Hesli
Letterer VC’s Ariana Maher
Variant Cover Benjamin Su, I really got lucky and was able to get all of the solo Magik covers.
Final issue!
Issue opens with Magik & Colossus fighting Koschei (a character name I can’t keep in my head).
Magik doesn’t have access to her magical abilities, and Koschei is on the attack. She is going to fight him off with her sweet s-words, as Colossus & Count Kaoz go around breaking up Koschei’s soul coins. Which will only make him stronger, but then Magik, and all of the Russian magic folks, will have their powers restored.
We get a lot of great fight scenes between Magik and Koschei.
Colossus & Kaoz are successful. Koschei is at full power, and the Rasputins regroup.
We get another great moment of the siblings talking about their feelings.
I like them addressing why Magik can’t just leave, and get the X-Men, they don’t have the time for that. Koschei would surely defeat Colossus in that time.
I also like them addressing how Magik won’t let Colossus make the sacrificial play here either. He does have a plan though, a beginning of a plan.
Koschei shows up to stop the nice moment we were having
Colossus defends his sister, which I absolutely love. He trusts her to make the right choices, and she does the Rasputin name proud (which, really, isn’t that hard of a task).
Magik comes back in full Darkchild mode. So, they are definitely going to win this fight. She’s no longer ashamed to show her brother her true self, and with that confidence, they start attacking Koschei.
We get Magik’s side of the argument about how he wouldn’t trust her soul in her brother’s hands.
Magik definitely trusts her soul in Colossus, as we see him wielding her soulsword, which is always a cool visual. We saw it during Battle of the Atom, and we got a version of it recently in Uncanny X-Men’s Who Has Been Sleeping in My Bed arc.
Like almost every boss fight in a video game, it all ends with a knockout, that looks pretty cool.
Are there video game final boss encounters that don’t end in a fight? I would like to play that game. I’m just not into battles in video games. Which is odd, as I just spent a lot of money on PS5 Wolverine. Maybe I’m into the smaller fights, but the six part battle sequences, those I’m just tired of, but also, I’m old, and just want to experience a great story.
Issue ends with Magik tying up Koschei, and Colossus makes a bad joke. Illyana can’t think of a better one.
They leave Koschei with his sister, Lada, who appears to not have his best interests in mind.
Colossus is going to stay in Russia, as he has some business to take care of, and we get another great hug as our sweet conclusion.
We finally get a letters page again! I thought maybe we’ll be getting letters every issue, as I sent one every issue, but they went with my first one. Lot of us really want a Katyana miniseries, which makes sense, and a few of us really want Colossus’ beard back.
This has been such a great miniseries!
Shadow and Flame with Magik 