Illyana Rasputin comes to Magneto’s classroom with problems that a school timetable cannot keep outside. She is a mutant teleporter, a sorceress and the ruler of Limbo. Her step…

Illyana Rasputin comes to Magneto’s classroom with problems that a school timetable cannot keep outside. She is a mutant teleporter, a sorceress and the ruler of Limbo. Her stepping discs make her essential to the New Mutants’ movement, but the route through her realm also exposes her friends to dangers that belong to her own story. New Mutants #50 puts that conflict directly in front of her when S’ym’s rebellion and the techno-organic threat turn Limbo against her. Her Soulsword and magical authority do not make her position effortless or secure. She can be overwhelmed, frightened and separated from the people who normally help her. The conversation with Magneto in #52 is a crucial part of their relationship. He can speak to her about living with a terrible past without pretending that his own is clean. Illyana does not need a teacher who tells her that none of it matters. She needs somebody who can recognize what happened and still believe that she has choices left. That gives their connection a different texture from a standard student resisting a strict adult. They both have reasons to fear what they might become. They both know that other people can reduce an entire person to the worst thing associated with them. Illyana’s humor and bluntness remain part of the class as well. She can get her friends somewhere almost instantly, contribute a cutting remark and then withdraw into something they cannot easily follow. Her armor and sword belong to that uneasy overlap between childhood and power. During this era, the people at the school are one of the strongest reasons for her to keep fighting for a life beyond the role Limbo seems ready to assign her.