Review by Frank Plowright

The mutant community of Krakoa has the means to resurrect their dead, and while that applies to mutants killed in action, who can jump the queue, there’s also an ongoing process of returning long dead mutants to life. A controversial beneficiary is Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean Grey eventually revealed as the Goblin Queen. Vita Ayala uses the awkwardness of her presence to spark a plot returning her to limbo, where Magik has an audacious plan.

This is by some distance the strongest outing from Ayala on New Mutants, being a focussed four chapter story throwing an immense spanner in the works. As Magik, Ilyana has always been a confident ruler of Limbo, keeping assorted demons in their place with ease, and not having much more trouble seeing off greater threats. However, someone has now discovered a weakness.

Rod Reis draws all four chapters of the main story, this also being his best New Mutants to date. As in Vol. 2, the location suits his ability to deliver the wild and astounding, and a real surprise is the inclusion of storybook interpretations of events. Reis produces some amazing single pages, some mimicking the style of John Tenniel’s famous illustrations for Alice in Wonderland. Supplementing some great work from Reis are Jan Duursema’s pages focussing on Ilyana’s experiences as a young child in Limbo, initially as back-ups, then inserted into the ongoing events. Both she and Ayala evoke the spirit of 1980s comics, as the young Ilyana attempts to escape, and there’s a delicacy to Duursema’s portraits.

Moonstar and Wolfsbane accompany Magik and the Goblin Queen to Limbo, where a transfer of power is intended, but as time passes differently in Limbo, they instead run into Ilyana as an old woman, having for decades battled the consequences of what they recently experienced. Yet Ayala keeps switching the environment, imaginatively using the possibilities of Limbo as established by earlier writers. There’s no predicting where anything is heading, nor who will be affected, yet Ayala keeps the focus sharp and there’s a continuing thread from start to finish.

It shouldn’t need pointing out as something notable, but while this run of New Mutants has focussed on women overall, almost every character who counts in this story is a woman. What a shame this is Ayala’s final volume. She’s ironed out the growing pains and settled into New Mutants, delivering a structured, character-based thriller, and it’s something to put on the shelf and read again sometime.