Review by: Samuel Blair

Hello and welcome to this episode of Church of the Geek: Off the Shelf, our periodic review of new comics. Today I’m reviewing New Mutants #25, “Best Laid Plans…”, written by Vita Ayala, art by Rod Reis and Jan Duursema, color by Ruth Redmond and lettering by Travis Lanham.

Illyana Rasputin has been through some things, but then again so has Madelyne Prior. Madelyne, if you remember, is the clone of Jean Grey created by Mr Sinister who just happened to come life as the real Jean died on the moon and tried to take over the world as the demonic Goblin Queen of Limbo. Illyana, also known by the name Magik, later was tied to the realm of Limbo as its reluctant ruler after the defeat of Madelyne. There is a whole lot more to the history of these two, but as hard as I tried to distill their complicated timelines into a few sentences I found I just couldn’t do it. Suffice it to say that both have seen some tremendous trauma in their lives, including kidnapping, abandonment, betrayal and death, never mind the whole “regent of hell” part.