New Mutants 66 - Inferno Prologue

Illyana's descent into the Darkchilde continues as she has a showdown with Forge in Limbo.

New Mutants #66

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciler: Bret Blevins
Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: Ken Bruzenak
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editors: Ann Nocenti & Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Continuing the confrontation from last time this issue is heavily focused on the battle between Illyana and Forge and the consequence around them. An early worrying sign comes when the Soul Sword slices through a rock despite only being able to affect magical subjects - and the rock has a leering face. The other New Mutants try to end the fight but instead they all get pulled into Limbo and held captive as Illyana transforms ever more into the Darkchilde until she stabs Forge and disrupts his magic. Then before she can kill him Dani (Moonstar) pulls out an image of Illyana's worst fear - the fully transformed Darkchilde. Oddly it proves to be the demons in Limbo who bring her to her senses when she refuses to give into temptation despite them egging her on and declines to kill Forge. But Illyana struggles to transform back and recognises in herself the monster from Destiny's prophecy.

There's not a great deal of meat to this issue with the battle taking up most of the action. Forge does fight back with both words and magic - and draws out just how much of Illyana's anger is really against herself for having transported her brother to Dallas but then not been there for the final battle. Ultimately he offers her the chance to kill him, seeing in her what he saw in himself when he was young and using his magic in Vietnam.

Otherwise the issue starts a couple of other subplots with the revelation that Magneto has taken to wearing a version of his traditional costume from his villainous days (albeit with no helmet and a big M symbol on the front) and out in space an alien called Spyder offers his slave Gosamyr freedom if she can capture Lila Cheney.

Overall this issue feels too brief. The battle of words and actions doesn't add a great deal to events and feels like it could have been wrapped up sooner especially given how long it's taken to reach this point. Nor is there much further exploration of how Limbo is reacting to these changes. Instead we have a less than satisfying issue just as the key threads start to get seeded.