Magik

Illyana Rasputin was born in the Ust-Ordynski Collective farm, near Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union to Nikolai Rasputin and his wife Alexandra Natalya Rasputina. Illyana's two older brothers, Mikhail Nikolaievitch Rasputin and Piotr "Peter" Nikolaievitch Rasputin were both mutants. The X-Men suspected Illyana to be a mutant as well, but they figured that years would pass until her adolescence and the emergence of any possible powers. They were wrong.

When she was six years old, Illyana was abducted and brought to the United States by Arcade, who used her and several other hostages to coerce the X-Men to assist him in opposing Doctor Doom. She was rescued and brought back to the X-Mansion. Shortly thereafter, Illyana was kidnapped again, this time to Limbo by the extra-dimensional demons Belasco and S'ym. She was raised there and corrupted by Belasco, who taught her black magic and sought to claim her soul to be used as a key to bringforth the Elder Gods to rule earth. She was later tutored in the practice of good magic by that dimension's version of Storm (who turned to magic when her mutant powers waned) and eventually rebelled against Belasco. Similar to Illyana, both Storm and Kitty Pryde were both magically used by Belasco as potential gateways to freeing his Elder Gods by manipulating their souls with his evil. Both refused his magic before the process could be completed. Because of this Illyana formed a mystical bond between both Storm and Kitty once she too was used in the same manner. Using a portion of her own soul Illyana created the Soulsword and took over limbo as its new ruler. During her battle with Belasco she magically developed horns, a tail and fangs. She discovered that these new features only appear when she holds the Soulsword. After winning the battle she banished Belasco from Limbo and claimed S'ym as her servant. She then managed to return to Earth several years older, although no time had passed on Earth between her kidnapping and return. She subsequently joined the New Mutants. Over time the appearance of a strange metal began to overtake her body which, much like her brother Colossus, gave her a form of invulnerability and increased strength. The demon N'astirh tricked Illyana, however, into opening up a colossal teleportation disc between earth and limbo which triggered the Inferno crossover. At the end of the Inferno storyline she was regressed back to childhood but still possessed the locket Belasco gave to her, inferring she still had ties to Limbo. Because of their mystic bond the Soulsword passed itself on to her friend Kitty Pryde while in England. It embedded itself into a stone beside Excalibur's lighthouse headquarters awaiting Kitty to become its new weilder. She rejected it out of fear she would become a twisted dark image of herself, just as Illyana had. Seeing how much it's presence bothered her friend Kitty, Rachel Summers attempted to remove it from the bedrock via the powers of the Phoenix Force but it wouldn't budge. Rachel then informed Kitty that it probably would only move upon her command. It stayed embedded in England until it later eventually fell into the hands of Amanda Sefton, who would become the new Magik, ruler of Limbo and wielder of the Soulsword.

Illyana, still regressed as a child, returned to Russia where she lived with her parents for some months until they were murdered by the Russian government in order to secure Illyana's abilities to defeat a psionic being known as the Soulskinner. Illyana then returned to live with her brother Piotr and the other X-Men. Not long afterwards, she contracted the Legacy Virus and died.

Her spirit however contacted both Wolverine and Piotr from the afterlife. She came to Logan shortly after he had the adamantium pulled from his body, and urged him to return to the world of the living to save Jean Grey. She then visited her brother when he returned to the Xavier Institute, urging him to move on and be happy.