Rogue

To be honest, if you gave this another 6 months for Illyana to really get some character development then this could be an interesting upset for Magik over Rogue.

As it stands, despite Magik being to the 2010's what Rogue was to the 90s....Rogue has actually had so much more character development and story growth that it isnt even funny.

Whereas Magiks original arcs and her Infernus storyline from the 2000s were incredible.....its the only 2 stories shes recieved series growth in. New Mutants Dead Souls and current Dawn of X Era titles focus heavily on making her more of a leader and fleshing out her personality beyond team badass....but here shes up against Rogue.

Rogue, for better or worse has struggled with her powers, her trust in others, her sanity, others trust in her, her love life, and the meaning of her own life. By the mid 2000s shes defined herself as one of the leaders in the X-Men and she has established relationships and a supportive dynamic with characters across the franchise.....she starred in Legacy for almost 3 years and then went on to be a major player and eventual leader of an Avenger team before returning to the X-books to get married and spend a year in dope titles.

While you could argue Rogue doesnt have a DEFINITIVE story arc or event centered around her and that plots with her have been redundant at times.....she is constantly active and has carried her own storylines good,.bad, and epic without help for the most part for over 30+ years. Whereas Illyana has been great in a few runs....but more often then not has been sassy background when compared to Rogues carrying multiple titles on her back.

It's 2 great characters with zero overlap. But one of them has been a dominant factor in the franchise no matter the size of their role, while the other has had big roles and then drifted into the background for decades and is only now starting to get a chance at a different role.

All Rogue needs to do is put on a swim suit and give Magik a really big hug LOL

Rogue has had better development. You can watch her go from rebellious teenager mixed up with the bad guys to competent X-Men figurehead with mastery over her powers.

Magik is inconsistent and has been like 4 different characters.

In the 80's she was a lovable but churlish demon girl, whose powers had limitations and rules in place. Then, they stripped her of that origin and she went back to being young, naive, innocent Russian girl who died (sad).

Then, someone liked the 80s version and attempted to bring that version back, although they took the limits off her powers and she can now just do anything that plot needs her to do.

Now, she is just another standard, boring X-Man, whose powers can basically do whatever and she seems to speak in snarky jokes or memes while wielding her giant anime sword. She is like a cartoon character now (also sad).

Yeah I've seen that level of inconsistency with Magik. Which is sad, she's a very interesting character, as far as ideas go.

Nonetheless, Rogue is definitely more of a preference for me. Rogue reminds me of Remy though (maybe that's why they're attracted to each other lol) Rogue... needs to take center stage, and I feel the writers are just so overly obsessed with Logan (who I actually love), Cyclops and Jean Grey and the goddamn Phoenix Force, that they fail to look at the potential of other, awesome and amazing characters. Gambit is like... a character writers seem to not even like, yet he's so cool, mysterious... and has incredible potential in his development. I'd LOVE if someone did more with his backstory in the Thieve's Guild, what was their crazy prophecy about? Is there anything to it? (and it SHOULD)

Now THERE'S something I'd love to see!

i vote rouge i dont know who magic is

i think rouge is badass and she needs way more awesome stories she should have her own comic too!

Rogue for me.

@scarlet_wiccan: me too :)

Rouge

Rogue is definetely a better character, but I think it's a little unfair to poor Illayana taking into account that, while Rogue has been alive more of her publishing history, Magik has been dead for most of the 90s up until the mid-2000s, which means that the character has had less chances to be developed. Fortunately the character has been well used since she came back to life. I would even argue she was the most benefited from Bendis' polarizing run.

I also think Illyana has had less exposition outside the comics, or even in alternate realities. In Ultimate X-Men, who has a gateway for many new readers at the time despite its dubious quality, Illyana only had a cameo. Her film debut has in The New Mutants, a movie a lot of people stop caring even before it was released, while Rogue was a main character in the Fox films since the first one. Illyana could have really benefited for appearing in the first Deadpool film appearing alongside her brother in Negasonic Teenage Warhead's role. And then there's when she's portrayed as anything else but Colossus' innocent little sister like in Age of Apocalypse, X-Men Legends (whose only role was being sick and then be revealed she was actually possesed by the Shadow King) and the 90s cartoon, when for me at least she's actually a much more interesting character than her brother. And then there's when they don't even bother to make the character appear in one single episode, they just imply she exists, like in X-Men Evolution. I love that cartoon, but the same way they did an episode about Gambit they could have done an episode about Colossus in which Illyana appeared, although I'm afraid that If they did it they would have done the same as everyone else and portray Illyana as Colossus' powerless, helpless, innocent imouto.

Man it felt good to rant a little.

magik