



Lots of kids think their parents are evil. Mine really were. Honestly. -- Nico Minoru

Appearing in "To Try in Vein"

Featured Characters:

Nico Minoru (Main story and flashback)

Supporting Characters:

Seth

Ashley

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Synopsis for "To Try in Vein"

Ian McNee wonders what his role truly is amid all of his recent questing, and who is truly behind it. Nico Minoru contemplates her past: the discovery that her parents were evil magicians and the emergence of her own magical abilities. As she visits friends in LA, who tease her about abandoning her usual dark clothes, Marie LaVeau watches her and says she will pay for the sins her parents committed against her. She has retrieved that which Nico’s parents stole from her, but now she needs that which they hid inside Nico herself. After Nico and her friends leave, Marie Laveau examines Nico’s coffee mug but finds only lipstick on it, which doesn’t help her. Later that evening at a party, Marie confronts Nico and implies that she knows about her family secrets. She shows her the Black Mirror, which was stolen from her by Nico’s parents. Now she has it back but she needs Nico’s help to undo a spell that her parents used to lock the mirror.

Nico says she just wants to be left alone. But Marie says she needs Nico’s blood to unlock the mirror. Nico smashs a bottle and uses it to cut her skin, unlocking the Staff of One, and readies herself to fend off Marie. Marie compels everyone in the club to tackle Nico, but she unmagicks them. When Marie attacks her in the form of a werewolf, Nico causes her own cloak to wrap around her, and then knocks her out. Wondering if the Mirror can truly travel through time, Nico smears her blood on it, hoping to bring back Alex. Instead, she sees her mother in the mirror who tells her she will always be one of the family. Nico smashes the mirror.

Examining its shards she finds a folded up piece of parchment. Suddenly Marie LaVeau knocks her out and takes the parchment, which is the last page of the Darkhold and was the true object of her search. Marie vanishes, leaving Nico alone to contemplate her role in a world of sorcery that is larger than she suspected.





Appearing in "Ritual of the Sphinx, Part 4: Crossroads"

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Synopsis for "Ritual of the Sphinx, Part 4: Crossroads"

Ian McNee contemplates the three artifacts he has recovered thus far, and realizes the final one is not a literal mirror at all, but rather the black mirror reflecting the soul of Chthon—the Darkhold. Just then Marie Laveau enters his shop, and simply hands him the page of the Darkhold that she possesses, saying she wishes to help him. Once she leaves Oshtur immediately manifests in a bright light and says she is pleased. Ian says he is not ready to cast the spell, and maybe Dr Strange should help him, but Oshtur rejects that idea. He casts the spell, aided across time and space by Morgan le Fay, Ashake, and LLyra. However, when he summons the spirit of Heka-Nut to inhabit his body, “Oshtur” reveals itself as Chthon, who intends to enslave him to his own plan of universal conquest.

But Ian McNee suspected this was the case all along, and recruited the agents of the other three Elder Gods (Ashake, Morgan le Fay, and Llyra) to battle Chthon. Heka-Nut’s spirit tries to take over Ian McNee, but Ashake uses the powers of the artifacts to summon forth his innate goodness, and he realizes that Chthon used him just as he was attempting to use Ian. He agrees to depart and lends Ian his remaining power to banish Chthon, who vows revenger as he dissipates.

Ashake, drawn into the present to battle Chthon, realizes she is stranded in the present, and Ian may have just lost his soul by using the Darkhold. The real Oshtur then appears to congratulate them but also to say there is more work to be done to fully repair the balance of magic.





Notes

"To Try in Vein" takes place between Runaways #17 and Runaways #18.

See Also



