Magic #5

Magic #5

BOOM! Studios 2021

Written by Jed Mackay

Illustrated by IG Guara

Coloured by Arianna Consonni

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

Who will Ral, Kaya, and Vraska encounter on Dominaria?

The answer will scatter the Planeswalkers across the multiverse as the race to find out who is behind the attacks on Ravnica continues! The answer may lie with one of the oldest living Planeswalkers…

I am so completely impressed with this book. Yes it is based off the card game and no it doesn’t mean you have to play it or even know how to play it to completely enjoy this story. I have a passing knowledge of how the mechanics of the game work but for the life of me I’d never know the characters on the cards and I am loving every single moment of this series. It just goes to show that solid writing and characterisation can turn anything from any genre into an incredibly solid and enjoyable series. This is just like any superhero book on stands, you’ve three very distinct personalities with diverse power sets working together to solve a mystery and prevent disaster sounds like a superhero story to me.

The way that this is being told is pretty darn near perfect to me. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is impeccably rendered. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to flesh them out like complete people. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we’re drawn deeper and deeper into their lives and their pasts and I think that’s pretty amazing stuff.

I am very much appreciative and enjoying the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I love how we see the introduction of new characters and the roles they play and I have to say that I’m uber impressed with the way we see this being told and how the then and now tactic has been reinvented for this story by Jed. It showcases some great originality and how we see it all blend together is really something to see. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.

I like the interiors here. The linework is clean, crisp and strong and with the varying weights we see the detail work throughout the book bring everyone and everything to life beautifully. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds being utilised, that being said how the composition within the panels bring us the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is really well done. The creativity and imagination on display is superb, in the tavern or on Amonkhet is really quite eye-catching. I really wish that Vraska were more fearsome but that’s me. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered in how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work.

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With the pacing and the book's structure we do get a sense of urgency and how the cards are stacked against them. I’m a huge fan of this series and I think everyone should be or at the very least they should be reading this first arc and tell me what works for them and what doesn’t. That’s a challenge folks. However, with the level of writing and characterisation that we see here and the solidly crafted interiors there is very little here not to like and enjoy.