Magic #6

Magic #6

BOOM! Studios 2021

Written by Jed MacKay

The Past is Illustrated by French Carlomagno & Francesco Segala

The Present is Illustrated by IG Guara & Arianna Consonni

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

How does the ancient past hold the key to the future of the entire Multiverse?

Ral, Vraska, and Kaya have finally tracked down the being that can help them unravel the true nature of the threat they face -- Jaya Ballard, one of the oldest living, and most experienced, Planeswalkers in existence. And the key to understanding lies in Jaya's origins during the Age of Ice in Dominaria... and a threat that was neutralized, but never truly eliminated.

I think that what is happening within the pages of this series is utterly fantastic. We’ve been introduced to the Council, a group of Planeswalkers who have been brought together by circumstance, and now two older Planeswalkers as slowly but surely the cast continues to grow with our triumvirate at its core. For me this is how you create a team and one that then works to become something of a family much the way that we saw the core of the JLA, the Teen Titans of the New Mutants and the X-Men. All these franchises are very much alike, including Magic as they have powers and abilities that set them apart and yet when working together the whole becomes greater than its parts.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter. How we see the personalities become so much more established and how there’s still room for growth is beautifully demonstrated. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story just the way we experience is phenomenal.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is magnificently rendered. How we see so much depth, dimension and complexity added to the story through how the layers are explored is hauntingly rendered. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

Honestly I don’t think it looks like two creative teams worked on the interiors here and that’s pretty brilliant in its own right. One thing that I do want to say is that we NEED to see backgrounds utilised more. When we see buildings or the worlds they light up the readers’ imagination and they really enhance and expand the moments so I for one think we need to see more of them. How we see the composition of the panels that brings out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is well achieved. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented sets of eyes for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows this sensational understanding for how colour works.

​

The way that this is being told and how the intricacies are being shown really is bloody sensational to see. This may be Jaya’s story but it shows the past, the present and the future of all involved including Ravnica. With some nearly flawless writing and exquisite characterisation brought to life by these strong interiors these folks are creating a modern epic.