Magic #1
- WRITER
- Jed MacKay
- Artist
- Ig Guara
- Letterer
- Ed Dukeshire
- Cover Artist
- Matteo Scalera, Taj Tenfold, Miguel Mercado, Mirka Andolfo, Junggeun Yoon, Tamra Bonvillain, Magdalena Pagowski, Moreno Dinisio, Inhyuk Lee, Ig Guara
- Publisher
- BOOM! Studios
- Price
- 4.99
- Release Date
- 2021-04-07
- Colorist
- Arianna Consonni
For nearly 30 years, millions of players around the world have been thrilled by the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, by Wizards of the Coast, and the epic fantasy worlds and creatures within the game's realms. And now, the fan-favorite creative team of Jed MacKay and Ig Guara team up to bring the world of Magic to comic books in the new BOOM! Studios series. The creative team hits the ground running from the opening issue, with cover-to-cover action set pieces while introducing the uninitiated into this expansive, fantasy world in a genuinely thrilling debut.
Across the realms of Magic's multiverse are warriors known as Planeswalkers who can tap into the raw energies of the Earth -- more commonly known in-game as "mana" -- to summon powerful allies and conjure devastating spells. As the mythical city of Ravnica is rocked by assassination attempts targeting several of the city's Guildmasters, the resulting battle puts Ravnica at risk of plunging into all-out war. Desperate to maintain the tenuously fragile peace, three Guildmasters set aside their differences to investigate the untamed plane of Zendikar to learn more about the mysterious assassins and why their targets have all been Guildmasters of Ravnica.
With a game that has such extensive lore and backstory developed over nearly three decades, MacKay has to walk a tightrope of introducing the world and rules of the game to new readers while not making it feel like old, well-worn territory to more established fans. MacKay accomplishes this by staging most of this opening issue as a big fight, not only introducing his protagonists, but taking the opportunity to showcase what they're capable of in the heat of battle. That isn't to say plenty of exposition is delivered along the way to catch newer readers up with the proceedings and the overarching premise of the world; but the framing it within the action set pieces provides that narrative spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
Guara, working with colorist Arianna Consonni, is certainly no stranger to bringing sweeping fantasy worlds to life, having previously co-created the Image Comics title Rose with Meredith Finch. Here, Consonni's brighter color palette really leans into the franchise's propensity for color-fueled battles as the Guildmasters move to defend themselves in the floating city of Ravnica. On more than a handful of pages, Guara really gets the opportunity to cut loose as the action picks, showing both the immersive world he has illustrated and the powerful denizens within it. And with this story about to go on the road, Guara is likely going to take advantage of the tour through Zendikar to bring even more breathtaking landscapes to life as the scope for the new comic book series begins to expand.
Magic is a big, bombastic read that weaves in plenty of action while introducing readers to the planes of Ravnica and more. MacKay and Guara move to deftly accomplish the daunting task of launching a new series that has both a hardcore fanbase but may be hitting new readers unfamiliar with the sheer enormity of the world, and they do it by making this debut issue more of a thrill ride than a simple exposition dump that many fantasy stories can lean towards. Epic and engaging, Magic: The Gathering is off to a good start in BOOM!'s new series with MacKay and Guara at the helm and looks to expand its world as tours the gaming world's multiverse.