Magic: The Gathering: Path of Vengeance #2

Today I found myself in Fall River MA and stopped in at Stillpoint Comics, Cards, & Games.

I picked up this MTG comic along with a few booster packs.

Title: Magic: The Gathering: Path of Vengeance
Issue: 2
Date: January, 2012
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Matt Forbeck
Artist: Martin Coccolo, Chris Evenhuis
Colorist: J. Edwin Stevens, Baileigh Bolten, Noris Sola
Letterer: Tom B. Long
Editor: Carlos Guzman
Cover: Ryan Pancoast

You know the drill. Bought it for the promo card (A lovely version of Voidmage Husher).

This is issue #2, but it may as well have been issue #1. The story was easy enough to figure out.

Planeswalker and thief Dack Fayden is being hunted down by the Rakdos Guild, while he himself is on the hunt for evil planeswalker Sifa Gent. The trail has led Dack back home to Ravnica, where his network of safehouses has apparently been compromised by, well, pretty much everyone.

Dack's old rival, Maytov, is injured in the mayhem that follows, and Dack spends a few pages musing on how he and Maytov first met while in the present, Dack has decided to get Maytov to a healer. Once there, Sifa's evil plan is figured out and it's up to Dack to not only get his revenge, but also possibly to save all of Ravnica.

This story moved the plot along without all that much actually happening. It spent a great deal of time telling, rather than showing, and the whole issue felt like a big infodump to set up the climactic battle. I do continue to like Dack as a character. He is thoughtful and fun. I also thought the flashback sequence had some good moments.

On a side note, couldn't they have come up with a more interesting name for the Mcguffin that starts this whole mess than the "Ancient Fang"?

Rating: 5/10

Magic: The Gathering: Theros #1

Before I get to the review, here are a couple pics of the box I decorated for my son today to hold his fledgeling comic book collection:

When I bought the latest two comics for my son, I also picked up two comics for me. This is the first of those.


Title: Magic: The Gathering: Theros
Issue: 1
Date: October 2013
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Jason Ciaramella
Artist: Martin Coccolo
Colorist: Joana Lafuente
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Editor: Carlos Guzman
Cover: Eric Deschamps

Once again, only bought this for the promo card, (which was an absolutely awesome version of High Tide, using the regular cover art from the comic).

So, Dirk Fayden (thief and planeswalker extraordinaire) has returned to Ravnica for a comic book based on the Magic: the Gathering set Return To Ravnica Theros. Okay, actually, Dirk does get to Theros eventually, but we start with him returning to Ravnica after having just prevented a new Guild War from breaking out.

His new mission: To steal a gem that could cause a new Guild War to break out.

Really? Does anything ever happen on Ravnica besides Guild War near-misses?

Anyway, Dirk's brilliant plan is to sneak past the angels guarding Sunhome, the Boros Legion headquarters. When that doesn't work, he tries brawling with the angels. With predictable results.

He does manage to grab a bit of a consolation prize while beating a hasty retreat, and it turns out to be a magical artifact in its own right. This is what leads him to Theros, where he gets into a street brawl, meets a hero-worshiping kid (or perhaps just a sneaky one), and attempts to hire a ship.

For all that goes on here, it really didn't feel like all that much happened. Theros is presented beautifully in terms of the visuals, but we get almost no sense of its culture. It's a fantasy world where an adventurer walking down the street gets into a brawl. Pretty generic.

In generally, this issue was visually impressive, but didn't deliver much in terms of story.

That promotional version High Tide was quite lovely, though.

Rating: 4.5/10

Magic: The Gathering #2

Title: Magic: The Gathering
Issue: 2
Date: January 2012
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Matt Forbeck
Artist: Martin Coccolo, Christian Duce
Colorist: J. Edwin Stevens, Baileigh Bolten, J.S. Holt
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Editor: Carol Guzman, John Barber
Cover: Karl Kopinski

Promo card for this issue is Faithless Looting. And yes, I'm still buying this series for the promo cards.

Planeswalker Dack Fayden planeswalks (as opposed to plainswalking, which also happens in MTG, but is something entirely different) into the middle of a fight between two Cathars and a pack of hungry vampires.

Wait, correction. Make that one cathar. The vampires made rather quick work of one of the two. The remaining one seems to have entered the fight thinking she was Buffy, but is now starting to feel more like another famous blonde: General Custer. Fortunately, Dack arrives and proceeds to set the tavern where this all takes place on fire. Who does he think he is? Jaya Ballard?

Mayhem follows, then a fast getaway, then a bunch of infodump. We're on Innistrad now. If you don't play MTG (but you do play D&D) , just think Ravenloft and you get the idea. Everyone else just think Transylvania. Vampires can fly here, a fact that Dack finds inconvenient. Fortunately, last issue's maguffin proves to be made of garlic or something because the lead vampire wants nothing to do with that.

Infodump continues pack at the home of Ingrid the Cathar, and the ending of the story essentially serves to introduce the villain.

This story isn't bad. Actually quite a bit of it was fun. But it was also incredibly generic. I'm hoping to see the story move in some more interesting directions now that the preliminaries have been dispensed with.

Rating: 6/10