THE MAGIC ORDER 5 #1 (OF 6)
DARK HORSE COMICS/Netflix
STORY: Mark Millar
ART: Matteo Buffagni
COLORS: Giovanna Niro
LETTERS: Clem Robins
EDITOR: Daniel Chabon
EDITORIAL: Sarah Unwin
COVER: Matteo Buffagni Giovanna Niro
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Matteo Buffagni; Jae Lee with June Chung
32pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (September 2024)
Rating: 18+
The Magic Order created by Mark Millar at Netflix
“The Death of Cordelia Moonstone”
The Magic Order 5 is a six-issue miniseries from writer Mark Millar and artist Matteo Buffagni. This is the fifth installment of The Magic Order series, which began with the 2018-19 miniseries written by Millar and drawn by Olivier Coipel. The Magic Order is a band of sorcerers, magicians, and wizards – with a focus on the Moonstone family – that live ordinary lives by day, but protect humanity from darkness and monsters of impossible sizes by night. Colorist Giovanna Niro and letterer Clem Robins complete the series creative team.
The Magic Order 5 #1 opens in the aftermath of the end of Madame Albany and the “wizard wars.” Cordelia Moonstone is preparing for the end, but a new case has dropped itself in front of her. A woman named Carly Summers has had two of her children kidnapped eight years apart by a man who never opens his eyes. He also beats Carly with a baseball bat before snatching away each child.
Cordelia's investigation, however, with her apprentices, Gator Lloyd and Ashley McPherson, goes bad. The time to pay the ultimate prices for her sins is now.
THE LOWDOWN: This is the second time that I have been on any kind of list that provides PDF copies of titles published by Dark Horse Comics. The latest received is The Magic Order 5 #1.
The Magic Order #1, The Magic Order 2 #1, The Magic Order 3 #1, and The Magic Order 4 #1 all started off with a bang. Why open with a whimper when you can medieval on your reader's ass and he or she will gladly come back for more. Mark Millar is probably the only “mainstream” comic book writer who consistently delivers outstanding pop comics. He has taken many of the genres and sub-genres in which Marvel and DC Comics' ply their trade and lifted them to the heights of high-concept, inventive entertainment.
One of them is magical fantasy, and Mark has made The Magic Order explosive and outrageous in a way that Marvel has not with its various Doctor Strange comic book series. If you want to read a comic book that is as close to the intensity and insanity of Marvel Studios' 2022 film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, then you don't want a Doctor Strange comic book. You want The Magic Order 5 #1.
The art team of Matteo Buffagni and colorist Giovanna Niro deliver stellar work in this debut issue. It is as if they are doing fine art Eurocomics for a Louvre publication. Buffagni's art makes the world of the natural and supernatural a seamless whole where no one's power makes him or her safe. Niro's color blends the horrific with the surreal to prepare us for many surprises to come. Finally, Clem Robins's lettering is the machine gun cherry on top of this narrative.
The Magic Order 5 is supposed to conclude this franchise. Dear readers, let us gather here today and for the next five issues for what I suspect will be the grandest of send-offs.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of Mark Millar and of The Magic Order will want to read The Magic Order 5.
A+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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