REVIEW: Mark Millar's The Magic Order #6 pulls a fantastic trick on the audience

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The Magic Order #6 is out 2/13/2019.

By Bo Stewart — It’s somewhat of a rare treat to see a writer as established as Mark Millar manage to surprise his audience. I have to admit, before reading The Magic Order, I thought I’d seen every trick Millar was capable of pulling. In fact, I even thought I’d figured out the ending to The Magic Order itself, and my prediction was that this book’s ending would be abrupt. The double-sized finale The Magic Order #6, however, subverted my expectations at every turn. This is, simply put, an exciting and emotional story, and like all good magic tricks, it has plenty of surprises for its audiences as the creators saved the best for last.

Really, every issue of this series has been packed with twists, making this book a page turner in every sense. This is a story about family and what people are willing to sacrifice for love. It’s a little difficult to discuss this issue in detail without veering into spoiler territory, but trust me, you won’t see this ending coming either. It wraps a neat bow on everything we’ve seen before while also leaving the door cracked just enough for a potential sequel (the end says End of Book One...so there could be more coming).

So then, let’s talk a little about the format of The Magic Order. Up until I reviewed The Magic Order #5 in December, I was under the assumption that this was an ongoing book. How could it not be? The premise is brimming with amazing characters, wondrous feats of magic, and endless possibilities to explore. Once I learned it would end with #6, I felt as if we were being denied a closer look at a world I wanted to spend more time in. It is worth noting that the forthcoming Netflix series will help assuage some of this, but even the adaptation the streaming giant will provide aren’t enough to replace the simple desire that I want more comics. Not just a little, a lot more.

In many ways, though, the restraint keeping the series to just these first six issues should be commended. All too often in comics, similar limitations aren’t utilized and the narrative suffers as a result. This is a tight, briskly-paced adventure where every issue justifies itself by being essential to the story.  It’s just a gorgeous book that weaves a tale among the very best of Mark Millar’s many comics.

Overall: The Magic Order far exceeded my expectations left me wanting many more adventures with these characters in this fantastic world. It belongs among the very best of Mark Millar’s prolific career. This comic isn’t merely good—it’s great. 9.0/10

The Magic Order #6
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Olivier Coipel
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Peter Doherty
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Bo grinds for the Man by day so he can create comics by night. He is the lesser half of the Stewart Brothers writing team and can be found on Twitter and Instagram @stewart_bros

REVIEW: The Magic Order #5 establishes this comic as a MUST for fans of Harry Potter

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The Magic Order #5 is out 12/12.

By Bo Stewart — WHOA! The Magic Order #5 gives us this book’s biggest twist yet, and I am still reeling from the implications. I’m not going to get into spoilers here—sorry for the tease—but I will, however, talk about what this series is in broader terms, stressing as hard as I can that if you like Harry Potter, you MUST be reading The Magic Order. Harry Potter for adults is the basic premise of this comic, and it’s a concept that has been attempted before, but no one has been able to deliver on that premise with near the amount of success as The Magic Order.

The Magic Order is the first original Millarworld comic to come out after writer Mark Millar agreed to a landmark deal with Netflix, and like the other new Millarworld projects that have been announced, it impresses with its sheer ambition. Millar has never been one to shy away from a challenge, but with The Magic Order, he’s attempting a story as big (if not bigger) than he’s told before, in the process scratching an itch I didn’t know I had. I’m pretty confident in saying that now that there’s only one issue left for the current run of the series. Millar books always move at a brisk pace, but these past two issues have kicked the narrative into overdrive.

The disgruntled villain, Madam Albany, is pursuing the forbidden spells concealed in the ancient text of the Orichalcum, and a group called the Magic Order is the only thing standing in her way. While similar villains are portrayed as straight evil, Albany is laced with nuance. She is perfectly fine with the Order continuing to exist, in fact she wants it to, she just wants to be in charge. To achieve this goal, Albany has unleashed her top assassin, the sinister Venetian (one of the coolest character designs in recent memory, btw), to eliminate those who stand in her way. To counter Albany’s growing threat, Gabriel Moonstone has been unwillingly forced back into the world of magic after settling down into a quiet and domestic existence. Gabe is a gifted wizard and some of the coolest visual displays of magic in this story come from his wand. Magically imprisoning foes in works of literature has really cool possibilities and is one of the best examples of the power that magic has in this world. I hope they revisit this later in the series.

Anyway, I’m a Harry Potter fan, and a lot of what drew me to that story was the depth of world building and the mythos. That’s also a lot of what I like about this book. In addition to this being a drop-dead gorgeous comic (thank you Olivier Coipel), the creators here have established a similar scope and grandeur to this story’s conflict. The world of The Magic Order feels fully realized, and instead of burying the reader with exposition, the creators expect the reader to keep up and fill in blanks for themselves as the plot progresses. I love it when a creator trusts the reader; it makes it so much easier to get lost in a strong story like this one.

Overall: The Magic Order #5 has a shocking ending that drastically changes the course of this story. I won’t give it away, but, simply put, if you enjoyed Harry Potter, you MUST be reading The Magic Order as it heads toward its finale. 9.0/10

The Magic Order #5
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Olivier Coipel
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Peter Doherty
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Bo grinds for the Man by day so he can create comics by night. He is the lesser half of the Stewart Brothers writing team and can be found on Twitter and Instagram @stewart_bros

REVIEW: Prodigy #1 'is blockbuster comic making, pure and simple'

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Prodigy #1 is out 12/3.

By Bo Stewart — Last month Mark Millar gave us this gem of a tweet, I’m calling it now: the actor who gets the part of Edison Crane in Prodigy will be the biggest star of the next decade. A combo of Sherlock, Bruce Wayne, Indy & Bond, this is THE BIG ONE. A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME role. Now, Millar is probably the biggest self-promoter in comics…but holy s#*%. Pretty brash. Biggest star of the next decade is obviously an impossibly high bar, but after reading Prodigy #1, I can kind of understand why Millar is drawing those comparisons.

With these new Netflix books, Millar has been aiming higher than ever before. If the Magic Order, the first of the titles, is supposed to be the new Harry Potter, Prodigy aims to be the new James Bond. Main protagonist, Edison Crane, takes Sherlock's mind, Bond's street savvy, Indy's sense of adventure and combines them into a single character. This is a book that takes the photographic memory trope and pushes it to an extreme I haven’t seen before. Edison is outrageously good at everything. He’s a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, an Olympic athlete, an accomplished diplomat, a successful business owner, a…you get the picture. And this first issue deftly shows several occasions where he uses his skills. It’s overkill, sure, but that’s kind of the point.

Edison is a guy who can do literally anything…so why does he feel empty? That’s the conflict at the heart of this title. Edison has nothing to prove to anyone, so why does he continually feel the need to prove things to himself? These will be the central questions of the series and really the main focus of the book. Will Edison go on globetrotting adventures? Yes. Will he liaison with the government about possible alien invasions? Of course. But that’s not really what this book is about. Millar is disguising an exploration of the emptiness of the human condition as a high-flying action comic. Frankly, I’m into it.

This first issue is mostly a scene setter. We know what Edison is capable of accomplishing, and we know what keeps him up at night. What we don’t know is the specific direction this series is going to go next. The premise offers an unlimited amount of storytelling opportunities, and while this could cause a lack of focus in many stories, for Prodigy it’s a strength. With a flawed character at its center, Prodigy can take the reader anywhere in the world and keep us invested in Edison’s journey as a person. This is the same reason we come back to characters like Bond and Sherlock over and over again.     

The other major draw of these new Millar books is the unparalleled art. Olivier Coipel set the tone with the ridiculously gorgeous Magic Order, and Rafael Albuquerque ensures Prodigy maintains that high quality. This is blockbuster comic making, pure and simple.      

Overall: Prodigy is another wildly ambitious book from Mark Millar. While all the action and intrigue are well executed, the book’s main draw of is the emptiness of main character Edison Crane. I can’t wait to see where this goes. 9.0/10

Prodigy #1
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colorist: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Peter Doherty
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

Bo grinds for the man by day so he can create comics by night. He is the lesser half of the Stewart Brothers writing team and can be found on Twitter and Instagram @stewart_bros