THE MAGIC ORDER 5 #4 (OF 6)
DARK HORSE COMICS/Netflix
STORY: Mark Millar
ART: Matteo Buffagni
COLORS: Giovanna Niro with Laura Ciondolini
LETTERS: Clem Robins
EDITOR: Daniel Chabon
EDITORIAL: Sarah Unwin
COVER: Matteo Buffagni with Giovanna Niro
VARIANT COVER ARTIST: Matteo Buffagni
32pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (January 2025)
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 and its leader, Cordelia Moonstone – 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 finds Cordelia preparing for her death – the punishment for using black magic (back in Volume 1). However, a new case has dropped itself in front of her, but it all may be a front for some really bad people trying to collect the price on Cordelia's head. Cordelia Moonstone is going to die soon... and there's nothing she can do about it. The end is coming in a matter of days.
The Magic Order 5 #4 opens on a lonely, rural Texas road in 1978. This is the story of how Clyde Bailey ended up with three demons inside him. He eventually tamed the demons and tried to make up for the wrong he did because they controlled him. Now, doing good means saving Cordelia. But there are so many magical denizens after her – from “Skin-Walker Sam” the magical hit-man to the magical world's most attractive bounty hunter, who has been sent by Sister Moon.
Meanwhile, after kidnapping and killing boys for years, Grandmaster Samuel Mott and his splinter group, “the Fellowship of the Bell,” believe that they have finally found the boy with the “bell” inside his small body. It is the bell that will summon the Fellowship's ancient gods.
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 #4.
It is possible for each issue of The Magic Order 5 to be crazier than the previous issue, and I know that because issue #4 is nuttier than issue #3. And that's a good thing. However, The Magic Order has always been slickly produced, no matter how dark the narrative became, but now, the darkness seems paramount to drama, which scares me as much as it attracts me.
Millar certainly benefits from an artist who uses his favorite drawing implements to transform his scripts into glorious graphical storytelling (comic book storytelling). Line by line, artist Matteo Buffagni creates a world of such fearsome darkness, treacherous magic, and magical treachery that mesmerizes the reader. In the end, Buffagni makes The Magic Order 5 one of the best comic book series about magic ever published in North America.
The glorious hues of Giovanna Niro are a symphony of colors of light that accentuate the spellbinding aura of this narrative. Finally, there is Clem Robins – reliable Clem Robins, and his lettering is the soundtrack of this deadly game of thrones and bones.
The Magic Order 5 is plotting something mind-bending; that I know, dear readers. Don't miss the twenty-first century's best American comic book about wizards and sorcerers. It's a shame that this is supposedly the final entry in the series.
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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