Comic Reviews by Walt

I’m honestly fairly surprised in a way that IDW has not published (that I am aware of) any Magic: The Gathering Classics volumes. They’ve got a Classics line for several other licensed properties, so why not MTG? Granted, the property doesn’t have quite the same quantity of “classic” material as the others, but surely they could get at least a few good volumes out of what’s there.

Given I’ve seen nothing whatsoever regarding any actual volumes, here are the six volumes I’d propose for a series of MTG Classics volumes.

Vol. 1 – The Shadow Mage
Collecting The Shadow Mage 1-4 and Wayfarer 1-5.

This would make for a nice-size 9-issue volume…a bit thicker than your average 6-issue book but not so hefty as a 12-issue collection. This would be–I believe–the complete run of issues featuring Jared Carthalion, and be all the issues that did not focus on a pre-existing MTG card or story.

I put these in the first volume as The Shadow Mage was the first series from Armada, and I’ve just always associated it as starting everything off. I believe Wayfarer picked up the month after, so this is essentially a 9-issue story anyway, which would make for a solid single-volume I think.

Vol. 2 – Ice Age
Collecting Fallen Empires 1-2, Ice Age 1-4, and Nightmare 1.

I’d put Ice Age and Fallen Empires together as they tied together a bit. To go chronologically I’d probably put the FE issues first in the volume–with the origin of a major character that appeared in IA.

I place these here as they were the next series to come out from Armada

I’ve got the Nightmare one-shot here mostly for lack of good placement elsewhere. This issue was a bit on the early side of the Armada run, and would seem to me out of place to be grouped with the various Legends issues.

Additionally, it being extra-sized helps fill out the pagecount for the volume as it’s otherwise almost two issues smaller than the first.

Vol. 3 – The Brothers’ War
Collecting Antiquities War 1-4 and Urza/Mishra War 1-2.

While it would have been great to have the full intended “trilogy” of series that would have been the “entirety” of the story of the Brothers’ War, it just makes sense to me to put these two minis together. While technically only six issues, the Urza-Mishra War issues were extra-sized, filling this out to approximately an 8-issue size.

Even if this wouldn’t quite reach 8 issues, it’d be very similar in size to the previous volume, and could always be filled out a bit with a selection from the The Brothers’ War prose novel.

There’s also (as with previous volumes) the Seer Analysis and such “backmatter” that would fill things out a bit.

Vol. 4 – Legends I
Collecting Arabian Nights 1-2, Shandalar 1-2, Homelands, and Fallen Angel plus material from Convocations.

This volume and the next are sort of catch-alls for the rest of the Armada stuff.

Arabian Nights and Homelands fit together as they’re short stories based at least in part on actual MTG expansion sets. Though Shandalar was based on a story from a computer game, in its own way that could be seen as another expansion.

Since that would still leave the volume a bit short, I’d go ahead and put Fallen Angel here, to begin the series of Legends-focused issues. The volume could be rounded out with a few pages from the Convocations “gallery” issue.

Vol. 5 – Legends II
Collecting Elder Dragons 1-2, Dakkon Blackblade, Jedit Ojanen 1-2, and Serra Angel plus material from Convocations.

This volume would finish out the run of Armada MTG issues with the rest of the Legends-based specials. Considering the prestige-format issues to be roughly double-sized, this would be about 8 issues, and the Convocations pages not included in vol. 4 would up the pagecount a bit for the volume.

Just as I associate Shadow Mage as kicking off the Armada line, I associate these with the end of the line–as of this typing I actually don’t even yet own the Jedit Ojanen issues, just acquired Serra Angel and only found the Elder Dragons issues a couple years ago–at least a decade after the issues first saw print.

Vol. 6 – Gerrard’s Quest
Collecting the Dark Horse mini-series 1-4.

This would obviously be the smallest of the volumes with only 4 issues–moving from the Armada comics to the 4-issue mini produced by Dark Horse Comics. This would basically be a reprint of the Gerrard’s Quest TPB with a new cover.

I know Wizards of the Coast has produced plenty of their own MTG material, and there are at least a couple graphic novels out from them. I don’t know that any of that would fit well here, and as those are relatively recent, they wouldn’t really fall into the realm of “classics” the way all these others do.

I’d expect these volumes to be at least $19.99 cover price…though that could feel a bit rough as Shadow Mage and Ice Age in particular seem to be pretty common bargain-bin issues. It’s the later issues that had smaller print runs and grew quite rare. As such, it would seem a bit on the expensive side for the content; but then in turn, the prestige-format issues were $6 or so apiece, and I don’t think I’ve seen any of those in bargain bins, so it would all balance out.

The sixth volume would seem to me ripe to be priced at $14.99 or so if not bargain-price it to $9.99, as with only four issues it’d be about half the size of the previous volumes.

So there you have it–the contents and collections I’d imagine as ideal for production by IDW, assuming they thought the sales warranted (of course, they probably don’t). Heck, these could even be shrink-wrapped with reprints of key cards from the time of the comics, with the old art. Whether playable or not, I don’t know.

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Acclaim, Antiquities War, Arabian Nights, Armada, Convocations, Dakkon Blackblade, elder dragons, Fallen Angel, Fallen Empires, Gerrard's Quest, Homelands, Ice Age, IDW, Jedit Ojanen, Magic, magic: the gathering, Nightmare, Serra Angel, Shadow Mage, Shandalar, The Gathering, Urza Mishra War, Wayfarer | Leave a comment »