Comic Reviews by Walt

Writer: D.G. Chichester
Artist: Rebecca Guay
Letters: Kenny Martinez
Asst. Editor: Jeofrey Vita
Editor: Jeffrey Artemis-Gomez
Cover Painting: Tim & Greg Hildebrandt
Published by: Armada/Acclaim Comics
Cover Price: $5.95
Cover Date: February, 1996

It’s been a lot of years since I’ve read this. I have a number of memories associated with the Homelands expansion of Magic: The Gathering (the card game itself). For one thing, it was the first (and to date, only) expansion set I ever got a full box of–my parents bought me a box for Christmas that year. In addition to the awesomeness of seeing more story in the cards–finding out the character of Serra herself (already being familiar with her Angels) as well as Baron Sengir (whose Sengir Vampire was always creepy-looking), to the various analogues and soft reprints of other cards–there was this comic, getting the actual story of a set all in one place at one time.

If I remember correctly, the issue came polybagged with one of several “rare” cards…unless misremembering, I got a Baron Sengir this way.

The story itself is huge in scope–spanning centuries, definitely not your “street-level” kind of story, but one from the point of view of near-immortality. While it’s an interesting approach, too much time passes too quickly in such a short span to really get to know any characters in any organic sense–we get “told” more than we’re “shown.”

While very highly-compressed (if this were a Marvel property it would probably be spread across at least 12 issues) I do appreciate the overview or “survey” of the world and its cultures, and seeing the impact of Feroz and Serra upon the place.

Flipping through, it looks like a quick read, but the actual reading took a lot longer than I would have expected…part of the “compression,” I guess.

Prior to recognizing her name, I recognized Rebecca Guay‘s art with the Serra Angel special while trying to find a copy of it last month without spending $50+. I’d recognized the art without knowing quite why–connecting it to this issue cleared that right up. The visual style is a bit impressionistic, sort of surreal and maybe slightly abstract…but it works for this story.

This is specifically the story of Homelands–but it’s also the stuff of legend, as one has to have already passed through a huge span of time to talk about it, so while we see the story unfold, this could be a story being told to someone well after the fact–a legend of the world’s history told to a child, perhaps.

As part of the Armada MTG universe, we get a cameo of Taysir–whether this is early Taysir or not, I’m not entirely sure–but it roots that character in the “canon” of Magic: The Gathering, not just some character created in a licensed comic but an actual part of the official story.

Also as part of the Armada line, we have the usual “backmatter” that is very much a part of all of the Armada MTG comics. We have a 2-page article from one of the creators of the Homelands expansion, talking about what went into the making of the set itself. Then we get a specific timeline of the history of the world, from the beginning of the story to the present, further contextualizing everything that was just read about and putting things into more solid terms. There are another couple pages on the history of Dominaria, and then a couple pages about Taysir. Set creators each share their favorite cards from the set, and we get a several-page overview of the set’s themes, by color after that. Finally we get the typical Seer Analysis that looks at some of the specific cards referenced in the story and how they were adapted.

I really like the Hildebrandts‘ cover…it’s very fantasy-esque, though also very highly colorful, making it stand out quite a bit to me.

In my experience, this issue/volume seems to be the most common of the prestige-format issues Armada released…I’ve come across this several times through the years in bargain bins, where I have not the other Armada prestige issues.

While this carried a $6 cover price back in the 1990s, by contemporary standards this is well worth that price. The story is a good length, and the back-matter (if of interest to you) lends a lot of extra time to spend on reading beyond just the comic itself. This also serves as a sort of “guide” to Homelands, and I see it as the precursor to the MTG novels that would later be released along with each card set, doing the same thing this did: tell the canon story of the set including incorporating the various characters and cards into the story, the ongoing continuity of the game, providing a richer context for those who wanted to delve deeper than just the flavor text on the cards themselves.

While Homelands never proved to be a particularly key set and never seemed to me to be all that popular…in terms of MTG comics, this is–for me–probably one of the most significant ones, and definitely my favorite of all the covers.

Other Revisiting Magic: The Gathering posts:

• Magic: The Gathering – The Shadow Mage
• Ice Age on the World of Magic: The Gathering
• Fallen Empires on the World of Magic: The Gathering
• Arabian Nights on the World of Magic: The Gathering
• Nightmare
• Antiquities War on the World of Magic: The Gathering
• Urza-Mishra War on the World of Magic: The Gathering
• Elder Dragons: A Magic: The Gathering Legend

Filed under: The '90s Revisited | Tagged: Acclaim, Armada, Baron Sengir, D.G. Chichester, Feroz, Homelands, Jeffrey Artemis-Gomez, Jeofrey Vita, Kenny Martinez, Magic, magic: the gathering, Rebecca Guay, Serra, Taysir, Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, wizards of the coast | 2 Comments »