Review: ‘The Magic Order 2’ #4 Conjures Up Big Action And Big Personalities In Another Blockbuster Issue

They say you should never bring a knife to a gun fight, but it’s equally true that you should never bring. Junkie to any fight. Let alone one involving magic. The results, picking up the frantic, chaotic action immediately where the last issue left off, is the death of Harun enough disarray for the bad guys to take off. Especially as the Magic Order end up fighting amongst themselves. Talk about dramatic beginnings. This is a blazing, blockbuster sized scene smashing through London and leaving the kind of damage you’d expect from a Roland Emmerich movie. But then, Mark Millar has always gone large. And this is very large. Widescreen large!

But, it’s not all disaster-movie level action. Although even the mundane tasks of administration ends up in fisticuffs. Knowing that Cockney magician Kevin Mitchell is inspired in his design and character by Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday, I can’t help but here his growling voice whenever Kev piped up, and he does a lot of piping up in this issue. It’s also an issue in which our Kev features heavily. Which is fine by me as one of the more interesting members of the Magic Order. From smoking in the shower to his sharp white wardrobe, he reeks of the excesses of the eighties; a mixture of decadence and danger. The whole series is all the better for his inclusion. And, he certainly dominates any scene he finds himself in, often setting the tone with his very presence. 

Stuart Immonen continues to weave his own style of magic over proceedings with his masterful eye for composition, whether it’s a hard-hitting, high-octane action sequence or a more dialogue heavy scene, he infuses every scene with engagement. There isn’t a single page that doesn’t draw you in. Sunny Gho and David Curiel add their own sparkle over it all too with a colours that contrast the magic with the mundane. Magic is conveyed in brighter, shocking bursts of colour while London and other environments depicted remain drab and dark in comparison. And, because there is so much magic in this issue, there’s a great deal of lighter moments. And when this moments of magic are more violent and more threatening they are balanced out by Immonen’s use of shadows. All-in-all The Magic Order 2 #4 is another banging issue and out now from Image Comics.