The Magic Order, Vol. 2

The Magic Order #2

by Mark Millar, Stuart Immonen (illustrator)

The sequel to the smash-hit first volume by Mark Millar and Olivier Coipel is drawn by the peerless Stuart Immonen (Empress, Star Wars, New Avengers).

This time the story moves to England and the London chapter of The Magic Order, tough Guy Ritchie-style gangsters who have a problem with some Eastern European Warlocks moving into their territory in a magical turf war like you’ve never seen before. Can Cordelia Moonstone, the new leader of the group, keep the peace?

Collects THE MAGIC ORDER 2 #1-6

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Comic Book, Magic, Horror

184 pages, Paperback

First published May 25, 2022

About the author

Mark Millar is the New York Times best-selling writer of Wanted, the Kick-Ass series, The Secret Service, Jupiter’s Legacy, Jupiter’s Circle, Nemesis, Superior, Super Crooks, American Jesus, MPH, Starlight, and Chrononauts. Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, and The Secret Service (as Kingsman: The Secret Service) have been adapted into feature films, and Nemesis, Superior, Starlight, War Heroes, Jupiter’s Legacy and Chrononauts are in development at major studios.

His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.

Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(B+) 77% | Good
Notes: Too low intrigue, too Justice League (too big, too little focus), too kaiju-smash, too balderdash, too deus-ex hocus pocus.

*Progress updates: Preamble ◦ Issues #1-3 ◦ Issues #4-6

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it will make a better tv series than it does a comic.
It's fine but kind of generic. I mean, it really does feel like he's just made this so it can be part of his Netflix stuff and he's perhaps ticking off boxes instead of getting creative in the comic genre.



However, there's really also nothing glaringly bad about this volume. And part of my problem may be that I've forgotten everything that happened in the first volume. And I'm sorry, but I'm just simply not invested enough in this series to go back and do a re-read.
Pfft.



The gist is that the bad magicians are out to kill off the good ones from The Order. There's some kind of ancient beef that plays into the plot, but I think that might be getting too spoilery.
Anyway. It's not terrible so I may read more now that the 3rd volume is on Hoopla.
We'll see.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark Millar likes himself a nice deus ex machina, and because sequels need to go BIGGER, this time it's dei ex machina all the effing way down.

It doesn't make the story any less dull, it's basically a rehashing of volume the first, but BIGGER. Don't expect any surprises. Do expect most characters you sort of got to meet in vol 1 to get sidelined, and a batch of new underdeveloped characters to be added.

Oh and now the characters think to use the whatsitsname club's time travel abilities to solve their problems, and not in vol 1 where it would collapse its whole plot in on itself instantly.

I don't know how Millar does it, six issues and everything still feels rushed. With a smug, unexplained ending to see us out.

This only isn't one star because the art is still great.

[A.J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just don’t like this series, which is weird because unlike most people, I don’t usually have a problem with Mark Millar or any of his work, but nothing about this jives with me.

It just feels like Jupiter’s Legacy with magic instead of superpowers. Stuart Immonen’s art is fantastic, but I can’t really say anything else in here is. Don’t even feel like writing a full review for this, it’s just so damn mid, like the last volume. Blegh, maybe I'll come back to this and enjoy it more a couple of years from now, but I honestly just think this franchise fucking sucks.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another great one!

We pick up with Cordelia leading the new order and well new challenges for her when a new enemy Victor Korne emerges and we see how his family/ancestors ruled the world until they were taken down by ancestors of Cordelia and thus with new artifacts and all and an army, he wants to take over the world and his rightful position as it belonged to his family a millenium ago and with the monster Othoul'endu and others from legend can he do so? will Cordelia be able to stop him and save the world? Plus whats Francis ties to all this.. Plus so many losses and a new status quo!

This was so good omg I love it, its magic stories at its best, it truly is epic as we get to see Cordelia meet with such a fun challenge ad I love the story of Francis and the whole addiction story with him and the help he gets in the end is awesome and really the villain here is so well done plus Cordelia getting the big heroic moment and yeah its deus-ex-machina but its magic so its perfect here, plus the story of "family" of TMO is so cool, its wizards and sorcery stories at its peak and Millar knocks it out of the park again! A must read!!

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second time around loses steam as the main plot just repeats from the first volume as another disgruntled faction of wizards tries to destroy the central members of the the Magic Order in order to take control of the organization. Internecine secret society squabbling gets old fast. With all the new characters that have to be introduced and action set pieces they're allotted to prove how bad they are, there's any hardly any space left for the main characters to become more fully developed. Plus, there's Lovecraftian stuff this time around, which I'm not a fan of, and Millar goes to the well one time too many for Cordelia's amazing, unexplained escape abilities.

And yet I still enjoyed it overall and am happy to see a third comic book series is beginning right now.

[Frédéric · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

Epic magic and good tension management up to the final unexplained (hey, it’s magic, babe) deus-ex-machina that kinda let me down.

Bumped up because of the always amazing Stuart Immonen. Now, that guy IS magic, babe.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's no surprise that Mark Millar follows the typical sequel path of "bigger, faster, louder" for this second Magic Order run. I was fairly enchanted with the first Magic Order book, but Millar's skillful weaving of world-building, character, and big explosions falls apart as infodumps replace subtlety and humongous explosions replace big explosions.

It's also dreadfully predictable, basically replicating the plot of the first book. Now that Cordelia Moonstone is in charge of the Magic Order, a new villain has arisen to unseat her from her throne. Again? you ask. Yes, of course, again. The stock Eastern European thug villain offers zero nuance and a bland backstory. The world of the Magic Order grows slightly and intermittently intriguingly, but we're still forced to start caring about new arrivals like addict Francis or some dude named Harun.

It's just not great storytelling. But it's still Mark Millar, so it's all breathlessly paced and brilliantly illustrated. You can't not have fun. If you want quality reading, stick with the first volume. If you want a sugar rush, read on to this second volume.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Individual issue reviews: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6

Total review score: 2.83

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun and fast read with some quickly-developed morally grey characters and a few nice surprising twists. Clear, well-framed and impressive artwork and lettering. I look forward to future sagas with this crew.

[Michael J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remembered very little about Volume One of MAGIC ORDER except that I enjoyed it, especially the wow-worthy art of Olivier Coipel. Mark Millar always seems to pair up with great artists, and this time Stuart Immonen illustrates his dark fantasy and does a great job. Not remembering Volume One helped me to appreciate Volume Two since it seemed like more of the same but appeared fresh. I went back and read my review of Volume One just to verify that.
The storyline isn’t that different. But that’s signature Millar - - he’s adept at taking familiar themes and putting his personal stamp on them. There are just a bunch of new characters and a new setting for the action.
In Volume One, a secret order (several generations of select families) protect Earth from various threats through the use of magical abilities and spells. Their lifelong mission is to keep dangerous spell books and artifacts from getting into the wrong hands and potentially causing the end of the world.
This time, the London chapter led by returning character Cordelia (the escapist, and my favorite) leads the charge against the threat posed by an Eastern European family of magicians/warlocks/wizards who are descendants from a powerful ancient wizard, have been suppressed for centuries, and want their time to shine again as they steal artifacts from the Magic Order and use them to resurrect a Lovecraftian behemoth. There are several side stories that help flesh out the new characters, the most interesting being Francis, a drug addict who is battling his own inner demons.
The action scenes are high-powered and feature plenty of that gratuitous violence that marks so many of Millar’s stories.
Despite the familiarity, this is fast-paced entertainment that I thoroughly enjoyed and will come back again. I read this in the original single monthly issues from 2021-2022. I rate this THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS and wish that Goodreads finds a way to include fractions.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depois do primeiro volume de A Ordem Mágica, em que Mark Millar faz uma parceria com o francês Olivier Coipel e que considerei um dos melhores trabalhos do escocês dentro do Millarworld, achei que o segundo volume viria com menos força. Sim, ele até veio mesmo, mas longe da ruindade que vinham sendo os outros trabalhos de Mark Millar dentro do seu universo de histórias. Surpreendentemente, neste segundo volume de A Ordem Mágica, Mark Millar consegue trazer as suas triviais cenas chocantes e reviralvoltas que são marcas de seu estilo com um ritmo muito mais interesssante do que na maioria dos seus trabalhos. Também parece que aqui ele consegue ser apelativo mas com mais sutileza do que na maioria das vezes, se é que isso é possível. A arte competente de Stuat Immonen entretêm, mas eu ainda preferia que Olivier Coipel tivesse sido mantido como o desenhista da série até que ela acabasse, se acabasse. De toda forma, fica o registro de que o segundo livro de A Ordem Mágica pode ser tão bom quanto o primeiro.

[Jonno · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is Soren Korne if not a wizard? Why did Victor Korne murder his own son? Why is it that any spells cast with Othoul'Endu's power reverse after Othoul'Endu moves to a different place/time? How did Cordelia escape something that Othoul'Endu couldn't? Why was Rosie's mom imprisoned in a book for trying to get her daughter back, but Francis King was just expelled from the Order for literally murdering someone? Why did Soren Korne's helmet look like Magneto's helmet?

This book made no sense.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less magic-murder-porn that the first. (Yay!) But still all magic-murder-fighting. (Boo!) More depth to some of these characters (Yay!) But there are enough characters that it takes a few issues to figure out what's going on (Boo!). And this is another shallow storyline that looks like it was written just to generate a media deal. (Boo!) Which Millar has of course gotten. (Yay?)

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been way too long since book one and I forgot most of the characters. I didn't feel as strongly about this series this time around.

[Alex Sarll]

As ever these days, Millar is saved by his artist, here Stuart Immonen, who renders the monsters and marvels sufficiently real-yet-strange to carry the story. Which is pretty much Harry Potter by way of a British gangster film, except less original than that sounds. Millar always had a problem with characters' power levels going by fiat, so that the antagonist is unstoppable until they meet their destined nemesis, when they fold instantly - and a power set as loosely defined as magic, with which even less lazy writers can struggle, could only ever exacerbate that. In amongst the usual nastiness for nastiness' sake is an attempt to be shocking by biting the hand that feeds, but a gag about sharing passwords in a property Netflix own still looks pretty weak when set against the last series of Black Mirror. I will grudgingly admit that the time travel bits were smoothly executed.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This feel very much like the magic version of Jupiter’s Legacy. This volume dealt with a rival magic clan wishing to restore magic supremacy in the world and rule over it with darkness. This was missing the heartfelt close family aspect for most of this story but dealt a bit with some generational family issues and ended in a satisfying manner.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 still liked it and will keep reading, but it was a whole lot of build up to not much finale. This also felt less character-driven than the first go around.

[Hosein · Rating 2 out of 5]

اصلا به خوبی یک نبود، دراپ کردم. به نظرم ارزششو نداره از جلد یک جلوتر برین

[Angelina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the plot twists in these graphic novels!

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The problem with reading things as digital floppies is that well sometimes I forget things. So the beginning is a little fuzzy, as well as some of the character's names, but...

Go read this. Yes, it plays with the trope of magicians keeping most of humanity in the dark from the big bad things that go bump (I mean Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, The Magicians television show all do this in one form or another).

What Millar does in these novellas (I'm referencing back to both volume 1 and this volume) is quick paced story telling, and some character development. Really, since he seems to have pretty much gotten off of his show and awe story telling binge (i.e. The Authority) I have found his stories that I have read much more enjoyable.

Whereas here the A story line is a sorcerer who has a 1,000 year old family grudge against the order, and the B story line is the development of the Order's new leadership.

[Alican Kunta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second series falls flat next to the first one.
I thought the first one was excellent and a film adaptation would be superb.
This one is so overblown it just feels like meh...

[Adam Rodgers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following on from Vol. 1, Millar applies the sequel formula - bigger scale, bigger stakes, but essentially the same story.

While this is still well handled (channeling The Long Good Friday for the most part) this is an entertaining tale but the 'twists' are largely expected now. With suspense removed the tension of the narrative is somewhat diluted and so results in an average (though still fun) reading experience. Immonen delivers some fantastic visuals, but there needs to be a complete change of storyline rather than just bad wizards vs good ones. More time spent exploring the mythos of this world would be welcome too.

[Poppy Balili · Rating 1 out of 5]

great art. The story is predictable, disappointing end for the villains. And female characters(one!) written by men who have never seen a woman. nope.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Even better than the last. This is my favourite new series. Immonen's art is fantastic. Millar's story-telling is so much fun. It'll make a great show.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book where it's been a long time since I read the first volume, but this did re-introduce most of the main characters well enough that I didn't feel lost. The action is okay, as we have two sides outplaying each other in a race for a series of McGuffins, with double and triple crosses galore. It's overly violent on occasion, but the art works really well throughout. It survives basically on the back of supposition and misinformation provided about one of the key characters, which feels a bit cheap, but at least does set up a pretty action-packed finale. But it's not something that is going to stick with me for a long time. Hopefully, if there's another volume, it'll do as good a job reintroducing the characters as this one did.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a new Mark Millar book, you know you're not going to be emotionally invested in anything. It all a ride through some immature attempts at maturity in a slick, "isn't that cool?" package. And it's always the dumb fluff I need at the moment.

[Gabriel Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too rushed. Poderia ser bem melhor, esse universo é super rico.

[Xroldx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all Millars' current titles I like the Magic Order the most. It's nothing groundbreaking story wise but the characters get more development and some stuff I didn't see coming.

[Sonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to write stories with magic and sorcery and still have them be satisfying to the reader... I don't know how Millar does it, but he does!
I'm sure having a superb illustration team helps.