Fuel for the Fire

Writer - Doug Beyer

Story - Doug Beyer and Jeremy Jarvis

Illustrators - Christopher Mueller, Andrew Robinson & Lucio Parrillo

Letterers - Brian Dumas

Art Director - Jeremy Jarvis

Based on characters by Brady Dommermuth and Aleksi Briclot

Released November 2008

SUMMARY

You can find it here 

Part one is a retelling of Chandra's Ultimate, the first webcomic released during Lorwyn block, but with a new page at the start and at the end. It still just covers Chandra running away from the cops after having stolen a scroll, but now ends with police finding a planeswalker symbol made of ash that tells them she is still alive.

Part two has them hiring Jace via the Consortium (more on them in a future review) to chase Chandra down. He does. They fight. Part three: They fight some more. In the end Jace takes the scroll and Chandra's memories of it. But we see she's made copies.

REVIEW

Not much to this one, just a chase scene we've seen already and a big fight. There's some neat turns in there, Jace makes good use of his illusions, but as a story it doesn't have much substance. It's just here as a tie-in to the Jace vs. Chandra duel deck, and to introduce the scroll that will become important later on. At this point all we hear about it is Chandra saying "this is not just any fire spell ... it's quite the trick, let me tell you" though, so this comic could've just been left as a one-off story with no greater importance than giving Chandra a new spell. It'll be become much more than that though.

The art is great overall, except for Chandra's young friend Brannon, who looks really weird in some places, more like a troll doll than a kid. There is also a bit of a clash in art styles. Andrew Robinson is more cartoony than Christopher Mueller, but still close enough that parts 1 and 2 fit together quite well, but Lucio Parrillo's work is a bit of a departure. Still good on it's own though.

 

I have no idea how old this kid is supposed to be.

CONTINUITY

I'm going to talk a bit about where the scroll storyline is going to go, so if you don't know yet, maybe skip this for now. The only thing after this is the timeline stuff, and... you know what, let's do that first, then I'll come back to the spoilery stuff.

TIMELINE

The battle in this comic is retold in the novel The Purifying Fire, which the Visual Guide puts in 4556 AR, so that's where this will also go. Previously when we've had comic versions of bits of a novel I've not bothered putting those on the timeline, but in this case the comic has slightly more information than the novel (which leaves out the first half of the story, instead starting with Jace initiating the battle.)

At various places on the MTG Wiki you'll find it mentioned that this battle happened during Jace's first year with the Consortium, which would move it back three years. This seems to be based on the fact that in the novel Agents of Artifice Jace makes two off-world trips on Consortium business during that year, and the assumption that one of those must be him tracking down Chandra. Which would be true if we had proof Jace only left Ravnica five times during his time with the Consortium (the other three trips are shown, so one of those early two would have to be this mission), but I've been searching through AoA and I can't find any mention of him having been off-world a specific amount of times. Which means this outing could simply be a later job that just wasn't mentioned in AoA. That would also make more sense, as in the next webcomics, which definitely take place after AoA, Jace is still dealing with the scroll, so it seems like they happen reasonably close to this one. To have him suddenly return to a job he did three years earlier is kinda weird.

If anyone can find a reference about Jace only having made five off-world trips during his time with the Consortium, do let me know. It will only mean that the timeline placement of this comic has been ret-conned at some point though. Sticking with the 4556 AR option makes more sense and is corroborated in our new official timeline from the Visual Guide.

CONTINUITY, FOR REAL THIS TIME

Okay, so: the scroll will turn out to contain both the Ghostfire spell and a map to the Eye of Ugin on Zendikar. Jace and Chandra will continue to research it, which will eventually lead them both to the Eye, where Bolas has stationed Sarkhan Vol. The presence of three planeswalkers and the casting of Ghostfire combined turns out to be the key to releasing the Eldrazi. So the scroll introduced here will eventually lead to a massively important event. Yet after that it kinda gets forgotten.

The Zendikar block novel will make the odd choice of shuffling Chandra, Jace, Sarkhan and Bolas from the stage and focusses entirely on Nissa and Sorin. Then the Eldrazi themselves will be put in the freezer for a few years, and when we return to them in Battle for Zendikar Bolas's involvement will not be expanded upon. Only in the War of the Spark artbook will we get the explanation that he freed the Eldrazi to lure a whole bunch of planeswalkers to Zendikar for his Elderspell. War of the Spark was his plan B after the Gatewatch shut down the Eldrazi before enough 'walkers would show up.

In between all this, the only time the scroll will be brought back up is in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014, where it was revealed Chandra was manipulated (by "messing with my mind", in her words) into stealing the thing by Ramaz, a planeswalker working for Bolas. The story there is very sleight though, so we don't really delve into the backstory further.

Compared to the Chain Veil plot I complained about last time this at least has a resolution, though pausing the story for four years and then leaving the crucial explanation about Bolas another five years after that doesn't get any points for elegance. I'm glad they gave us some kind of resolution though, rather than just scrapping the plot.

Knowing all that is coming up does leave me with a few questions though. How did the scroll end up in the Sanctum of Stars, which will eventually be revealed to just be a museum? The prelate that hires Jace says "If it's not recovered many could die", but how much does she know? Just that it's a powerful fire spell, or more than that? And why did Jace keep researching the scroll rather than just returning it to the prelate and getting his payment? Well, the Consortium was founded by Bolas, who was trying to get it back from Tezzeret at the time, so assuming he's still got some insiders in the organization there is ample opportunity for him to push Jace into that direction, but nothing was ever made explicit.

Clearly some things got lost in the shuffle between the point where the ongoing plotlines were put on hold and the Gatewatch era picking them up again, and the cynics among us may wonder if there was ever an overarching plan to begin with. Let's keep our eyes open for both dropped plotlines and possible explanations in upcoming reviews.

Oh, and what was on the three others scrolls that sat in the same display case?