The Hunter and the Veil

 

Writers - Doug Beyer & Jenna Helland

Story - Doug Beyer, Jenna Helland & Brady Dommermuth

Illustrators - Jason Shawn Alexander, Paul Lee & Alex Horley-Orlandelli

Letterers - Jen Page & Kevin Smith

Art Director - Jeremy Jarvis

Based on characters by Brady Dommermuth and Aleksi Briclot

Released between July 30 and August 13 2008

SUMMARY

The comic can be found here.

If you do want a summary though: Kotophed has sent Liliana to go get the Chain Veil. On her way there she is attacked by beasts, which she kills. Garruk finds the corpses and goes after her. They fight, but Liliana grabs the Veil, puts a curse on Garruk and leaves.

SUMMARY

And so begins one of the longest running storylines, which will eventually end in perhaps one of the biggest let downs, in Magic's history. The various webcomics dealing with Garruk and Liliana were intended to run into the novel The Curse of the Chain Veil. When that book was cancelled the plot lingered for years, sometimes seemingly forgotten, sometimes brought back up, with every new revelation layering more complexity upon it... only for it to peter out in War of the Spark: the Forsaken and Throne of Eldraine: the Wildered Quest. 11 years waiting for nothing. What a way to kick off this bold new era!

Unless it's not over yet?

If I try to put that aside and judge the comic on it's own merit... it's fine. Part one is just Garruk fighting a random monster (which looks pretty cool, they should bring the Ursoth into the cardgame at some point), the next two are mostly just a big fight scene, though references to Kotophed and the narration from the, as yet unnamed, Onakke in the last part show that there is more going on than that. The art is very good, halfway between comic book style and Magic's house style. I especially like part one though, which does some cool things with the coloring and the sound effects. The characterization is also pretty good. Liliana spouting innuendos and Garruk being far too dour and serious for them is a fun dynamic.

All in all a good introduction to these characters and their storyline. Shame it didn't lead to something more sooner.

TRIVIA, CONTINUITY & TIMELINE

• Garruk mentions having hunted wurms in the Turntimber, over a year before Zendikar would be released. Garruk having been to that plane will actually become relevant a few comics down the line!
• The beasts Garruk summons and Liliana kills are clearly based on the Lorwyn Beast token.
• Kothoped's font can be a bit hard to read, though I'm not as down on it as UGMadess was back in the day.

We would have to wait a year for the next Garruk/Liliana comic, which picks up directly after this one ends. We'll see that one has to happen between Shards of Alara and Zendikar, so that's where we'll place this one as well. 

I'll save the discussion of how the hints we're drip fed here line up with the eventual revelations we'll get about Nicol Bolas's involvement until we've covered all the Liliana comics. Better to cover it all at the point Curse of the Chain Veil was supposed to come out than to chop it up over a bunch of small posts.