Review: MIND MGMT Vol. 4- The Magician

Quick Summary

Pros: The positives from previous volumes can be seen throughout this volume. The story escalates in a way that builds a lot of good suspense. The volume’s conclusion sets things up perfectly for the future. The artwork is becoming even more creative and unique.

Cons: The artwork is still lackluster in some places.

Overall: This is a fantastic comic and is easily one of the better volumes in this series. It combines creative storytelling tactics with well-written narrative to produce a book that is both thrilling and captivating. It also concludes in a way that generates even more excitement for the future of this series and ensures that the MIND MGMT series will only get better. Anyone who has enjoyed the series thus far should enjoy this volume.

Story

MIND MGMT Vol. 4: The Magician, by Matt Kindt, highlights some of the best aspects of the MIND MGMT series and uses them to push the narrative forward into the next stage. Readers can expect to go into this volume and find the same creative mental powers and compelling story that has been seen throughout the majority of this series thus far. However, they can also expect to see an escalation in conflict and storytelling, leading to a reading experience that feels more thrilling than it ever has. This makes for a great volume that builds even more excitement for the future.

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Part of what makes The Magician so entertaining is the way in which it continues the best elements of the series thus far. This includes the introduction of creative mental powers, a unique focus on the role Mind Management plays in world politics, and a captivating story about Maru’s present situation. Essentially, this volume delivers what fans have come to expect and enjoy from the MIND MGMT series.

However, The Magician doesn’t just stop at meeting fan expectations, it exceeds them. Here, Matt Kindt propels the story forward by escalating the conflict between Lyme and the Eraser. Both parties are forced to face off against a variety of physical and mental threats. All of this nudges the conflict from minor skirmishes to what is beginning to feel like an all-out war.

This particular volume also benefits from the amount of suspense and apprehension generated through the story. At nearly every point in this book, it feels as if Maru and company are on the losing side of things. They fail to recruit new agents, members of the team are captured by the Eraser, and other members of the team end up dead. These dark happenings make for a very tense reading experience. Readers are constantly on the lookout for what will go wrong next and are constantly wondering how the heroes will possibly survive their current predicament. In many ways, this volume succeeds in continuing its own story but also succeeds in reading like a well-written thriller.

By concluding this collection in such a grim fashion, Matt Kindt also provides a wonderful starting point for the next volume. With the majority of the characters at what appears to be rock bottom, it appears as if the action here is about to become more interesting than ever before. The end of The Magician left me more excited than ever to read more from the MIND MGMT series.

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Art

The Magician sees artist Matt Kindt continue to explore avenues of comic book artwork. Like the previous volume, splash pages are great here and help highlight a feeling or emotion that previous pages had been building up to. In addition, this volume features a number of great layouts that help enhance the storytelling. This can be seen in chapter nineteen, where each page is laid out in a way that allows three separate stories to happen at once or in chapter twenty three, which takes a unique visual approach to demonstrating the Eraser’s powers. Overall, the visuals in this series continue to improve, even if they don’t look fantastic as of yet.

Continuity

MIND MGMT Vol. 4: The Magician continues the story from MIND MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker (Review).

The story here continues in MIND MGMT Vol. 5: The Eraser (Review).