Marvel Comics (home of Spider-Man) has announced a limited series to revive its stable of magic-based characters. Leading up this effort will be David Sexton, creator of the “Winged Spirit Tarot”, and the “Tarot of Oz”. Unsurprisingly, the series will have a tarot-based theme.

“The series is called Mystic Arcana because the characters all have “mystic and arcane” pedigrees, but also because the Minor Arcana of the Tarot will serve as a unifying “element” to the stories. And we are all working hard to, through this series establish the status quo and ground rules for Magic in the Marvel Universe…The four books will connect to the four suits of the Tarot’s Minor Arcana, which in turn correspond the four classic Elements; Air, Earth, Water and Fire.”

Sister Grimm (wands), Scarlet Witch (cups)
The Black Knight (pentacles), Magick (swords)

“Tarot cards are symbols of important kinds of people (like an Empress or a Magician) and important ideas (like “Everything changes” and “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”) The person who wants to learn something draws a predetermined number of random cards from the Tarot Deck. Then the Tarot card reader puts the people and ideas (on the cards) into special patterns called folds. The way the cards end up fitting into the pattern or fold tells a story to the card reader about the person who drew the cards.”

Sexton isn’t the first tarot expert to foray into comic books, Rachel Pollack (author of the classic tarot text “78 Degrees of Wisdom”) wrote several comics for DC, including “Doom Patrol” and “Brother Power the Geek”. Other comic-tarot connections include artist Dave McKean (“Sandman”, “Cages”), who has illustrated two tarot decks.

The series will debut in June at your local comic shop.

Tags: Comics, David Sexton, Marvel Comics, Tarot