Mystic Arcana: Black Knight #1 - Marvel (2007)

My first thought on reading the credits for this issue was, "Holy crap! Roy Thomas wrote this!". Yeah, the Defenders and What If? Roy Thomas. This is a good story well told. It features Sir Percy of Scandia who was one of Dane Whitman's predecessors as the Black Knight. It's a tale of bravery, honor, duty and kickass swordfights. It's the old "With Great Power" schtick and it works, mate.

This is the second of four tales of magic in the Marvel Universe. The first featured Illyana Rasputin, number three will be about the Scarlet Witch and the last one will star Sister Grimm from Runaways. There's an overarching storyline featuring Ian McNee who is trying to collect four Items of Power^TM in order to save the Essence of Magic itself. I like McNee and his mini adventures are a lot of fun to read.

Thomas is at the top of his game, here. All the characters are cool and the story they get to play in is top notch. Helping tell that story is the outstanding art by Tom Grummett and Scott Hanna. I could go on and on about the art but I think I'll just let this page speak for itself: