Stan-u-factured Dross: The Marvel Tarot

Title: The Marvel Tarot
Author: David Sexton
Publisher: Marvel Publishing, Inc.

Review:
Before I begin this review, it's time for Little Connie to make a confession. While I do spend quite a bit of time perusing ancient, crumbling tomes which are redolent of old paper and disintegrating glue, I am also occasionally inspired in my occult pursuits via...comic books. Yes, comic books. Perhaps it is because newly-printed comics smell exactly like brand new decks of tarot cards. Or it may be due to two comic authors: Grant Morrison and Alan Moore.

Both authors write about magic and the occult in innovative and engaging ways. And besides writing the hawtest tantric sex magickian to ever grace the pages of a comic, Morrison has even written his own book on magic: Pop Magick. Moore once wrote an entire comic based on the Tarot: Promethia #12. And back in the day, DC Comics even created the Vertigo Tarot, so that fan boys everywhere could have a Death card with Death from the Sandman on it.

So, I think that I'm on pretty safe ground when I say that comics make up a small, yet significant part of my occult reading. Especially since The Invisibles once decoded a very important dream I once had.

More
So, when I found out that Marvel would be publishing a one-shot comic that focused on the Marvel Tarot, an artifact of that universe that reflects and tracks the archetypes of the Marvel Universe, I was thrilled. Ivan and I even spent an evening attempting to guess who would appear on each card. Would Dr. Strange be The Magician? Would Colossus's sister Illyana be on the Devil card? Would Storm maybe show up on Strength? Ivan had a lot of interesting stuff to say, since he knows quite a a bit more about Marvel's Occult titles than I do.

I live in a town that contains exactly zero comic book stores. So I had to order my copy from King's Comics in Sydney (and they did a exceptional job shipping me my comic – I'll be ordering from them again!) I even had the book delivered to Frank's parents' house so it wouldn't be crammed, folded, and mangled into our tiny mail slot. I awaited delivery with bated breath. And the book finally arrived last Tuesday.

Before I break into a review of the eagerly awaited one shot, let's talk a little bit about David Sexton. He has a MySpace page, where he describes himself as not only a “Author/Artist” but he also adds “/Eccentric.” I have issues with people who self-describe as “eccentric” or “weird.” It makes them look like they are trying too damned hard. He's created two tarot decks in his career: The Winged Spirit Tarot (published by US Card and Games) and The Tarot of Oz (published by Llewellyn).

I own lots of Tarot decks, but not those two. I don't own those two with good reason, though. First, both decks are fairly simplistic, in that each card contains a very basic picture that often doesn't do a lot to convey the meaning of the card. To be as nice as possible about it, the cards lack depth. The Winged Spirit Tarot focuses on angel communications, apparently, and all of the figures in the Major Arcana are winged. All of them. Even ones that symbolically shouldn't be. Also, all of the Major Arcana cards in this deck have a plain grey background upon which the figures restlessly drift. No context, no symbolic clues – just a plain grey background.

The most horrifying card in the deck is Temperance (and you have to work hard to make that card horrifying.) It's an angel with two vessels. However, she's floating on her side in a pose that reminds me disturbingly of the contorted pose of a BDSM sub in full rope suspension. And she's dumping the water from one cup onto her head while catching some of the water that drips off of her drenched noggin with the other cup. And this is supposed to convey the concept of “temperance?” I just won't go into the symbolism inherent in traditional Temperance cards, specifically the symbolism that revolves around the fact that the angel depicted in that card never spills a drop. However, let me just be the first to say: WTF? That's the worst thought-out temperance card I've ever seen. And I own the Londa deck. Caption: Halp! I is pouring wattah in me face! Smblizm pls?

The Tarot of Oz doesn't fair much better, his cleverest innovation being an inclusion of the twister on the Wheel of Fortune card. Be still my symbolic heart.

Mr. Sexton was interviewed about his participation in the development of the Marvel Tarot comic. In this interview, he informs us that he's always liked “myths and comics,” and that he (of course) was introduced to Joseph Campbell in college. I would hereby like to ask all of you out there to make a vow: never again tell anyone you've read Joseph Campbell. Because no one cares if you have. In fact, if you are in any way interested in the Occult or Symbolism of any kind, we all kind of assume that you have and if you haven't, you don't want to admit that omission to anyone else anyway. The same thing goes for Carl Jung. Just shut up about it already, we take it as read that you have.

Sexton goes on to further annoy the piss out of me by using the term “Stan-u-factured” to describe a word that Stan Lee made up. The word in question is Oshtur, the name of one of Marvel's caracters. Ole David gleefully goes on to inform us that the made up – ahem, excuse me Stan-u-factured – word Oshtur sounds like a combination of Ishtar and Ostara....so good old Stan must have tapped into the....Collective Unconscious! I wonder if David Sexton has read Jung? I wonder if someone would come and just shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery?

So anyway, David Sexton made this comic about the Marvel Tarot. (See? And you thought I'd never bring it back home to the topic!) So let's talk about its premise. Ian McNee, Sorcerer, posses the First Tarot, which “reflects and tracks the archetypes of the Marvel Universe.” Something is wrong with magic (oh noes!) and McNee is on the case, hoping that this mystical Marvel Tarot artifact thingie will help him save the day.

This, by the way, is Ian McNee:
Would you want him saving magic in your universe? Though he appears incredibly fabulous,I think not.

The nice thing about this premise is that since things are so wrong with magic in the Marvel Universe that the Marvel/First Tarot may be broken too! So Ian is taking notes on the Tarot and Mr. Sexton has a great excuse to completely fuck up any correspondences provided in his little comic. This doesn't really save him in the long run, though. Or the comic. Anyway, we are somehow paging through Ian McNee's notes, reading his deepest magical thoughts about the First Tarot. Don't ask me how we got a hold of them.

I started off on the wrong foot with this comic for two reasons. First, I expected a really good comic. And second, the following quote was on the first page: “How did graceful gestures and the intricate incantations of the Ancient Ones devolve into a wizard shouting the word BANG over their own crudely pointed finger?”

I instantly wondered if he was alluding to this gentleman?

If you are wondering who he is, you can look back at the second paragraph of this little ditty where I mentioned the “hawtest tantric sex magickian to ever grace the pages of a comic.” Or maybe he's alluding to Mr. Crowley's magical spell of dry-firing a hand gun at an enemy's photograph in order to kill said enemy. Either way, Sexton is insulting the wrong magician if he wants to win me over. So after this little gouge (which I figure is a weak attack on one of the best occult comic authors out there :::queue Grant Morrision fangirl montage:::), I wasn't prepared to love The Marvel Tarot to bits.

Which was a good thing, because I didn't. It starts out with some of Ian McNee's notes, which are closely followed by a long list of weak symbolic correspondences and a convoluted cosmology which must have been cribbed from the old plot lines of Marvel Occult titles. None of it is engaging, and none of it is really entertaining. And, there are none of the subtle hints towards fairly advanced occult topics and issues that I'd expect from a title like this. Ian then proceeds to explain who is showing up on which card these days. I can't really attack his choices, because...the Marvel Tarot may be broken!! But let's just say that most of his choices seem like a poorly-disguised attempt to set up the return of several Marvel characters which have died or otherwise disappeared.

As for the art, most of it is derivative, some of it seems to be ripped off directly from other occult comics, and all of it is poorly executed. Also, I want to know why McNee has alchemical symbols reflected in his glasses on the front cover. They have nothing to do with the minimal plot.

All in all, a very disappointing read. DC/Vertigo still hold the crown when it comes to Occult comics, no two ways about it.