Magic (1992) is an odd one. I picked it because it came out around the same time I was getting into Sandman, Hellblazer and the whole Vertigo imprint, and I was interested in how Mayfair would treat this increasingly darker section of the DC Universe. That George Pratt cover sure is a marked contrast with the rest of the RPG line, and very much in step with the Vertigo aesthetic. However, it is also pretty telling that two of the three characters in the limelight are more conventional heroes.

The book starts with a pretty great history of magic in the DC universe that emphasizes how strange, varied and mysterious the various types of magic are. Then it tries to systematize them into game terms. I have a hard time seeing how this is meant to work, and suspect it doesn’t come together all that great, but I like how it tries to provide some key methodologies from which players can extrapolate many different applications (complete with exhaustive examples from the comics accompanied by handy footnotes leading to the actual issues).

The rest of the book is is a catalog of supernatural characters, good and evil, and some locations of note. The full range of characters, from Kid Eternity to Amethyst, princess of Gemworld, are presented as coexisting, no matter how preposterous that may seem. I like this a lot because I have always had trouble with the tension in Vertigo comics between appealing to non-comic readers with mature themes while also using characters that clearly exist in a larger superhero universe — I love to point out that Martian Manhunter is in the fifth issue of Sandman, and that the villain of the piece is a longtime JLA nemesis. That this book dispenses with the pretense is kind of refreshing. I also really enjoy that Doctor Thirteen gets an entry — he’s a deep cut!

The book suffers from a less that luxurious production level, though. Just, not enough art. I feel like there should be scads of it pulled from the DC archives. And the maps are rather unexciting. The words are what count, though, and they’re pretty OK.