Well I didn’t expect any of that to happen.  Read the unexpected from Aspen Comics, Vince Hernandez, Khary Radolph, Emilio Lopez and Josh Reed.

This is an incredible issue in which nothing happens but everything happens too.  Ground work is laid, our two main characters are on their own paths, the traditional A leads to B of comic books doesn’t happen and yet my jaw was agape.

The best way to describe Charismagic is that it is, you know, magic.  Magic is about misdirection.  The magician takes the audience along a path in order to misdirect and lead all of us to expect one thing when TA-DA! something else happens.  With each page of this book I think I know what will happen only to be stunned on the next page.  Sometimes it happens so fast my mind spins from panel to panel.

Within the pages of this one issue my opinions of Hank the Magnificent from the #0 issue don’t change so much as they grow.  I still feel he lacks confidence yet is also incredibly gifted.  This issue adds more layers to Hank.  He can be cocky, arrogant, an asshole, reserved, contemplative all within the pages of one comic.  I have never before wanted to reach my hands into the panels and crack open the cranium of a character just to see what makes him tick.  Much like Sylar from Heroes but well written.

The ending of the issue goes against everything you expected would happen.  Lead characters are leads because things are supposed to happen to them.  To bring it back around, in a great misdirection something happens around our leads, but not directly to them.  Its a trippy mind job that will have you screaming for answers and hoping Penn and Teller will disclose how the trick was pulled off.

I’m as guilty of this as any, seeing as how I’m just now reviewing and reading the book, but Charismagic may be the most unsung comic out today.  Its a tragedy more people are not aware of the comic.