Spellbound takes the straightforward noir/spy/magic Hard Magic and makes it bigger.

This is America. The government doesn’t own the people. The people own the government.

On one hand, you have the government cracking down on Actives in a 30s X-Men analogue with more G-Men and conspiracies floating about. On the other, Sullivan gets a telephone call from the Chairman (yes, the dead one) telling him he has to save the world. On the other (I know), Faye’s powers are not normal. And now we begin to know why.

All three stories are a crazy mess of action and firefights and magical mayhem. There are zombies and demons and giant death lasers and airships galore. It’s an unholy kitchen sink of a story, but somehow it all works.

Among the best new characters is ex-Iron Guard Toru. He’s working with the ‘good guys’ now, in particular Jake Sullivan. Their banter is a great part of the series:

“Are we ready yet? I feel my ancestors grow impatient.”

“Your ancestor murdered half of this crew’s ancestors.”

“I see.” Toru replied as he examined the blade. “Then their ancestors should have ducked.”

“You going to pick any more fights?”

“Only with the Enemy, and should we live through that . . . the two of us have one to finish.”

A worthy followup, if anything better than the first. I can’t wait to see where Correia goes with Warbound.

Random quote, an example of what makes the series all the more fun to read:

He was not used to a beautiful woman staring at him that intently, but he had to remind himself that to Healers like Jane, everybody looked like see- through bags of skin filled with blood and guts. It was one downside to the most popular of all Powers, but Jane insisted that she was used to it.

“So how do I look?”

“Like a translucent blood sausage. So . . . relatively normal.”