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What happens when you are the most powerful magic user when it comes to talking to and re-animating the dead, but you bargained for it by becoming partially dead yourself? For Lilianna Vess, she made deals with devils to become the most powerful necromancer ever known, but now that she is, she's dealing with the consequences... and now working to use that power to re-negotiate those terms.

Liliana Vess is from Magic: The Gathering, one of the most popular and prolific card games in modern history, and in it is a Marvel U-level story with heroes, villains, powers, and a multiverse. And now as MTG transitions from being one of the most popular cult-favorite franchises in recent memory to becoming a mainstream success, the story of Liliana is being told outside of card games, and in the world of comics.

Magic: The Gathering: Untold Stories — Liliana is a new four-issue series by MTG owners Wizards of the Coast and Dark Horse Comics, the people who brought you Hellboy, Resident Alien, Sin City, and more. 

"Liliana Vess is the most powerful necromancer in the multiverse, but her power came at a cost. For her strength and her mastery of death, Liliana bargained her soul to four powerful demons: Kothophed, Razaketh, Belzenlok, and Griselbrand," reads Dark Horse's description of the series. "But now, Liliana seeks to regain her freedom and destroy the pact she wears etched into her skin."

Pieces of this story were told over the years in various MTG card series. This new comic series, MTG: Untold Stories - Liliana, takes us back to the 'Innistrad' set era, and shows what really happened when she came back to reclaim a piece of her soul.

"Liliana’s journey has brought her to Innistrad, the rumored location of Griselbrand, and a plane rife with corruption, chaos, and suffering," the description continues. "Determined to hunt the demon down and reclaim the piece of her soul he took, her task will not be an easy one—for Liliana Vess is not the only seeker of vengeance upon the plane of Innistrad."

What previously was left to MTG card flavor text and some prose online is now being adapted, expanded, and made visually glorious by the team of writer Torunn Grønbekk (Valkyrie: Jane Foster, Red Sonja), artist Nataliia Rerekina (The Witcher), color artist Lauren Affe (Count Crowley, Assassin’s Creed Mirage: A Soar of Eagles), and letterer Clayton Cowles (Helen of Wyndhorn, FML).

This MTG Liliana miniseries is the third in a series of comics exploring and expanding on these fundamental character tales, giving real 'main character' energy to her, as well as Jace and Elspeth previously. 

Magic: The Gathering: Untold Stories — Liliana #1 (of #4) goes on sale October 14, which I'll promptly be reading in the middle of New York Comic Con 2026. I haven't decided whether to get one of the covers by Rerekina, Sibylline Meynet, or Abigail Larson.

Whether you are a Commander player, a regular at your local game shop's FNM event, or simply love collecting Magic: The Gathering cards, you've landed in the right place. From Universes Beyond to the furthest reaches of the Magic Multiverse, we've got you covered here at Popverse. 

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