The Marvel Tarot Review and Interview with Author David Sexton

It’s that time of year again. Everyone wants to be a witch. Wannabes flood my other mailbox wanting to gain access to those private things that good witches do. Like Christians on Easter they show up in large numbers only to fade out as the less interesting holidays progress throughout the year. This year I chose the comic The Marvel Tarot for one of my pagan holiday reviews. There’s no new Silent Hill game and Hellgate London is Vista only which leaves many of us out. The Marvel Tarot is certainly a gorgeous booklet that will look amazingly spooky out on your coffee table for Halloween. The artwork is detailed and interesting. It is occult in every sense of the word. It is hard to read, the colors are muddy and surreal. Overall it’s a fine piece of art. And I mean art in the graphic sense not the magickal…The Tarot itself has had a long history of both love and hate from people of all denominations. Certainly I could write a Tarot book - oh wait I have - but I will be brief here in the interest of review purposes.

The Tarot is a form of divination practice. Unless you were under a rock in the 1990’s or you weren’t born yet, then you have some idea that it’s a deck of cards. The Tarot consists of major and minor arcana cards in two sets. The first 22 cards make up the major arcana. These are known as the Major cards. Each one has a name, number and symbol which can be traced back over hundreds of years making them a perfect medium to assign the Tarot archetypes to super heroes. The minor arcana are 56 cards, containing four suits, wands swords, cups and pentacles. They begin with the ace through ten, and there are also 4 court cards, which are king, queen, knight, and page.

The major arcana cards are the most influential forces in the deck. They are attributed to archetypal forces, powers, and elements in nature. They also can correspond with the signs of the zodiac, planets, and the elements. The major cards are identified by a Roman numeral.

The Marvel Tarot comic is supposed to be the notes and research of Ian McNee who was a minor Marvel character who went up against Dr. Strange. In Alan Moore - ish kind of style we are surprisingly given a quick overview of Hermetic magick, mystical correspondences, and multiple magical planes of existence. He describes the history of magic in the Marvel Universe. In the Marvel Tarot the story goes that Ian has been in possession of this special Tarot for some time. He has studied it and has learned a great deal from it, but now the deck appears to be “broken”. The card depictions are in a constant state of flux. If you were to draw The Devil card three times in a day the card might show you three different Devils or the face on The Queen of Wands might morph into another face right before your eyes and then morph back. So Ian is noting the irregularities in his “files” and the notes are inspiring thoughts and theories regarding magic.

You may find other new comics with more action, and more people in spandex costumes. But The Marvel Tarot is the perfect little read to sit down with if you are up for some complicated faux-scholarly research into esoteric subjects, and inscrutable fancy little fonts. The bulk of the comic is devoted to McNee’s study of an enchanted deck of Tarot cards that depicts various Marvel characters on the cards in the major arcana. For instance, Ghost Rider is on the Judgment card, Brother Voodoo is the Hanged Man, Dr. Strange is the Magician. But the deck has been ‘broken’ somehow, so more than one person may show up on the cards from time to time, both Dr. Doom and Naga show up periodically as the Emperor, while the High Priestess card cycles from Agatha Harkness to the Scarlet Witch to Storm. This seems like sloppy metaphysics to me and a lack of time invested. Certainly some the characters could have been assigned to the court cards, or number cards.

Each page is composed stuff meant to look like ancient grimoires, medieval artwork of angels and demons, and mystic artifacts from around the world. Scattered throughout it are McNee’s notes, pastiches of old fairy tales, and the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. In spite of the eye candy presentation and the superficially pagan symbols I began to wonder just how deep the author David Sexton really is into the Craft and the Old Religion. It seemed to me that the magickal references were a cut and paste job.

Then I caught him, in one of the most glaring errors that is frequently made by new writers who have neglected to do their Tarot homework.

Geek Woman : What background in metaphysics do you have?

David Sexton : My degree is in Theatre from The University of Texas, but I got a minor in Mythology. I was lucky enough to study with Betty Sue Flowers who taught at UT. She edited Joseph Campbell’s POWER OF MYTH. I have written text for and illustrated two decks of my own creation. THE WINGED SPIRIT TAROT published by USGames and THE TAROT OF OZ published by Llewellyn.

Geek Woman : Are you a pagan, or Wiccan?

David Sexton : I do not regularly practice any specific religious rituals, but I have participated in pagan and Wiccan rites and I believe in the truth and the validity of these rituals.

Geek Woman : Did you work with US Games on this to be able to use the Tarot images?

David Sexton : As you point out later, the Tarot images I used are from the Rider-Waite Deck. This deck was published in 1909. All printed material published before 1922 is “Public Domain.” No permission is necessary.

Geek Woman : Is there going to be a Marvel Tarot deck?

David Sexton : There is definitely talk about releasing a MARVEL TAROT Deck next October.

Geek Woman : The tables of correspondences and other items seem to be based on the Tarot of Aliester Crowley. Why not use Crowley deck art rather than the Rider-Waite style Tarot?

David Sexton : The Correspondence Tables are from about a dozen different sources. The most comprehensive list I found was in THE MAGICIAN’S COMPANION by Bill Whitcomb (Llewellyn.) The Crowley Tarot was finally published in 1969. The text and images are still under copyright.

Geek Woman : I noticed that there was one common error made throughout the book. Wands are air, not fire. Wands are the arrows of thought. Wood burns. They mean the power of the pen and the written word. Swords are fire, they are forged by fire. That error was made twenty years ago and several authors have picked up on it and continued to copy that mistake. Was the reversal a consciously made choice?

David Sexton : I’m not sure what your reference is here. The scholarly connection between Wands and Fire is much older than 20 years. Here are quotes from noted Tarot scholars Ouspensky and Crowley. The first book is nearly 100 years old.

From THE SYMBOLISM OF THE TAROT by P.D. Ouspensky (pub. 1913) “The Tarot in its turn is quite analogous to the Kabala, Alchemy and Magic, and, as it were, includes them. Corresponding to the four first principles or four letters of the Name of God, or the four alchemistic elements, or the four classes of spirits, the Tarot has four suits–sceptres, cups, swords and pentacles. Thus every suit, every side of the square, equal to the point, represents one of the elements, controls one class of spirits . The sceptres are fire or elves (or salamanders); the cups are water or undines; the swords are air or sylphes; and pentacles, earth or gnomes.”

And this quote From BOOK OF THOTH by Aliester Crowley (written 1930) “The four suits are named as follows: “Wands”, attributed to Fire; “Cups”, to Water; “Swords”, to Air; and “Disks” (”Coins”, or “Pantacles”), to Earth.”

You are absolutely correct when you say that not all scholars agree with the assignment of Wands to Fire. So, as you can see scholars have been arguing about it for a loooong time. From my research it seems that the vast majority of them connect Wands with Fire and Swords with Air.

Geek Woman : Actually the majority of Tarot decks and books do have it the correct way. A.E. Waite who was the author of the original modern Tarot which is eponymous to him was a member of the illustrious turn of the century Coven in England known as the Golden Dawn, which Crowley was tossed out of. It was Waite who assigned the suits in the Tarot based on much more extensive research into the Quabalah and astrology than the hard drugging and drinking Aliester Crowley ever could. It is generally accepted that Crowley’s Book of Thoth are the ranting of a soused madman and that there isn’t a shred of solid work in it. Your reference to P.D. Ouspensky is also fallacious since A.) He was referring to ’sceptres’ which are indeed in the over 100 year old Italian Tarot. Not the Wands of A.E. Waite’s deck. B.) Just because something was written a long time ago doesn’t mean it is correct. Ask Sherri Shepard if the world is flat.

Geek Woman : In the note that mentions “The Seven Names of the Serpent” you have the Egyptian deities Set, Apep, Ophion and Tiamat associated with “sins”. Sin is a Christian based mythology, which came along thousands of years after the Egyptian pantheon why were these neutral pagan deities that have assigned to sins?

David Sexton : Many early Christian Theologians blended ancient myths with their new theories. This was kind of an “homage” to that kind of text. Plus MARVEL has raided those concepts too. SET, APEP and TIAMAT are all characters in the MARVEL Universe and they are all “Villians.” MARVEL TAROT is a blending of MARVEL Comics History with the structure of Ritual Magick and actual Wiccan Rites and Ideas. This is a work of fiction that is “posing” as a scholarly work. The text here has been compiled by the MARVEL character of “Ian McNee” and isn’t totally representative of my theories

Geek Woman : The suit of Wands, like the trees, from which they are made, are affected by air. Trees represent knowledge which is more powerful than other forces. The majority of the time wands will predict great energy. The suit of swords represent the forces of action and activity. The sword in magic represents fire. This suit is often wrongly associated with air. Fire often represents a test of strength or courage, and smiths create swords in the fire of a forge. The confusion came up from an association of swords with the ’sky metal’ or meteorite which the legendary sword Excalibur was said to be made from.

The Marvel Tarot is a beautiful piece of work no matter what side of Wicca that you come down on. It is encouraging to see any reference to magick in the mundane media. It brings more eyes to the Craft, even if it only sends people seeking for more, and to explore the Tarot more deeply.

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The Marvel Tarot Review and Interview with Author David Sexton

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