The illusions fall before a major confrontation. All is not what it seems and the peril may be greater than previously expected. It’s a tale about magic, so it’s no surprise. A young heroine’s hopes of reclaiming her heart get complicated in Nomen Omen #10. Writer Marco B. Bucci’s story submerges into a bit of poetic murkiness that never quite loses track of the dramatic intensity of a story that is strikingly rendered by Jacopo Camagni. The pacing of the story gets a bit lost in the poetry early on, but the explosive intensity of the issue’s climax still manages quite an impact. 

The guardian known as Fer approaches someone from his past in the interest of furthering plans against the Celtic god Taranis. Lady Macbeth is searching for magical hearts and finding something altogether more sinister. Rebecca is waiting for everything to fall into place to reclaim her own heart, but sinister forces are aligning against all of them. When Taranis shows his face and his form, things are going to get dangerous for everyone involved.  It’s all happening amidst an elegantly pretty magical party, but in the presence of such beauty, even the greatest danger can lurk in plain sight.

Only a couple of pages into the issue, a woman that Fer just kissed is suddenly awakened angry and clutching his throat. She threatens to feed pieces of him to her children. It’s a really intense moment. It would have more of an impact if the rest of the series hadn’t been juggling so much else. Fer HAS been a focus of the series thus far, but this scene and so many others would have more impact if the overall flow of action was handled a bit more thoughtfully by Bucci. The overall plot DOES wield a lot of dramatic power, but that power has a tendency to get lost in the dreamy flow of action. 

More than simply rendering Bucci’s story, Camagni is an excellent creative partner for the author. There are elements of the story that might have bogged down the narrative in places had it not been for Camagni’s distinctive approach to the visuals. Camagni’s distinct mix of color, shadow, action, drama, and fantasy render a world that has a beautifully alien sense of aesthetic substance that keeps the reader engaged with the story without ever overpowering the script. This issue allows Camagni to draw on moods of passion, love, anger, nervousness, and more. Camagni captures it all without exaggerating the nuanced intensity of Bucci’s story. 

Given that so many elements have been brought onstage in the series, it’s quite remarkable the Bucci and Camagni have been able to give all the characters present in this issue enough weight to keep everything moving. As dense as some of the story elements are, it’s nice to see Bucci exploring Taranis with a bit more depth at issue’s end. There’s an extra short story written in simple paragraphs of narrative text that allows the reader to spend a little bit of time with the character from a time during the events of Nomen Omen #5. As with the previous issue, Bucci’s dual-format approach to the series adds weight to the overall story. 

Grade: A