ENTRY 001: SPINAL VILLAIN
Welcome to indefinite long-term Magic Creature Reviews! I previously reviewed favorite creatures by type many years ago, then a 31 day Halloween feature focusing on Duskmourn, but the same format would make it a breeze to talk about more disparate favorites whenever I feel like it, and I want to start that off with one of my oldest favorites of all...but first! A little context!
It was quite the shock, then, when after a few years of collecting I came upon a card I had completely overlooked all along, printed in only the third or fourth new release, with what instantly became (and remains!) one of my top personal favorite creature designs in this or any fantasy world:
It truly doesn't look quite like any other creature I've seen, before or since, and certainly defies any real taxonomy, but it definitely gives off a kind of Brundlefly vibe with its gnarled, woody skin texture, and a sort of embryonic or larval feel with its vermiform lower body and skin-covered "eyes," if those are indeed a pair of eyes at all! This card was also released years before Wizards began putting more thought into creature typing, so its "species" is just given as "villain." I believe it's since been retconned as a beast, but I love the idea that "villain" might really be what people in-universe call this thing's genus. Or even phylum? If they truly felt the need to recategorize it, I would have expected a Horror.
As a red card, Spinal is a creature of chaos and destruction, and its only ability is that it can be tapped to instantly kill any blue creature, which makes sense, with blue being the enemy of red and the color of "intellect." The implication is that this thing preys upon creatures of blue mana, which would also include a lot of spellcasters, alchemists and other brainiacs, presumably by doing something or other to their spine.
.......Unless, of course, you're like me, and you consider the artist's word to be de facto canon. Once I started writing these reviews, it suddenly crossed my mind after all these years (THIRTY OF THEM) to see if I could just ask what it means to be this Vertebral Malefactor. So, I looked up the official website of Anson Maddocks, run by his partner Brenda, where you can also buy artwork or send in a favorite card to be signed, and Brenda was kind enough to relay my questions to Spinal Villain's dad. The response, I think we'll all agree, is exactly what you always wanted to hear if you, too, ever wondered:
"I can help you out here, no problem. ;) Spinal Villain is one of Anson's favorites too. What he has described to me about the creature is particularly horrific. (It made me momentarily concerned about who I chose to spend my life with! Haha Then, again, perhaps that says more about me than him..)
Anyway, the 2 long, fork-like 'mandibles' insert at the base of the skull of its victim and due to their barbed-hook biology, lock into place before the parasitic proclivities begin. Those tendrils that seem to be spilling from its mouth area are actually much longer than what is visible in the artwork. They are loaded with nerve-endings which slip into the puncture wounds created by the mandible hooks and then explore the hosts neurological system until it reaches the brain. And that is where the creature has its best and most fun; accessing and wielding the targets deepest fears against themselves.
The above isn't 'lore' per se, but that is what Anson has described when asked about Spinal Villain. I would be willing to assume that you are already aware of the fact that Spinal Villain was created in the era of Magic when artwork didn't yet have any backstory woven into them by WotC. The title of the card was the entirety of the art direction; the begin and the end of all Anson was to know about the card's mechanics, flavor text, etc. For Anson, this was what he loved most about working for WotC. The complete freedom to generate his own concepts."
Anyway, the 2 long, fork-like 'mandibles' insert at the base of the skull of its victim and due to their barbed-hook biology, lock into place before the parasitic proclivities begin. Those tendrils that seem to be spilling from its mouth area are actually much longer than what is visible in the artwork. They are loaded with nerve-endings which slip into the puncture wounds created by the mandible hooks and then explore the hosts neurological system until it reaches the brain. And that is where the creature has its best and most fun; accessing and wielding the targets deepest fears against themselves.
The above isn't 'lore' per se, but that is what Anson has described when asked about Spinal Villain. I would be willing to assume that you are already aware of the fact that Spinal Villain was created in the era of Magic when artwork didn't yet have any backstory woven into them by WotC. The title of the card was the entirety of the art direction; the begin and the end of all Anson was to know about the card's mechanics, flavor text, etc. For Anson, this was what he loved most about working for WotC. The complete freedom to generate his own concepts."
As it turns out, we were right to interpret some kind of nervous system parasite, but I wouldn't have guessed that we were dealing with a classic fear-eater, presumably trapping the victim in their personalized ultimate nightmare until it finishes feeding! After three long, grueling decades of this nagging the back of my mind, I finally have closure.
It's just too bad that such a memorable fiend has never been expanded upon. Between its unique original typing and its color-coded mechanic, you would expect it to have just been our first taste of an entire lineage, much like such classics as the Atog and the Lhurgoyf:
