ENTRY 006: AVIZOA (And Assorted Other 'Zoas)

In 1997, gaming magazines began teasing Weatherlight, actually the very first Magic set that would use its cards to tell a story with a central cast of characters and progression of events, focusing on the crew of the titular flying ship. One teaser for this set was a promotional postcard featuring this very illustration, which came free in a magazine, and I even still have somewhere. This was pretty exciting for me, because if you can even BELIEVE this, I was literally a BIGGER fan of killer flying jellyfish in 1997 than I even am even now even. I know, you think I'm lying, but honest! Like anywhere from 10% to maybe even 100% more.

More than just a jellyfish in the sky, an Avizoa has a lumpy, blubbery translucent bell with a cluster of rubbery looking blue-black tentacles that seem to be extremely stretchy and gooey, since we see some drifting in the background with more relaxed appendages. All we see of the foreground specimen are its tendrils ensnaring some hapless, unnamed deckhand, and two fang-crusted mouths with thin, red tongues and thick green drool. Maybe they have even more mouths than that? Who can say! But this definitely isn't the anatomy of a true jellyfish, or any kind of Cnidarian, so I'm actually kind of disappointed that the card was retroactively assigned a "jellyfish" creature typing.

Several more flying "jellyfish" with "zoa" have emerged since, and they all certainly have their own interesting quirks. The beautiful Electrozoa has fleshy little wings all over its bell and a squidlike beak! The Esperzoa, its float more reminiscent of a Man O' War, apparently feeds on metal. The Watchful Blisterzoa is covered in tiny eyeballs, including on the tips of its tentacles, and Mechanozoa is somehow also a robot.

Gomazoa might be the most interesting since the Avizoa, and even received two variations! These are somehow capable of floating with bodies almost entirely encased in a stony looking shell, maybe like the skeleton secreted by a coral. All we ever see of the inner animal are its many long, thin, red tentacles, which in the "Dormant Gomazoa" appear to end in little pincer-claws they anchor to the ground with. I love that haunting illustration of what that lone, human corpse may have once mistaken for a grove of trees. Are any of these various "zoas" related by biology, though? The Avizoa was just subtly unique enough, in my opinion, that it could have been expanded upon as an iconic original creature type, just like the Hellions, if only they hadn't been rolled into something as conventional as "jellyfish," airborne or otherwise.

Fortunately, I must not have been the only one who thought they deserved a bit more spotlight. In 2022, the "Dominaria United" set included Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut, an Elvish Scout that has apparently tamed one or more of these majestic animals to carry her around like a living hot-air balloon, as one does. It's good to see those mean little mouths again! And there are other Avizoa flying along!

I'm also glad that we started getting cards with less "literal" illustrations again, even if they tend to just be special variations, like this lovely "stained glass" take on Nael, framed by her flying friend's tentacles. I really like that the mouths are now established to be on the tentacles, but apparently just one mouth mid-way down each limb. I've seen creature designs with mouths on the ends of tentacles, like a bunch of serpent heads, and I've seen creature designs with mouths lining their tentacles, like flesh-eating octopus suckers, but I'd say this is a much more novel and intriguing physiological adaptation with a bit more versatility. It's good to have the option to grab things without necessarily also biting them, which is why you and I evolved hands of course, but unlike the clever Avizoa, we lacked the foresight to put teeth in our elbows.

If anyone from Wizards is reading this, I would still like to put forth the suggestion that "Avizoa" could very well be its own creature type. Even if you're fully committed to them being "jellyfish," and I realize you don't like to retcon anything that you don't have to anymore, more explicit variations on the original still have potential as an iconic critter for blue!

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