Early Magic story went through a lot of retrofitting. In the early days cards were made without full storyline consideration and sets were created by people who, in part, kept their story ideas to themselves, or simply didn’t consider the impact their ideas would have on the greater whole. Magic’s creative department simply didn’t exist, and the ‘continuity’ team that was the embryo for a more dedicated group of storywriters simply juggled the myriad of ideas out there to try to avoid conflict.

The release of Tempest in 1997 saw the first attempt to bring cohesion for the storyline and a decision was made to disregard any earlier works if necessary and provide a new (for the time) definitive canon for the lovers of lore. Anything before this time was considered prerevisionist and would only count as agreed Magic storyline if it didn’t conflict with what came after.

Nicol Bolas’ exploits are generally free of revisionist problems, although those of the other Elder Dragons do fall heavily into this subsection of continuity, with the main information for those stories coming from the comics published by Armada in the early 1990s.

What Wizards’ chose to do was commission books to fill in the early years. Two trilogies of novels were written for the Legends set alone – Legends Cycle I and Legends Cycle II, but even within these six books there are plenty of issues for continuity purists, especially as it is obvious the writers of the first set of novels were not consulted by those who wrote the second three. Legendary characters from the cards have been used twice, once in each cycle, creating two very different personalities and back stories both referencing a single card. Oops!

It was obvious the intention here was also to bring in some reference, no matter how small, to every legend. Unfortunately, the result is a mishmash of stories that fail to do justice to most characters, relegating them to sideline parts at best and in trying to include too many names, also falls short of the mark in making an exciting story of for a few. By all accounts, the Legends Cycles are badly written and boring pieces in the Magic history which are better avoided.

It is, however, in Legends Cycle II (really the tale of Ramses Overdark and Tetsuo Umezawa), that we are given some of the early Nicol Bolas back story.

Emperor of Madara

The mysterious and ancient God-Emperor of Madara must deal with an uprising from the Edemi Islands. The Imperial Assassin, Ramses Overdark, is tasked with subduing the rebels and pulls the Imperial Champion, Tetsuo Umezawa, into the situation.

In truth, Overdark seeks the death of the more honourable Tetsuo. His rivalry against another of the Emperor’s favour is great and he sees Tetsuo as a barrier between him and greater power within the empire. Their conflict forces the greater plans of the Emperor to take a backstage and ultimately results in a joint failure for their mission.

The Emperor is enraged at the situation and brings in his third trusted subordinate, Marhault Elsdragon, general of the armies, to deal with the problematic armies of Edemi. With the disgraced Ramses Overdark ordered to remain out of the conflict, it falls to Elsdragon and Tetsuo to action the Emperor’s wishes which they loyally endeavour to do.

Determined to regain the Emperor’s good favour and obtain personal power, Overdark insinuates his way back into the fold, convincing Elsdragon of his usefulness. Ultimately, this leads to the general’s death, as Overdark sees his opportunity to take over control and engineers Elsdragon’s decapitation.

Realising that he is working with evil men in both Ramses Overdark and the Emperor, Tetsuo Umezawa renounces his allegiance and begins a personal undertaking to bring them down.

Overdark returns to the Emperor believing himself to be a position of true strength – through his machinations, he has replaced both the Imperial Champion and the General with people loyal to him – perhaps even the exalted title of Emperor is within his grasp. His meeting with the Emperor, however, does not go as he expects when the man shapeshifts into his true form of the Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas, powerful planeswalker.

A master manipulator himself, Nicol Bolas sees something positive in Overdark’s successful plotting and rather than punishing him for his treachery, makes the former Imperial Assassin his regent. Overdark takes his place as the Dragon’s minion, and together the two of them plan to reshape Madara into a more powerful empire in control of all the land.

Revealing Bolas

Bolas’ reveal at the end of the second act of Legends Cycle II, provides a blueprint for what became ‘classic Bolas’ – the idea that the Dragon was behind everything but never one to get his claws dirty. It is an interesting and ultimately unusual way to develop this character. On paper, Nicol Bolas is an example of raw power. He’s a Dragon, which gives him a physical presence which is second to none; a planeswalker and thus (especially pre-mending) almost godlike in his magical ability; a genius surpassed by none; and he is ancient, with knowledge of the planes that is unequalled. Given these facts, it would be easy for him to be front and centre, throwing his weight around in an obvious way.

The problem with a more “in your face” version of Nicol Bolas would ultimately be one of boredom. It would be difficult to make any stories involving the character which are truly exciting (Bolas turns up, Bolas beats everyone up, Bolas wins, would be the norm) and either he would have to be given a Kryptonite-like flaw to enable conflict, or somehow be killed off to allow room for other characters to take the stage.

Was it in Wizards’ minds to give him this behind-the-scenes personality trait to avoid such an issue? It is hard to know. Legends Cycle II is stuffed to the brim with characters, and it might have been simply a choice to have him play a smaller (though still major) role in the storyline just to make room for all those names and faces.

Or maybe Nicol Bolas had just been forgotten.

Legends (the set) was released in 1994, and despite having a strong following as a card at the time, there was nothing substantial written featuring the character of Nicol Bolas until this trilogy of books in 2003, nine years later. This can also be seen in other media, as early secondary images of Nicol Bolas simply do not exist. Is it the case that the Wizards creative team had forgotten about the Elder Dragon for almost a decade before deciding to feature him as a major character and retroactively slide his story into established Magic history? With all the focus on Bolas in modern Magic lore, and that feel that he’s been around forever, it’s difficult to see that actually - it’s an illusion.

Nicol Bolas was never mentioned.

Or is that the point? Is that merely a curtain in the real world which mimics the deception of the multiverse stories? That Nicol Bolas was there the whole time and we just didn’t see it?

One thing is for sure – as soon as the Emperor of Madara was revealed, the screen hiding Bolas was taken down and the Dragon began an inexorable move towards centre stage for Magic: the Gathering as a whole.

Umezawa’s Victory

Tetsuo Umezawa has Ramses Overdark to deal with. Gathering his allies, the former Imperial Champion engages in a series of conflicts against Overdark and his collaborators. After many bitter battles, Tetsuo finally faces both Overdark and his master, Nicol Bolas, at the Imperial Shrine - an important site due to its connection to the mana that establishes the Dragon Planeswalker’s link to Dominaria.

When Bolas aims his magic to destroy Tetsuo’s mind and end the combat, Tetsuo defends himself by deflecting the spell onto Overdark, forcing Nicol Bolas to counter his own spell and creating an opportunity for a strike. The once-champion seizes the moment and kills his nemesis before Overdark can finish his own powerful spell, absorbing the dying man’s power for the now-inevitable battle with Bolas himself.

Tetsuo flees to the Meditation Plane, a pocket plane which had been used by the Emperor and those loyal to him for many years. Unknown to Bolas, Tetsuo had been hiding and training on the Meditation Plane and had an advantage here.

Arrogantly, Bolas followed Tetsuo, leaving his physical body behind in Madara and it was this mistake which led to the Elder Dragon’s first defeat. Tetsuo called upon powerful meteor magic to destroy the Imperial Shrine on Madara, taking Bolas’ body and his link to Dominaria with it. Bolas was cut adrift, left in the Mediation Plane with no way back to the land and Tetsuo left him for dead.

At the close of the Legends Cycle II, Nicol Bolas is presumed dead. Here the ties between stories begin to show their strength, as Bolas spirit is kept alive at the rift created by the Talon Gates, something that allows his return to the storyline during the time of The Mending.

Events Fitting In

The twisting threads of Magic storyline begin in earnest following The Mending. While the creative team were eager to have a clean state for the story following those all-important events of Time Spiral block, they had no desire to completely cut from the older stories and did (and still do) what they could to weave the stories together. Timelines are notoriously difficult to follow, as only clues exist as to the dates of specific events, but one thing is for sure – at some point, Nicol Bolas interacts with both the plane of Zendikar and the other Dragon Planeswalker, Ugin.

While this part of Magic lore is best looked at when following the story of Ugin, the intersection with Bolas makes it impossible to ignore – approximately 1200 years before the Mending, Nicol Bolas kills Ugin on Tarkir, learning from his victim all about the Eldrazi and their imprisonment on Zendikar.

When exactly is 1200 years before the Mending for Nicol Bolas? We are told that he goes straight from the Dragon War to Dominaria to establish a magical foothold and then nothing until he is God-Emperor of Madara for 400 years before the events that lead to his physical death at the hands of Tetsuo Umezawa.

It makes most sense that this event takes place sometime between his arrival on Dominaria and the time he spends as Emperor of Madara. Is this the only excursion Bolas takes away from Dominaria, or are they many? Is he, in fact, regularly zipping around the multiverse setting other things into motion?

Despite the later ramifications that come from this battle between Bolas and Ugin, they are obviously of little interest to Bolas at this time, as he has his sights set quite firmly on Dominaria.

Returning to Physical Form

Unable to reconnect physically with Dominaria, Nicol Bolas was left adrift as a ghostly version of himself while Madara fell under the control of the cat-dragons. His opportunity came when potential neo-planeswalker, Venser, arrived on Madara. Under the guise of Sensei Ryu, Nicol Bolas manipulated the young Venser until he was able to control both the latter’s mind and neo-spark to return fully to Dominara in physical glory.

Human planeswalker, Teferi, soon arrived to defend Venser and his companion and Bolas was forced into conflict with the time mage. With his immense power and significant skill in the very magic that Teferi called his own, Nicol Bolas crushed the lesser planeswalker effortlessly, but in doing so, learned of the time rifts that were signalling a potential end of the multiverse.

Despite a passing interest in such news, Bolas had more important vengeance to enact, and left the group of petty humans to their business as he planeswalked away.

Revenge on Kamigawa

Though nothing is directly written of the period, it is assumed that at this point Nicol Bolas travelled to Kamigawa. The Umezawa family hail from the plane and Bolas is determined to deliver retribution on Tetsuo and anyone who is related to him. He returned to Dominaria a little while later, wielding the black mask of one of the Kamigawa Kami-Gods - the Myojin of Night’s Reach whom he claimed to have defeated.

It is worth noting that the link between Nicol Bolas and Kamigawa was a nice background touch – while the Legends set was the first to feature Legendary Creatures, the Kamigawa block was the second built with Legendary Creatures as a central theme. Though the ties here are subtle and may well be coincidental, they provide a nice join in the growing map of Magic sets.

Healing the Multiverse

An epic confrontation with the black-aligned planeswalker Leshrac in Madara upon his return leads to Bolas imprisoning the dark mage in the Mask of Night’s Reach. Taking responsibility for the Madaran Rift – caused thousands of years earlier when he fought The Leviathan - Bolas used Leshrac’s life force and planeswalker spark to close the rift and in doing so, aided Teferi and his companions in saving Dominaria and bringing about The Mending.

Time to Shine

On the face of it, Nicol Bolas didn’t like the loss of his godlike powers when The Mending brought about the new, lesser, version of the spark. Arguably, however, of all the planeswalkers, it is Nicol Bolas who really took to his own following The Mending. Bolas began plotting and setting events into motion with some far-reaching consequences, all ostensibly to bring him back the awesome power he once wielded. Rather than suffering from the alteration, it seems to revitalise him, giving him a purpose and a drive he had long forgotten.

Nicol Bolas seemed bored before the rifts were closed; now he is invigorated.

Amonkhet

As Magic players, we were only introduced to Amonkhet in 2017 – a decade past the events of Time Spiral. For Nicol Bolas, Amonkhet was the next place on his list. The desert plane, ruled over by eight benevolent Gods and with a happy populous became his playground.

If Bolas had lost power personally, he was determined not to lose it universally. He needed an army, and not something blasé like a troop of humans, no matter how skilled, no – for Nicol Bolas only the finest army would do. On Amonkhet, utilising the native metal Lazotep, he would create an army of elite zombies, each one having died at the peak of fitness and ability, having trained its entire life in warfare - each zombie an individual powerhouse capable of significant battle prowess. There would not be hundreds, nor even thousands of these zombies, but an entire civilisation turned into the superior undead, all utterly subservient to his wishes. The Eternals.

Bolas travelled to Amonkhet and met eight Gods. Three he immediately subverted, turning them into nameless versions of themselves, capable of only the most basic thoughts and fine tuned to serve a single purpose. Five others he manipulated to become cogs in his machine, minds altered to work as directors in his grand plan. The history of the plane he erased, subsuming himself into the society as if he had always been there – the God-Pharoah.

Amonkhet became Bolas world. Then he left it under the stewardship of his slave-Gods and promised to return when the job was done and the army ready. They would await the day.

Aligning with Liliana

The loss of her pre-Mending powers was a huge blow to Liliana Vess who risks death from old age at the very least. Seeking help, the necromancer came to Nicol Bolas. Never one to miss an opportunity, Bolas decided to help Liliana. He took her to four demons to make deals – pacts which give her power at great but undefined cost to herself. Each demon unaware of the arrangements that came before them, Liliana and Bolas worked together to restore the witch to some semblance of her earlier self.

Bolas allowed Liliana to go without any sort of payment to him. He is patient, and he knows that one day all debts must be paid.

By this point, shortly after The Mending, Nicol Bolas is well set up as the master manipulator. The Meditation plane, once the site of his defeat, has become his own hideaway – Bolas’ Meditation Realm. His old enemies are either gone or powerless and the future spreads out before him like a blank canvas - from the forgotten adversary of the early days of Magic, to the primary bad guy of today.

Next Time

While there is much more of the Dragon’s story to come, Magic lore is not all stories of the planeswalkers. In the next article, we will dig deep into the first of the post-Mending stories – that of the land of Lorwyn and its transformation into the dark Shadowmoor.

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