There’s been a heatwave in Toronto, and further north the province burns. In July we’ve had temperatures reach historic highs and the only reprieve came from wildfire smog, a dangerous poison blanket, choking out the sun. We are far from the only city weathering a summer that a decade ago would be in the realm of science fiction. There have been warnings to stay hydrated, stick to the shade, wear a mask and, if possible, stay inside. Still there are hundreds of people sleeping outside in the alcoves of foreclosed businesses with old blankets covering exposed skin to save it from scorching pavement and an unforgiving sun. It is grim to think that the month began with a cavalcade of fireworks to celebrate the country and all that it is meant to be.

All this is due to the rapidly changing climate of the modern age, an alteration to the world that is by no means natural and due to ineffective — and often predatory — climate policy which benefits wealthy multinational corporations and the shadowy ghouls that govern them. When confronted with the magnitude and scale of these issues, it is natural to feel powerless, angry and grasping for some modicum of control.

In between smoke warnings and heat advisories, as a way to keep my mind from racing, I’ve been going for morning runs. So far, my body refuses to acclimate to a schedule free from the demands of a school bell, leaving me with time in the early hours, when the sunshine is pleasant rather than a danger, to jog around my neighbourhood.

Sixteen kilometres in before the clock reaches eight, and I step back through my front door on the cusp of delirium. Even on good days, my body can only do so much. Legs moving like piston, keeping pace and moving me forward, the final kilometre a mental exercise rather than physical. But bodies fail. I’ve a grinding knee, lungs bellowing humid air and a familiar knot reemerging on the cusp of my left shoulder blade. The spirit might be there, but the body is wanting. I wish I could do more, push myself further, I wish I had more control.

But further control is a disservice to the physical, tangible part of myself that has carried ne far. Better to make peace with how far I can do and show gratitude for that distance. My body has done wonders, but it has limits. I’m in my thirties, after all. I wouldn’t run if there wasn’t a whisper to push and test these limits. Yet it also needs care. I recoil whenever I scroll across an influencer speaking of the human body as if it was simply another machine to be tinkered with and optimized. I welcome every innovation coming out of medical science, but I be damned if Gary from Ogden, Utah pushes his supplements derived from bear offal on me. Our discontent with our personal limits can be a potent motivator, but it can be a welcome avenue for grifters and the foolhardy quests of billionaires to tinker with their mortality — surely there is a sum you can pay to buy out death. Surely there is a way to have more control.

Tinkering lead Urza and Mishra beyond the limits of their human forms, the elder igniting his spark to become the planeswalker above all planeswalkers and the younger accepted the cursed filaments and oil of Phyrexia into his life. Before, each brother worked within the confines of machines and flesh to create life that was humanoid but decidedly inhuman. They had responsibilities to see to and armies the control. Discontent with half of the power they saw as their right, the two fought to try and claim a piece from the other. In light of everything that came to Dominaria, I wonder what the plane would have been if they were willing to settle for what they had. Surely this is a road that Reality Fracture won’t follow, the repercussions too vast to contain to a set.

The year after Antiquities released, the heady apocalyptic prelude Neon Genesis Evangelion premiered. For anyone more familiar with the Brothers’ War than the anime, it tells the story of Shinji Ikari; a trouble teenage boy forced to pilot a titanic mech to stave off the encroaching threat of angelic beings descending on Tokyo and waylay the desolation of humanity. The mechs, called Evangelions, are the children of Shinji’s father Gendo and not entirely mechanical in their design.

The reveal of the organic nature of the EVAs is not a revelation. Bright purple armour plating sits on Unit 01 like a carapace, protecting the muscle and sinew underneath. The show’s creator, Hideaki Anno, wastes no time sending Shinji to confront an Angel, disorienting the boy after a short reunion with his father and his life on the line. Ensconced in the psychedelic neural entry plug of the mech, Shinji cycles through waves of confusion and terror as he faces down an otherworldly threat in a machine he doesn’t understand. It isn’t long before Shinji loses control and the Eva begins to operate beyond the bounds set in its programming. Shinji Ikari is trapped in a feral machine. As the bystanders watch from the control room, it seems as if the pilot has lost control.

Within the Blind Eternities, a body is a suggestion; a schematic to follow until it hits its limits or outlasts its practicality. Then, the choice is to either accept these thresholds or look for other ways to transcend beyond them. You can trace the working of bio-mechanical devotees back to Antiquities, wherein existed a blending of skin and steel to make a new form wholly unto itself.

The Phyrexians saw the fusion of organics and machines as the ideal, stripping away the weakness of a mortal body through the extraction of flesh and free will. Future denizens of other planes like Esper complicate the notion of bodily augmentation and free will, as less outright villainous approach compared to Phyrexia, though still troubling in their need for control.

To be human is to have free will, to stumble, pick ourselves back up and fail plenty along the way. The philosophical question of what freedom entails, its boundaries and limits, has been fodder for thinkers as long as the field of philosophy has been a thing, but it is paramount to our notions of the self. It also but against the optimization; of maintaining complete control.

When proponents of mechanical innovation highlight a turn toward mechanized production, often one of the greatest boons is the efficiency promised in this adoption. To create workers or assembly lines that don’t need sleep, food or water, pleasure or a break of any kind; is a promise of work beyond all else. We see this in the current turn toward Artificial Intelligence, a system predicated on increasing profits for shareholders and corporations despite the wealth of excuses and justifications given.

Gendo and Urza struggle when their desires and plans are rejected by others who have their own desires and will. Both men serve as overarching figures in their respective stories, reaching beyond a single event or plotline. Earlier iterations of the Magic discourse would oscillate between opinions of Urza, whether he was truly a hero or villain of the multiverse; whether his means justified the ends that he believed only he could see. If only the pilots of the EVAs and governing powers of Dominaria could understand the threat they were facing, then they would pass control over to the paternalistic operators who believed they knew better.  

During the Brothers’ War and Evangelion, Urza and Gendo are brilliant tacticians and hold immense positions of power, but they are still only men. Mishra is the one who takes the step toward melding his body with the wonderful machines the siblings spend so much time puzzling over, but when Urza sees what becomes of his brother he reacts in horror rather than fascination. In Magic and Evangelion there is an unease in the melding of man and machine. When the operations team of NERV is exposed to the fleshy underpinnings of their mechs, they gasp and are revolted by their work. In a more forthright series, there would be a conversation between scientists and technicians at NERV on the ethics and ramifications of melding flesh and gears together to construct killing machines, but Anno allows the viewer to live in the uncomfortable scene along with the operators as blood pours from the towering mechs as they rent and bellow.

Evangelion’s Commander Gendo Ikari is a man desiring nothing more than control to accomplish his plans. Fuelled by personal tragedy, he develops the EVA program to further his aims in what can only be described as a convoluted cosmological machine set in motion that would take too long to cover in a reasonable wordcount — but the will and desires of others continually impede his progress. Despite their viscera and outpouring of blood, the Evangelions are nothing more than machines in Gendo’s hands, instead he has troubles with the adolescent pilots. Yet time and again, it is this same loss of control — or inability to see through his plans — that leads Evangelion toward its conclusion. The world that Gendo desires is not, and cannot, be accomplished by one man enacting his will on all those around him. Instead, it comes from a scared boy who, depending on your personal read of the series’ final chapters, learn to accept and love his limitations and connect with those around him.

In the time since beginning this article, Magic-Con Amsterdam was held, and players were given their first look at the new sets coming in 2027. I’m personally thrilled by all three in-universe offerings, but the timing could not be better for Titanbreach. The return of Kamigawa and Ikoria, mechs and monsters; a contest between pilotable steel constructs and feral, mortal flesh. There is a great lineage of stories that the set and narrative designers can draw from as Magic provides their own take on the mech genre. If I had control, I would want at least one giant angel to fight.