The Hero, Discussed
This is the final issue of Mage: The Hero Denied, which is in turn the final series within the overall Mage trilogy. Mage: The Hero Discovered (sometimes called Mage I) first came out in 1984, and in it, Wagner told fans that he would soon write Mage II and III, The Hero Defined and The Hero Denied. Fans eagerly awaited the next installments, and regularly asked when they should expect their publication.
It took a little longer than originally planned, and ended up working out something like the Star Wars trilogies. Mage II eventually came out starting in 1997 and Mage III began in 2017; the entire cycle took 35 years to complete (and ended on my birthday!). (There was also an enjoyable interlude that took place between Mage I and II in the back of Wagner’s Grendel comic.) The reason for the delay was that Wagner decided he wanted to actually be the age of the character at the different points in the character’s life, so he could realistically portray the issues the character was going through. Matchstick doesn't just look like Wagner--he's an allegorical stand-in for him, and wrestles with some of the daily life challenges and philosophical issues that Wagner has gone through.
It’s impossible for me to talk about this trilogy without talking about how I related to it personally. Mage I was one of the most personally-influential comics I have ever read. I devoured it in my teens as it was coming out, and moved on to read Grendel, also an amazing series. I remember arguing with myself about buying issue 2, which cost more than any back issue I had ever bought at the time ($10 or $12), but it was just too captivating to not buy every issue. The writing was fantastic, the characters fully-realized, the stakes felt real, the art was compelling and enjoyably idiosyncratic. I loved Wagner’s linework and his use of color—which is interesting, because Wagner wasn't always happy with it, and changed the coloring a couple times. He started out using mostly watercolors, then he recolored the early issues with some airbrush to match the way the later issues of Discovered were colored. Both coloring styles were very unusual and felt unique, passionate, atmospheric, experimental. Getting back to the characters, without giving too much away, there are some major character deaths that are very powerful and feel real. The villains are entertaining and even though they all look the same (on purpose), their different personalities come through in a vital way.
I had a Mage t-shirt (back when comic t-shirts were really not a thing), and wore it for literally decades. Mage made me want to make comics. My sketchbook was full of imitative Wagnerisms. Mage was personal, it was epic, it was (to me) one of the pivotal mid-80s comics that really signaled how the industry was changing into something new and sophisticated, along with its often-referenced peers Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and the less-referenced but also fantastic Moonshadow. It was that good. And while it was made by a small and dysfunctional company, and was no means a runaway commercial hit, it certainly attracted its legions of obsessed hardcore fans, who couldn’t wait for Mage II.
Well, Mage II took a while. But that’s reasonable. I understand and appreciate the reasons why Wagner waited. But unfortunately, Mage II didn’t pack the power of Mage I. It was enjoyable. But there was nothing about it that shot me to the moon. The writing was OK, the art was OK. Wagner had intentionally switched to a more cartoony style of drawing, and the color was more typical for a mainstream comic. To be honest, it got a little too explicit about his powers, which left less mystery and made him more like other superheroes. The series lost its idiosyncrasy. Characters died, but honestly I didn’t care too much. There were villains, including the return of my favorite from Discovered, but they didn’t suck me in. Part of the challenge is built in to the structure of the story: Discovered is the story of a young man stuck between cynicism and idealism. It’s tailor-made for a teen to identify with. Defined is the story of that same guy, who has now accepted his power, and become a little too full of himself in the process. It’s a tragedy of hubris, relating how his arrogance blinds and hobbles him. A classic dynamic, but it doesn't suck you in like the passions of post-teen angst and discovering your true self. I was aging at the same rate as Wagner. I had my own issues with growing up at the time, trying to find my way in the world, and dealing with the conflict of expectations and reality. But it just didn’t do much for me. It felt flat. If the art had been just a tad bit more powerful and invested in, if the characters were just a tad bit more fleshed out, maybe it would have. But they weren’t, and a story that I had waited many years for just didn’t live up to expectations or potential. Now, expectations are sometimes unfair. The Star Wars prequel trilogy went through the same thing; it didn’t live up to the hopes of its fans who had waited since Return of the Jedi. Partly fairly, since the prequels had story problems on an objective level, but also partly unfairly, since nothing could live up to that hype. Mage suffered from both those dynamics.
I should note that in the meantime, Wagner continued to put out a variety of other comics, and went from obscurity to a fairly prominent creator. He made some great Batman comics, including two Batman/Grendel crossovers, and several other interesting comics, such as Sandman Mystery Theater. For years, I collected everything he wrote or drew. Grendel was really experimental and interesting; he did the writing, others did the art. Grendel has had its ups and downs, especially in the ‘90s. But overall, you could see he still had his magic as a writer and an artist. I should also note that while there were clearly a number of other fans who felt the same way I did about Mage II, others were very happy with it.
But it was OK, because there was always Mage III. The second in a series is often a low point, a middle ground without the automatic built-in excitement of beginning or end. The final Star Wars trilogy has been very good so far, so it was possible Mage III could turn around and bring it all home with a bang too. I even cosplayed as a Mage character, keeping the spirit alive.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel Mage III reached the heights of Discovered. (Again, some other fans disagree, as is their right.) The art and writing continued to be average at best. If anything, Mage III was a slight downward slide from Mage II. The writing became less involving, even when dealing with major crises, like having family members in danger. In fact, when that happened, it felt manipulative rather than real. The story just felt flat. The art became even more cartoony, and not in a good way. I should note that I don’t need art to be photo-realistic. I enjoy all kinds of approaches to art, and Wagner’s drawing has always been stylized. But in Mage III, its looseness just feels lazy. I’m not saying Wagner actually was lazy; you can tell he cared a lot about this series from the letters pages. But the imagery feels lazy; the linework is uninspired, the facial expressions are simplistic, even the proportions and perspective are poor at times. And unfortunately, the color did not improve. In this series, Wagner brought on his son as colorist. A very cool thing for any father to be able to do, but it did nothing for the artwork. It was very mainstream, and created no sense of atmosphere. It was, essentially, kind of dull. It's hard to overstate how much more interesting the color is in Discovered compared to the other two. Interestingly, in a goodbye page at the end of Denied 15, Wagner is sitting on a bunch of original inked art from the series, and the drawing on those pages looks much stronger than it does in the printed comic. It may be that if it stayed black and white, or had a different approach to color, the art wouldn’t have felt so lackluster.
In terms of how Denied capped off the whole series in terms of plot and theme, it was likewise not particularly interesting. The villains were retreads of the villains from Discovered, but here Wagner resorted to having them all based on the Spice Girls, something that never rose above being a gimmick. Matchstick interacts with his two children through the story, but they never feel real; they’re cartoonified, flattened versions of real kids to a depressing degree. It’s fine to change styles from book to book, but given the tragic theme attached to this arc in general, and the fact that we’re supposed to care about the fact that the kids are constantly in danger, “more cartoony” seems like the wrong direction to go. I never bought them as real people for a moment; they wer like someone’s idea of kids who never had kids. Which is doubly frustrating, because the whole point in waiting so long for Mage III was so Wagner really had these experiences, and he did indeed have kids. The story also deals with the final resolution of the villains trying to catch the Fisher King, who has been largely only rumored-about since Discovered. However, the Fisher King ends up being pretty cheesy, and essentially nothing interesting happens with him during the climax. It’s like after 3 series, Wagner just couldn’t think of what to do with him. A few similar situations had no payoff: an appearance by a Questing Beast ended up not being all that important; a scene where one of his kids eats fairy food against all warnings ends up being a minor plot point at the very end—so late that I thought maybe Wagner forgot about it or just decided not to deal with it; Kevin’s “third mage” (which is, after all, the name of the series), a long-awaited reveal, wasn’t all that interesting. The first mage, Mirth, was a really key character in Mage I, both in terms of plot, and just because he’s fun. He was replaced (sort of) in Mage II by Wally Ut, who never had the same charisma even though he tried. In Mage III, Mirth and the mage in general is largely missing throughout the series, to its detriment. The best parts of Mage I deal with the dynamic between Kevin and Mirth; that relationship is never replaced with anything of equal value in II and III, and its absence is felt quite keenly. Most annoyingly, to my mind, is the long-heralded “denied” part of the title. The idea here is that Kevin would go through the various stages of being a hero, from being discovered, to being defined, to being denied. Frustratingly, the point at which he finally became “defined” really only happened at the very end of Mage II, so we didn’t really get to see Kevin deal with his truly, maturely-defined identity (as opposed to what he thought was the definition of his heroism for most of the series). What did it mean to him for his heroism to be truly defined? Defined needed more of a denouement to spell this out. Mage III is the same, but worse. In this case, there was some ambiguity ahead of time as to what “denied” might mean. He could have his heroism denied by an outside force, or he could deny it himself. But really, he is very accepting of his hero identity through the series, and it’s only at the very, very end where that identity is denied, and honestly, it’s through a completely contingent plot point, and if anything is a bridge to happiness of a different kind. Sure, he more or less loses his power when he beats the bad guys. But that’s kind of rote and expected, and doesn't feel like being denied as much as a typical heroic self-sacrifice. It’s what comes after that, where he loses the last tidbit, that is probably supposed to feel really important but just feels random, and has no stakes for him.
OK, one more issue. In Discovered, Kevin finds out that he is the modern incarnation of King Arthur, and his baseball bat is actually Excalibur. (I probably should have mentioned that earlier.) But at the end of Defined, it turns out that he is also the incarnation of Gilgamesh, and maybe others. This seems like the foundations of a fruitful change in the story. You could do a lot with Kevin's exploration of other kinds of heroism, other kinds of cultural awareness. However, this whole “multiple heroes” thing goes almost entirely uninvestigated in Denied. Kevin pulls out all kind of cool tricks with his Excalibur power (again, a little too typically super-hero-y), but never tries anything unique to Gilgamesh.
Overall, the story is fine. The art is fine. I plan to re-read the entire trilogy from beginning to end, and who knows, maybe its effect will be different that way. But while I would recommend The Hero Discovered in a heartbeat to anyone who loves comics, and as a way to suck non-readers into comics, I would leave Defined and Denied to the most avid fans of Mage I.