35 years after he began his journey, Matt Wagner draws the story of Mage to a close, at least for now, in today’s Mage: The Hero Denied #15.
At this point, you likely know whether it was worth the wait. After more than a year’s worth of comics leading up to the finale and decades of Mage stories setting the stage for the issue, there is little we can do to influence your decision one way or another, but let’s dig into the issue and try to take it on its own merits.
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If there is one thing that this entry is not, it’s shallow. Mage: The Hero Denied ends on an issue that is (like the others in the series) oversized, but also densely packed with expository dialogue and mythology. Despite all of that mythology, the stakes of the story remain fairly grounded, with the Matchstick family constantly under threat as much or more than the cosmic balance itself is. This means that at any given time, the heroes may make poor decisions, because, in spite of years of experience and a destiny to be fulfilled, there is love, passion, and family to be accounted for in the course of making decisions.
That lends not just a visceral quality to the fights in the book but also a sense of intimacy. Like Terry Moore’s recent finale to Strangers in Paradise XXV, the book uses the heroes’ children effectively — not as simple bait or hostages but as part of a more general, primal threat that makes the writing feel more genuine, and the desperation and emotion of the art feel sharper.
A high point of the art is the colors by Brennan Wagner; they feel like just a shade removed from the classic look of the original Mage comics, albeit updated slightly for the modern era, but not so contemporary as to alienate them from the older books in the event of an omnibus or something of the like down the line.
The letters by Dave Lanphear similarly feel both top-notch and also like a throwback to the era of hand-lettering, creating a kind of authenticity that will make the Mage epic read better in a single shot than one might otherwise expect.
There is something primal and elemental about the disposition of the story, which will either delight or bore readers, and there is not much in the way of a middle ground. The “twist” is something we have seen before a lot of times, but Wagner executes it well, and it feels entirely organic to the story he is telling.
The fact that Mage is a retelling of the Arthur myth also means that indulging in tropes is hardly an indictment of it; Arthur is a standard-setting story for so much of contemporary Western fiction that it would almost be more surprising if the ending wasn’t a little bit “safe.”
Ultimately, the ending of the Mage trilogy is satisfying, offering a conclusion if that is what Wagner wants, and setting up the potential of future stories — either those he will tell or at least just the implication that they will be there. After all, as one of the characters is told in the final pages of the series, “you’ll always lead a heroic life.”
Published by Image Comics
On February 27, 2019
Written by Matt Wagner
Art by Matt Wagner
Colors by Brennan Wagner
Letters by Dave Lanphear
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