Black Gate

A short review this month simply because there’s not so much to unpack here. The Umbra Sprite, the Gracklethorns, Kevin’s wife, and Kevin’s children are all absent from this issue. Meaning that it’s just Kevin and some monster lady that we’ve never seen before (and will probably never see again).

Really, this issue is meant to tie us back to themes from Hero Discovered and Hero Defined, so if you haven’t read those titles first, none of it will make any sense to you. The Queen of the Unending Dead tells Kevin that he’s the reincarnation (or avatar) of Gilgamesh, which is something broached in Hero Defined. She also tells him that the Lord of the Hunt has a claim on his soul, which is something already suggested in Hero Discovered. Then he fights an army of zombies. Then he kills the Queen of the Unending Dead with an exploding park bench. Then he falls off a cliff. Then he gets in an argument with an ATM.

Honestly, after five issues in (I’m counting issue #0), I get why some people might start pulling out of this series. Comics are expensive, we’re in almost twenty dollars deep here, and we really haven’t gotten that much of a story yet. Yeah, Matt Wagner’s art is always crisp and vibrant, no matter what he’s drawing. But Kevin pretty much wandered away from everyone else in the plot to have a fight with yet another monster and hasn’t learned anything that he didn’t already know from the first two volumes of this series. I get that, from the title of the series, he’s not going to win this one, but it feels weird that we’ve got an antagonist who’s still making the same mistakes after all these years, partially invalidating the value of his supposed lessons in previous books.

Of course, I’m sticking around to the bitter end on this one. But if the rest of you want to save your money and come back at the end for the collected edition, I totally understand.

Mage #4 is available in print at all decent comic shops, as are back issues to volumes one and two of the series. If you prefer getting your comics digitally, then check out Mage: The Hero Discovered, Mage: The Hero Defined, and all the latest issues of Mage: The Hero Denied at Comixology.

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Michael Penkas has been a fan of Matt Wagner for longer than some of you have been alive. He’s written a dominatrix detective mystery novel, Mistress Bunny and the Cancelled Client, as well as dozens of ghost stories. He occasionally maintains a website and regularly participates at various reading events throughout Chicago.

And so the story starts moving, just as the reviews and Internet buzz for this series begins to die down. Seriously, I’ve noticed how promotion for comic books tends to really ramp up with issue 1, but fades almost immediately afterward, as if no one might be tempted to pick up issue 3 if they hadn’t already read issues 1 and 2. Generally, by the time the last issue of a series shows up, the attitude among a lot of comic fans is “Oh, are they still publishing that thing?”

So you probably didn’t hear that issue #3 of The Hero Denied came out on Wednesday, but it did and it was good. Of course, some readers have probably been put off by the slow pacing of this story. For example, the first four pages are just Kevin talking to his son, Hugo, about the nature of magic while they walk around a car and then get inside it. And it turns out that my earlier theory was correct and these attacks are taking place in a parallel world just beside the “real world.” And while Kevin insists that his abilities aren’t hereditary, the fact that Hugo is able to slip into this parallel world would suggest otherwise.

The next six pages concern two Gracklethorn sisters, Aleksi and Sasha, visiting a mission in search of the Fisher King. As established in the very first Mage series, the Fisher King can assume any shape, but that shape will always appear crippled. I get that this is supposed to show how ruthlessly they’re pursuing their quarry, but it still seemed a bit implausible that these creatures were able to murder two people in a mission in the noisiest, sloppiest manner possible without anyone else noticing. On the other hand, Matt Wagner does a nice understated job of demonstrating Sasha’s powers of persuasion.

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So, the basic setup for the new Mage series is shaping up to be similar to the previous two volumes. At least one big fight scene and LOTS of talking. Seriously, you sign up for Mage and you’re signing up for lots of dialogue. As far as the issue breakdown goes (LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD), it’s 7 pages of Kevin and Magda arguing, tucking their kids into bed, and going up to the attic; 4 pages of evil insurance adjusters literally swallowing nightmare fuel; 4 pages of Kevin and Magda talking about a magic crock pot while Hugo stares out a window; 3 pages of Kevin taking his son out for lunch; and 5 pages of Kevin fighting a pair of flaming goat-men. I’m enjoying the series so far, but fair warning, that’s the sort of issue breakdowns you’re going to get, so if you prefer more action and less chatter in your comics, then you’re probably better off passing on Mage.

Was the above paragraph filled with spoilers? Sort of, a little bit. But none of it really felt like plot development so much as plot outlining. Issue two is still very much in the “setting up the story” stage, but as with the previous issues, the magic of this series is in all of the little details. The Gracklethorns reveal that they’re even less human than they initially appear and we start getting names, as well as distinctions between the five of them. Kevin cooks dinner, implying that the domestic duties are more evenly split between Kevin and Magda than I’d thought at the end of issue one. Magda’s hesitation to leave their home is based more on not wanting to disturb some magic spells she’s brewing than on a desire for pure domesticity. And the house is a rental, meaning they don’t have as much money as they initially appeared to have. Still no clues about Kirby, Joe, or the Mage. Hugo is reading an Animorphs book, which firmly dates this story at least fifteen years in the past.

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