Things don’t get better but at least it stabilizes a bit.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Wagner
Art: Matt Wagner
Colors: Brennan Wagner
Letterer: David Lanphear
What They Say:
Kevin Matchstick’s obsessive search for a mysterious creature has left his family vulnerable to attack from the Fairy Realms, even as the Umbra Sprite’s bounty on the Pendragon’s head leads to disaster. Faced with the unthinkable, Kevin must fight off devastating despair if his family has any hope to survive.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The path of the Mage series has felt a bit off to some degree but with its expanded run here it’s not rushing to do a lot of things quickly, which can feel a bit off-putting at times. Matt Wagner is taking us through some mild reconnects along the way but it’s mostly just exposing us to the here and now of Kevin and his family, though some of it feels out of tune with how such stories are often presented today since it’s largely Kevin-focused. The plus side is that there’s a lot of great artwork and design material here and it continues to be fun to see how Kevin is handling life on this side of everything, particularly since I find him to be rather frustrating and serving as a reminder of how to not handle that particular age.
The two track focus is fully in play here with each side proving to be a good bit of fun. For Kevin, he’s still in quite a state having seen what happened to his family being taken away and that has him dealing with the ogre. He’s pretty intense in a calm kind of way in wanting answers but the creature just isn’t offering anything beyond the one or two lines that it has, resulting in Kevin just reaching his limit – particularly when he discovers Miranda on this side crying over the loss of the cat and using some of her abilities. Kevin’s use of his own abilities is pretty great to see here as he steps up his game upon reaching the limits of his patience and it plays very well in establishing once again that despite appearances he’s a formidable opponent. The ogre may not seem like much but it is for most people.
Magda’s capture by the Gracklethorns has some good material as well as she knows that based on how events have played out that staying alive (and knowing Kevin is alive thanks to the wedding ring) is the important thing as is reconnecting with the family. That it doesn’t devolve to a fight was a welcome bit of writing, though Hugo shows his youthful naivete when he’s brought to her and tries to just run out the door into the emptiness that exists. It’s a magical world, kid! I’m hopeful that these two don’t just end up sidelined because of this part of the story though. What I did like a lot more on the Gracklethorn side is that we get Karol and Aleski having seen what Kevin was doing with the ogre and reporting back. Karol is really impacted by it, understanding what Kevin is capable of, while Aleksi just writes him off. Karol is more in line with the boss, though, and that’s going to give her at least a little bit of an edge.
In Summary:
The stage is set to move forward more now in a couple of ways and while this is somewhat of a transitional issue it feels like it’s starting to really accelerate in a good way. The two-track approach works well enough here with each side offering plenty of good story material with unique bits to both as it draws the main opposing sides of the story closer together. I really enjoyed seeing Kevin dealing with the ogre in an annoyed way for a while before getting serious while watching how Magda handles her captors was spot on in avoiding just being a problem and getting to smack someone around before being smacked down herself. I definitely had fun with the issue and just love looking at the artwork, which I think is becoming even better as Brennan Wagner gets further into the run with its color design.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Image Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 18th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
