Mage: The Hero Defined, Vol. 2

Loved the characters, both the good guys and the bad. Great touch in having a different power for each of the five and not revealing the power of the fifth until near the very end. Lots of unusual and interesting concepts and visuals on display throughout this book. The artwork seems to have gotten better; not sure is a separate inker for this second half of issues was the reason or Wagner was just getting more confident in his artwork.I knew the basis of the mythos that was going on behind the scenes before I read this and I was expecting a certain assignment of roles, but was totally wrong with that, and quite pleased that an "underused" character was woven into this story and the visuals Wagner wove after the reveal. A good second half to the first of the overarching trilogy. Not sure if Wagner will do a reinterpretation of the legends within this setting, but I appreciated that I didn't recognize anything that had a direct parallel between them (or I'm not familiar enough with the early legends to see them).One annoying bit was Kevin's refusal to acknowledge his role in all this, yet he still takes a deliberate and active role of bringing the fight to the enemies.

Good book. I've read the first volume, and oddly this one is very similar. I really liked the story, but felt the art wasn't as good as volume 1. It's good just not as good.

Great trip down independent comic lane!

Good story

great trade and great service

I am aggravated with the description of this item. It is NOT the entire second story, The Hero Discovered. It is the second volume of the collected individual comics, published originally as "Mage: The Hero Defined, issues #5-8".Now I have to go find issues #0-4, and #9-15.

This book contains the second half of the first "book" of Matt Wagner's Mage trilogy. In it, Kevin Matchstick is forced to finally accept the truth of his place in the struggle against the evil Umbra Sprite, and of his place in the world. While still relatively early in his career, Wagner displays tremendous strengths and skills in terms of visual storytelling. His actual writing is very economical, but he conveys a great deal of information on each page. This has long been one of my favorite comics series, and it totally holds up to rereading today.

When you are a mythological figure and warrior, and your job, basically is to fight evil, what happens when there is not enough evil around?This is something Kevin and his fellow mythological figures such as Hercules must consider. What exactly is going on in their odd world?