Cartoonist – Stan Sakai (backup w. Julie Fuji Sakai)
Cover Colors – Tom Luth
Believe it or not, Usagi Yojimbo turned 30 this year. (Don’t tell him he’s a millennial). When the epic finally wraps, it should enter a fairly unique club. Along with Jeff Smith’s Bone, the Hernandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets, and (yes, fine, begrudgingly) Dave Sim’s Cerebus, Usagi Yojimbo holds a fairly strong claim to the title of definitive creator owned comic. In fact, I would contend it easily beats our two of the other three contendors since Sakai neither sold his creation to Scholastic (no judgement, just a disqualification in this particular barstool debate, though Usagi made his way into our living rooms as part of the extended TMNT cast) nor . . . how should I put this . . . got weird (??) (sorry, Dave). Along with Love and Rockets, Sakai’s commitment is remarkable and consistent.
Full disclosure: I am predisposed to love this book. When I first discovered Mage: The Hero Defined, the second “arc” in Wagner’s opus, I was at a formative position in my life. It was near the end of my freshman year in high school, and I was branching into all things independent. There’s a certain punk-rock or independent spirit about Wagner’s story, and that resonated with me in ways that are beyond qualification. So if I gush, sue me.*
What has always attracted me to both Wagner’s art and writing is that it seems simultaneously effortless and intricately planned.
This issue follows on the heels of last month’s zero issue that heralded the return of Kevin Matchstick/Pendragon. If you missed the primer, it’s not going to detract from this issue at all. # 1 is almost entirely exposition, as Kevin and his son, Hugo, (a concept that hits home even more intensely since this book is a collaborative effort between Wagner and his son who serves as colorist) stroll through a park in this new community, seemingly years since the events that conclude “The Hero Defined,” tempting fate with proclamations of contentedness.
This is a difficult issue. I mean that qualification to explain both composition and analysis. The last Mage series debuted ten years ago. A key demographic had yet to pick up comics at that point. Stretching back even further, the series first launched under the auspices of Comico in 1986. There’s a significant chunk of that fanbase who may have left comics. Wagner thus has a bit of a dilemma to encounter. He is a comics maverick, to an extent. He more or less follows his own lead, and he approaches projects with a unique perspective. That having been said, he needs to do something to appeal to a new reader. It is a #1 issue after all.
What Wagner does to make issue one friendly both to new readers and fans whose memories aren’t as strong is immediately hit the major tropes of the series. Trouble will follow Kevin Matchstick. He isn’t entitled to a normal life. In lesser hands, and perhaps sans context, this would seem somewhat played. Ok, a new volume has started, and . . . great, the same things are happening. I get it, and I wouldn’t entirely dismiss this criticism. What I would do, though, is encourage the reader to think about the nature of the inevitable disruption of Matchstick and company’s idyllic suburban life. Wagner almost goes out of his way to establish the peacefulness of Kevin’s new life, which can seem like a somewhat cheap, telegraphed plot device out of a corny movie preview: “In a world where Kevin Matchstick finally found peace . . .”
But that’s not what happens here. Wagner works to establish a juxtaposition, not a lamely telegraphed and all to brief foreshadowing. At the point that Kevin and clan have achieved peak mundanity, between strolls through the park in autumn and spousal arguments about repairmen, conflict thrusts itself to the forefront. For new readers, this device works to establish immediate tension. For returning readers, it allows for a meditation about the first two arcs of the trilogy.
In order to advance the conflict without rushing the plot, Wagner draws on familiar tropes, namely the bond between a father and son.
Ultimately, Mage: The Hero Denied #1 functions exactly as needed. It establishes a certain immediacy and allows Wagner to jump directly into the action a mere five pages into the story. Wagner picks up tropes familiar to any reader, nay human – familial bonds and the existential dilemma. Life, for Kevin Matchstick, must be defined by the hero cycle. Wagner’s first issue in his return to his semi-autobiographical epic certainly made me excited for the next fourteen installments, and that’s truly the best kind of analysis you can give to any first issue.
*In the 90s, independent things were, paradoxically, becoming mainstream. Built on the back of the various underground movements in the 70s and 80s, independent concepts broke through in the 90s, and comics were no exception. Image launched more as an alternative than an independent. And I think it still occupies a similar position today. It started, with some exceptions, as an independent publisher of mainstream style superhero books. Gradually, though, Image diversified its lineup, and books like Mage helped to foster that transition.
hyperbolic nostalgia 