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A Movie Version of Matt Wagner's Mage is Back in the Works

The lightning baseball bat takes a swing at the big screen.

 Levin also stressed the innate appeal of a super baseball bat.
 Levin also stressed the innate appeal of a super baseball bat.

Hailed as one of the best comics of the 80s, MAGE might finally be getting a swing at the big screen. Variety’s reporting that producer Lloyd Levin, who’s been behind a host of comic-based movies like WATCHMEN, THE ROCKETEER, MYSTERY MEN and the HELLBOY movies, has just acquired the rights to Matt Wagner’s comic. Interestingly, WATCHMEN director, Zack Snyder, was actually attached to direct a version of MAGE for a few years, but those plans seem to have changed.

Many of you Comic Vine maniacs might be more familiar with Matt Wagner through his fairly-recent work on TRINITY for DC, but it’s MAGE (and its sister title, GRENDEL) that’s really defined the cartoonist. The series started in ’84 and it was about a regular joe, Kevin Matchstick, who becomes something of an off-beat, modern King Arthur. Swap Merlin for a wizard named Mirth, Modred for a menace called the Umbra Sprite and the sword Excalibur for baseball bat made of lightning, and you have one of the most memorable stories in the history of comics.  == TEASER ==

Most memorable, and frustratingly unfinished, actually. This mega series is intended to be comprised of three 15 issue volumes. The first, THE HERO DISCOVERED, ran in the 80s. The second, THE HERO DEFINED, ran in the 90s. But we’re still waiting on the final volume, THE HERO DENIED. Hopefully this will get Wagner to finally finish his opus. He's certainly pretty excited about the prospect of the movie.

In his words...

"It's a great that Lloyd is taking on this material because his approach (to comicbooks) is to capture the essence of the original source material…The timing is good, too, because in the past, (filmmakers) tried to fix the material. Now they try to adhere to the material."

That's definitely true,if you look at Levin's track record. Out of all the comics-based properties he's adapted, MYSTERY MEN's probably the only one to take significant liberties with the source material.
 
Anyway, do we have any MAGE fans in the Comic Vine community? Would you want to see this? Who would YOU cast as the Matchstick-man? And if you haven't heard of this before, are you intrigued to check it out now?
 
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here.