Mage is an American superhero comic book written and illustrated by Matt Wagner, which he describes as an "allegorical autobiography" in which the hero, Kevin Matchstick, is a stand-in for the author, and "[a]ll the other characters he encounters and situations he endures are metaphors from my own life... told through the lens of a fantasy adventure".

Despite advertisements saying that a sequel was "coming soon", The Hero Defined did not appear until 1997, published by Image Comics (Comico had gone bankrupt in 1990, and it had taken some time for Wagner to regain the rights to the series).

He ultimately discovers that Mirth is Merlin, the baseball bat is Excalibur, and he is, in some ambiguous way, King Arthur.

In the course of the story Matchstick learns that he has misunderstood his mission, meets his future wife, and is alienated from his fellow heroes.

The chapter titles of The Hero Defined are from Macbeth,[5] and Matchstick's wife and her siblings are heavily based on the Weird Sisters.

1 was a top votegetter for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Album for 1999.