Steven W. Alloway (292)
What happened back in Kansas while Dorothy was away in Oz? When Edmund, Lucy, et al. returned from Narnia, after having grown into adult kings and queens, how did they cope with reverting back to ordinary British children in the middle of World War II? There are plenty of classic stories that depict children finding their way through magical portals into strange and wonderful fantasy realms. Very few of them really deal with the real-world repercussions of such a journey. That’s what Mae does, though.
This is the final issue of Gutter Magic. After ages of searching, our hero, Cinder, has found the mysterious Oppenheimer and forces him to perform a ritual that will finally give him magic, like the rest of the family. But will the ritual work? Why is magic so fiercely guarded, and why didn’t Cinder inherit magic power, like the rest of his family did? Also, what will happen when all the havoc Cinder’s been causing to get to this point, finally catches up with him?
I’ve been trying not to compare this new Dirk Gently comic with Douglas Adams’ original novels. I’ve been trying to judge it on its own merits and pretend, as much as possible, that it’s not based on one of my favorite book series. Still, this issue makes it very difficult to continue doing that. In this issue, I’m pretty sure they gave Dirk superpowers.
In this issue of Jonesy, we get to see more of Jonesy’s dad. Having briefly met him in the first two issues, we know that he’s the owner of a successful donut restaurant (not a donut shop), and he loves terrible puns. Now, we get to see a bit more of his history and daily life. He’s a total dork and definitely my favorite character of the comic.
Our two star-crossed lovers, Mali and Tessa, are still on the run from . . . what seems like just about everyone on the planet. Really, it’s just the ones who are part of the mysterious and eternal war, but there are enough of them that it seems like everyone. Everywhere they go, they’re ambushed by someone—often whole groups of someones—looking to kill them or capture them for their disobedience to the cause.
The Maids of Wrath is the sequel to last year’s Enter the Janitor—a quirky fantasy/adventure about a secret group of people tasked with literally cleaning up the evil in the world. In Maids, we get to explore further the world of The Cleaners and its inner workings, as trouble stems from inside the organization itself.
This is the penultimate issue of Trista & Holt, and it’s a doozy. Trista has been kidnapped and is now being driven to who knows where. The opening of this adventure is Trista’s inner monologue as she tries to figure out what has happened to her and piece together what her captors are saying.
There’s a whole lot going on in Super Hero Resources. Taking place at an office building full of superheroes, practically the entire first issue is simply a guided tour of that building, introducing us to a new character practically every panel. Just about all of them end up coming up again over the course of the comic, each with their own subplot. It’s interesting but can also be a bit overwhelming if you’re not prepared for it.
At this point, I’ve reviewed several of these collections of Superman’s Sunday newspaper comics. My general takeaway up to this point is that they portray the Man of Steel as a bored god. He’s powerful enough to stop any crime or solve any problem easily. Therefore, in between stopping petty thieves, he uses his limitless power to help ordinary citizens with their mundane problems in bizarre and creative ways. Or, when even that wears thin, he takes ridiculous challenges set before him by people wanting a display of his power—or sets similar ridiculous challenges for himself.
The first thing you’ll notice about this issue is that it has Edgar Allen Poe on the cover. If you’ve been reading Future Proof up to this point, this might give you pause for a moment. After all, the previous issue, which ended on a cliffhanger, had our heroes in the Nixon administration, helping to fake the moon landing.
