New Comics!

 Some new Oz comics in! Let's take a look

The Legend of Oz: The Wicked West #1 The first issue of an ongoing series following up from the successful miniseries.

With "Gale" and the Wicked Witch gone, there's uncertainty and unrest in the Land of Oz. Tin Man's now being forced to take orders from General Jinjur (who's taking control of the Emerald City) while Scarecrow and Lion are in prison.

The comic has some really great dialogue and shows a few scenes that we missed in the beginning of the miniseries. This first issues serves as a transition between this old west take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and now The Marvelous Land of Oz. It looks to be quite worth sticking around for!

In other comics, Marvel's series of adaptations of L. Frank Baum's Oz books continues with The Road to Oz #3. There's been a few changes in how the series has been put out: Road is only six issues, and according to an interview with Shanower, it seems this will be a new norm for the series, meaning that the stories will be squeezed into fewer issues. This doesn't really pose much of a problem for Road, since a quick pace helps the story, but with stories like The Patchwork Girl of Oz, there might be more concerns on how to condense it.

I haven't commented on the series much (despite buying each issue and the hardcover collections), because I'm rather loathe to admit that while Shanower adapts the story well and occasionally adds nice additional dialogue (issue #1 of Road had the Shaggy Man quip "Unusual weather we're having" when it begins to snow outside Foxville), the real star of the series has been Skottie Young.

Skottie's unorthodox and cartoonish (sometimes bordering on bizarre) take on Oz has proved a refreshing look at our favorite fairyland. While I still picture Neill's depictions when I think of Oz, Skottie's interpretations are charming in their own whimsical way. It offers more fun to these wonderful stories, though he can't break entirely away from Neill (e.g.: Ozma). I really enjoyed his new look at Allegro DaCapo (aka The Musicker) in this issue, and the Scoodlers are appropriately menacing.

Hey, next issue, Johnny Dooit and the Sand Boat! I wonder how Skottie will depict the visiting dignitaries...