All-Ages Reviews: Marvel's Oz Adaptations
We move from licensed works last time to full on adaptations today as we take a look at a comic version of the amazing, imaginative world of Oz.
L. Frank Baum’s series of books based in the land of Oz are classics of children’s literature and have even gone on to inspire other great works, such as the 1939 movie adaption of the first book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” These books are so iconic that the characters and settings and general plot of the first book are familiar to people around the world. Although it seems there may be a recent upswing in adaptations of the books with two different movies headed to the big screen and several written adaptations currently running, it’s a rare thing to find a time when no versions of Oz stories are being made. Recently, and still ongoing, Marvel comics has waded into the ring with their own entry, written by Eric Shanower and illustrated by Skottie Young.
Now I have to confess that it was Skottie Young’s art that got me to pick this up in the first place. I first saw his art on Marvel covers, and then picked up the mini series “X-Babies” based solely on the fact that he'd drawn it (and oh yes, we will get to that), so when news of this series came up, I had to give it a try. This may seem a bit strange if you’ve been paying attention to the types of things that I point out as examples of the kind of art I personally prefer. It tends to be stylized and cartoony, but generally follows the rules of proportions and has neat linework and coloring. Skottie Young’s art, on the other hand, is often wild, somewhat sketchy, and generally all over the place, but I love it anyway. His work has a wonderfully quirky sense of design to it - like Tim Burton without all the goth - and his characters are so expressive and animated while the settings are detailed and immersive.
Brilliant first words there, Jack.
It seemed like a perfect fit right off the bat. Young’s designs fit in perfectly in the off-kilter world of Oz. His style is full of a sort of energy and that energy is put into all the characters, really bringing the world of Oz to life even though the illustrations are still. He’s designed all the characters in a way that differentiates them from the various film adaptations, and yet are still completely recognizable to anyone coming in. (Well…except Tik-tok, he looks similar to the movie, but since Disney made that one, I doubt it was a problem.)
Also,I would buy this as a poster...just sayin'
On the writing side, it’s a little different from the normal stories that I’ve talked about. This isn’t a unique story, it’s an adaptation of an already existing one - one that’s already been adapted rather famously. So you'll see a lot of things that you'll come across in this comic that you already know.
This could go around in circles for hours...
If your only exposure to the Oz series, however, is the movie, you may notice several changes in these books. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the ’39 movie, I consider it a classic film and one I personally really enjoy, but like so many adaptations, it took a lot of liberties with the original story - most were obviously for time reasons, though they really altered the ending, and the shoes were supposed to be silver (red was more visible). This comic, on the other hand, sticks pretty close to the source material, so there are plenty of scenes in this version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” that may be very unfamiliar.
The characters actually have backstories for one...
The actual writing is difficult to judge. I haven’t read the original books myself (blasphemy, I know) so I don’t know how much of the dialogue was lifted directly from the book and how much of it was Shanower’s creation. Judging the comics solely by themselves, I will say that at times the stories feel a bit rushed, things that seem like they might take pages get glossed over in a couple of panels - again, this might be an issue of time. On the other hand, though, there’s a wonderfully deadpan delivery that everyone in these books give to all of their lines. It’s the sort of writing you often see in older children’s fantasy, where impossible things are just accepted and the most anyone seems to protest anything is to calmly say, “well, that’s strange,” rather than the “OH MY GOD, WHY IS THAT COUCH TALKING TO ME?!” that real people would do. (Of course using a magnifying glass on a bug will make it bigger, what else would it do?) The dialogue can really get you as well, since it’s all played so straight, when a character comes out with a good, snarky reply, it catches you off-guard and really makes it hit a lot harder.
It's too long to show much but the intro, but this entire scene between Scarecrow and Jack is golden.
The adventures are a little simplistic and the characters don’t really see a lot of development throughout the books. It doesn’t really seem like that’s the point, though, so it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of them too much. The point seems to be just to explore the strange and quirky world of Oz, and all the good and bad things that you may find along the way. It’s wonderful as well to have stories where the lessons are so blatently obvious, and yet the narrative never spells them out for you. It’s a good lesson in reading for kids - that there may be more in books than is explicitly said - and for adults, they're written in a very light, self-aware way, which keeps it squarely in the "amusing" rather than "annoying" territory.
In the next scene the lion skydives from the moon while lamenting that if only he had courage, he wouldn't need a parachute.
I’m sorry if this review seems a bit short, but there’s not much point in discussing the story and characters of the world of Oz, since pretty much everyone already knows them - for the first book anyway. Would I recommend these adaptions? Absolutely. I’ve read and seen a lot of different versions of these stories over the years, and while I’ve enjoyed a number of them, I think this might be the best version of this story outside of the original books. It’s very faithful to the originals, but it puts its own spin on them as well and with Skottie Young’s imaginative style, there’s always something wonderful to look at.
Whether or not it makes any sense...
Currently Marvel has released four of the books: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, “The Marvelous Land of Oz”, “Ozma of Oz”, and “Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz”, with “Road to Oz” still running in issues. At the moment, my favorite of them is “Marvelous Land of Oz” which I feel bad about since it’s the only one so far not to feature Dorothy and it makes it sound like I don’t like her - not true, I just found many of the side characters in that one hilarious, and the central story is a bit more compelling. That said, I haven’t disliked one yet, and “Road to Oz” is shaping up to be pretty awesome. If you have an interest in the world of Oz, if you want to know more of the original Oz stories and like Skottie Young's take visually, or if you just want to introduce these classics to a kid you're not sure you can get to read, I would say get these. I don’t think readers of any age will be disappointed.
((All scans were taken from "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "Marvelous Land of Oz" since I didn't want to go through ALL the books for scans.))
Next time we'll look into "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" though don't expect to see it until after the holidays.
L. Frank Baum’s series of books based in the land of Oz are classics of children’s literature and have even gone on to inspire other great works, such as the 1939 movie adaption of the first book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” These books are so iconic that the characters and settings and general plot of the first book are familiar to people around the world. Although it seems there may be a recent upswing in adaptations of the books with two different movies headed to the big screen and several written adaptations currently running, it’s a rare thing to find a time when no versions of Oz stories are being made. Recently, and still ongoing, Marvel comics has waded into the ring with their own entry, written by Eric Shanower and illustrated by Skottie Young.
Now I have to confess that it was Skottie Young’s art that got me to pick this up in the first place. I first saw his art on Marvel covers, and then picked up the mini series “X-Babies” based solely on the fact that he'd drawn it (and oh yes, we will get to that), so when news of this series came up, I had to give it a try. This may seem a bit strange if you’ve been paying attention to the types of things that I point out as examples of the kind of art I personally prefer. It tends to be stylized and cartoony, but generally follows the rules of proportions and has neat linework and coloring. Skottie Young’s art, on the other hand, is often wild, somewhat sketchy, and generally all over the place, but I love it anyway. His work has a wonderfully quirky sense of design to it - like Tim Burton without all the goth - and his characters are so expressive and animated while the settings are detailed and immersive.
Brilliant first words there, Jack.
It seemed like a perfect fit right off the bat. Young’s designs fit in perfectly in the off-kilter world of Oz. His style is full of a sort of energy and that energy is put into all the characters, really bringing the world of Oz to life even though the illustrations are still. He’s designed all the characters in a way that differentiates them from the various film adaptations, and yet are still completely recognizable to anyone coming in. (Well…except Tik-tok, he looks similar to the movie, but since Disney made that one, I doubt it was a problem.)
Also,I would buy this as a poster...just sayin'
On the writing side, it’s a little different from the normal stories that I’ve talked about. This isn’t a unique story, it’s an adaptation of an already existing one - one that’s already been adapted rather famously. So you'll see a lot of things that you'll come across in this comic that you already know.
This could go around in circles for hours...
If your only exposure to the Oz series, however, is the movie, you may notice several changes in these books. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the ’39 movie, I consider it a classic film and one I personally really enjoy, but like so many adaptations, it took a lot of liberties with the original story - most were obviously for time reasons, though they really altered the ending, and the shoes were supposed to be silver (red was more visible). This comic, on the other hand, sticks pretty close to the source material, so there are plenty of scenes in this version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” that may be very unfamiliar.
The characters actually have backstories for one...
The actual writing is difficult to judge. I haven’t read the original books myself (blasphemy, I know) so I don’t know how much of the dialogue was lifted directly from the book and how much of it was Shanower’s creation. Judging the comics solely by themselves, I will say that at times the stories feel a bit rushed, things that seem like they might take pages get glossed over in a couple of panels - again, this might be an issue of time. On the other hand, though, there’s a wonderfully deadpan delivery that everyone in these books give to all of their lines. It’s the sort of writing you often see in older children’s fantasy, where impossible things are just accepted and the most anyone seems to protest anything is to calmly say, “well, that’s strange,” rather than the “OH MY GOD, WHY IS THAT COUCH TALKING TO ME?!” that real people would do. (Of course using a magnifying glass on a bug will make it bigger, what else would it do?) The dialogue can really get you as well, since it’s all played so straight, when a character comes out with a good, snarky reply, it catches you off-guard and really makes it hit a lot harder.
It's too long to show much but the intro, but this entire scene between Scarecrow and Jack is golden.
The adventures are a little simplistic and the characters don’t really see a lot of development throughout the books. It doesn’t really seem like that’s the point, though, so it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of them too much. The point seems to be just to explore the strange and quirky world of Oz, and all the good and bad things that you may find along the way. It’s wonderful as well to have stories where the lessons are so blatently obvious, and yet the narrative never spells them out for you. It’s a good lesson in reading for kids - that there may be more in books than is explicitly said - and for adults, they're written in a very light, self-aware way, which keeps it squarely in the "amusing" rather than "annoying" territory.
In the next scene the lion skydives from the moon while lamenting that if only he had courage, he wouldn't need a parachute.
I’m sorry if this review seems a bit short, but there’s not much point in discussing the story and characters of the world of Oz, since pretty much everyone already knows them - for the first book anyway. Would I recommend these adaptions? Absolutely. I’ve read and seen a lot of different versions of these stories over the years, and while I’ve enjoyed a number of them, I think this might be the best version of this story outside of the original books. It’s very faithful to the originals, but it puts its own spin on them as well and with Skottie Young’s imaginative style, there’s always something wonderful to look at.
Whether or not it makes any sense...
Currently Marvel has released four of the books: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, “The Marvelous Land of Oz”, “Ozma of Oz”, and “Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz”, with “Road to Oz” still running in issues. At the moment, my favorite of them is “Marvelous Land of Oz” which I feel bad about since it’s the only one so far not to feature Dorothy and it makes it sound like I don’t like her - not true, I just found many of the side characters in that one hilarious, and the central story is a bit more compelling. That said, I haven’t disliked one yet, and “Road to Oz” is shaping up to be pretty awesome. If you have an interest in the world of Oz, if you want to know more of the original Oz stories and like Skottie Young's take visually, or if you just want to introduce these classics to a kid you're not sure you can get to read, I would say get these. I don’t think readers of any age will be disappointed.
((All scans were taken from "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "Marvelous Land of Oz" since I didn't want to go through ALL the books for scans.))
Next time we'll look into "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" though don't expect to see it until after the holidays.