Return to Oz: The Emerald City of Oz by Eric Shanower & Skottie Young

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2014 (contents: 2013-2014)
Acquired and read September 2016

The Emerald City Oz
Adapted from the book by L. Frank Baum 

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Writer: Eric Shanower

Artist: Skottie Young
Colorist: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry

Emerald City is, as I recall, one of the weaker Oz novels, and this adaptation is thus kind of boring in itself, though it's not aided by the fact that while volumes 1-4 of the Marvel Oz comics each comprised eight issues, this one is only five. I'm sure there were good sales-related reasons for this, but I feel like it must have been a negative feedback loop: low sales lead to fewer issues leads to lower quality leads to lower sales. This awkward hodgepodge of a novel was probably never going to be great, but only about 100 pages to cover it makes it worse. There are two parallel stories: the Nome King plots an invasion of Oz while Dorothy travels to random places for no real reason. The characters are saved through luck and happenstance, while Dorothy's journeys are even more aimless than most, and she seems somewhat crueler than in Wonderful Wizard, with a very relaxed attitude towards causing damage, and a poor track record with respecting others. (She was politer when she was younger.)

from The Emerald City of Oz #1

Anyway, Shanower and Young do their best with the story they're given and the space they have-- one feels like Aunt Em vs. the Cowardly Lion would have got a whole page in the old days, but here it just nets three panels, alas. The creepy creatures General Guph visits during his recruiting drive are probably the best part, and it is nice to see Young get to draw almost everyone who's appeared in the series before one last time.

from The Emerald City of Oz #5

The real problem with this book is that it was the last one, and I'll never get to see Skottie Young draw my absolute favorite of Baum's original fourteen, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. That they could even have covered all of Baum's novels was always improbable, but surely they could have stretched to just one more. I have no doubt that Skottie and Scraps would have been a match made in heaven. Actually, he must have agreed, because he snuck Scraps into a variant cover for Road to Oz #1.

Next Week: Eric Shanower and Skottie Young might be done with Oz, but I'm not-- Trot and Cap'n Bill visit The Sea Fairies!