Comic Review: Oz/Wonderland Kids

Buy Me Toys decided to open their crossover series of The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles to a wider audience by coming out this spring with an all-ages spinoff, Oz/Wonderland Kids. Written by Oz/Wonderland regular Ben Avery, and drawn by newcomer Alan Schell, this is supposed to be a 3-issue mini-series.

Taking place in a storyline seperate from the regular Oz/Wonderland comics, Dorothy is in Oz having a tea party with Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man. The White Rabbit appears and gets chased by Toto. Dorothy follows after them, and sees them passing through a mirror in the middle of the Yellow Brick Road. It leads her to Wonderland where she encounters a few of the natives like the Tweedles and card soldiers. The Wicked Witch of the West curious to as what happened to Dorothy, goes to Wonderland too, and befriends the Queen of Hearts. Dorothy later meets Alice for the first time at the Mad Hatter's shindig. Alice agrees to help Dorothy look for Toto, and they happened to bump right into him still chasing the White Rabbit. They then notice that the Witch and Queen are getting all chummy, which the Cheshire Cat manages to bust up. Dorothy finds the mirror again, and waves goodbye to Alice as she returns to Oz, however a mysterious hook-handed figure watches from the shadows...

This was a great comic for kids, considering the darker tone that the other Oz/Wonderland comics that BuyMeToys has done. Also included in the comic are some crosswords and mazes for kids, plus a coloring page of the original Oz/Wonderland Kids comic strip that appeared in Jack & Cat Tales. I'm unaware of what the future plans are for this series, but hopefully more are on the way. BuyMeToys has a habit of being a little late with their issues, so don't expect the next issue anytime real soon though.

Two TV performances of For Good

There's 2 seperate performances of For Good on TV on May 24. There's Kristin Chenowerth(Wicked's original Glinda)will be singing it on Oprah at 4:00 PM. The other is on the season finale to Glee at 9:00 PM performed by the cast. BTW, here's a quick video the official Wicked You Tube channel posted of the original cast:

Further Fables stuff in Oz

Vertigo is seriously increasing the amount of stuff they have going in Oz with their Fables titles. One is the regular Fables comic where Ozma has been put in charge of the Fables' community of magic users. She along with Pinnochio has assembled a group of protectors to defend against the powerful Mister Dark. Ozma is going under the handle "Super Witch", and now has powers of flight and optic-blasts for some reason. The Super Team story-arc will conclude in issue #106, and I could be wrong but it looks like they might be trying to start a romance between Ozma and Pinnochio in it. Issue #108 will also take us back to Oz with the flying monkey Bufkin.

Now, this is a little odd, because when last we left Bufkin, he had teamed up with Jack Pumpkinhead and Bungle to form a rebellion against the Nome King who had taken over the Emerald City. But, if you've been reading the Fables spinoff, Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, Bungle is working for Dorothy, who in this mini-series is a rival assassin. Bungle pulls Cinderella into the Deadly Desert where she and Dorothy are set to have one last roundup. How Bungle's appearance in this comic carries over to the regular Fables series is unknown.

Also, the Jack Of Fables ongoing series recently ended in Issue #50, which featured guest appearance by Tin Man and "Fiercely Lion" who take part in the final battle between the dragonfied original Jack Horner and his son, Jack Frost. Tin Man gets a rocket launcher coming out of his head, but gets beheaded by Jack Frost with a magic sword. However, he claims that he and Fiercely will meet again in Oz. This is akin to the notion that all Fables can be brough back to life if they are known enough by the Mundies who are the regular humans of Earth. So, Tin Man might show up again in a future issue of Fables.

Comic Review: Toto! The Wonderful Adventure (Part 3)

Sorry that I've been late with getting this last part of the review done, but I had a few other projects coming up lately. Here, I'll be covering Volumes #4 and #5 of the Toto! manga. Oh, and yes, this is where the series ends, despite the fact that the story remains unconcluded.

Volume #4 has Damda revealing a cybernetic arm, and calling in the Nassau airfleet on Kenbi and Kakashi. But Dorothy has mastered a secret technique that helps send the enemies flying. She gets a jet broom, and is offically proclaimed Kakashi's WITCH partner. Kenbi reveals that the accessory they were looking for was a pair of special earrings stolen years ago by someone dressed like a rabbit. They let Damda go, and head off to Garrot Town to find the mysterious rabbit-masked thief. Once there, they run across the Wonder Family, a group of rebellious mobsters lead by the rambunctious Alice that want revenge against their rivals, the Rabbit Gang. It's reveled that their leader is Clock, Alice's long-lost brother who used the magical earrings with its special teleporting holepuncher abilities to take over the mafia families. Clock wastes most of Alice's gang, and takes Noil and Dorothy hostage.

Volume #5 has the suprise return of the Man Chicken Family and Tequilla who were coming to Alice's aid. They storm Clock's clocktower, and eventually rescue their friends. Alice manages to get a hold of the earrings and defeats Clock, but at the cost of his own life. Alice joins up with Kakashi and the other on their quest, which leads them to the kingdom of Rock Tic where they team up with Paisley and Red from WITCH to find another accessory. The king of this land is having a special talent contest, where the winning duo will recieve the accessory as the grand prize. Kakashi is reluctlantly paired with Kenbi, as each member of the cast is teamed up with another to come up with an act to win the competition. Dorothy gets help from the mysterious masked Mexican wrestler Chad, who is later shown to be Kakashi's father at the last minute, and makes his escape in a balloon. The story ends with Kakashi, Noil, Dorothy, Alice, and Kenbi continuing their journey.

Toto! was the basis for what creator Yu-Ko Osado used in his next manga series Tribal 12, which also deals with a magical land dominated by the existance of twelve magical items. This series is currently available as five seperate graphic novels from Del Rey Manga, but with the given trend to do "perfect collections" of manga in huge bible-sized books, but with the current rise of Oz-related media, its possible a collected edition of the entire series could happen.

Ding Dong: Bid Laden's Dead

Given the circumstances, though you'd all dig this little remix by Klaus Nomi.

Oz Video Of The Month: Wiccan Of Oz

Joseph Falabella was planning on doing a brand new musical titled The Wiccan Of Oz. It was first looking like a live-action project, and was then being pitched as an animated video with Sims. So far, there hasn't been anything specifically done of this in three years. But you can find this trailer as well as other material on Youtube.