Out Of Oz coming this fall

Gregory Maquire is finally releasing the fourth and final part of The Wicked Years book series, Out Of Oz, and will be released by Harper Collins on Nov. 1. This story features Glinda under arrest by Emporer Shell, Brrr on the run, Elphaba's granddaughter Rain, an Emerald City/Munckinland war, and the triumphant return of Dorothy. It's hard to say how much this will keep in context with Land Of Oz and Ozma Of Oz, although we've already seen Tip and Mombi shown briefly in Son Of A Witch, but how this will play out in the Wicked universe is yet to be seen.

Ozma's Birthday

Aug. 21 is officially Ozma's birthday. Not sure how old she is exactly, but she beats out Bilbo Baggins by at least a decade if you count her premiere in The Marvelous Land Of Oz in 1904.

Comic Review: Cinderella-Fables Are Forever(conclusion)

Since I've already done some reviews of the Fables spinoff mini-series from Vertigo, Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, I'll be reviewing the conclusion to the comic which just finished up.

In this story, Cinderella is a secret agent for the Fables community, and she has been recently stalked by Dorothy, who was working for a rouge society of Fables in the "mundy" world. She's had a vendetta against Cinderella for decades, and finally decided to get her revenge on her. Using the Silver Slippers, Dorothy disguised herself as Cinderella's current love interest, Ivan Durak, and lures her across the Deadly Desert with the help of Bungle. Now, this is a little weird as its unknown where this Cinderella series fits into the regular Fables timeline, because Bungle is currently on the run with Bufkin and some other refugees trying to free Oz from the Nome King, who still rules it after the Advesary's defeat.

We learn about Dorothy's history after being cast out of Oz the first time and into the mundy world. She rejected being a part of the Fables community, and became a secret agent for the rouge Fables society. She was later on reunited with her old Oz travelling buddies after she was captured in the Jack Of Fables comic, but was freed with the other Fables there, and then ditched her friends to go and get the Silver Slippers out of the Deadly Desert that she lost at the end of the Wizard Of Oz. She ties up Cinderella, and plans on leaving her for dead in the middle of the Deadly Desert. Cindy manages to trick her into fighting, and makes off in the blimp Dorothy kidnapped her in. Dorothy uses the Slippers to teleport up into the blimp, but Cinderella defeats her, removes the slippers, and tosses Dorothy out into the Deadly Dessert. Whether Dorothy actually hit the Desert(which if you'd seen Return To Oz, you'd know would kill her)and died is unknown. This might lead into the upcoming storyline in the regular Fables comic, Inherit The Wind, which is set for Issue #108 which continues the adventures of Bufkin's revolution of Oz from the Nome King.

I personally liked this series, althought I was really disappointed with how they turned Dorothy into a cruel, vindictive sociopath. No real explanation was given to this change, or whether she was always like this in the context of the story. It'd be interesting to see this grown up Dorothy meet up with the still childlike Ozma who recently had a brief stint as the superhero, Super Witch. I loved the previous Cinderella mini-series, From Fabletown With Love, because it was a good sendup of spy movies, but this one was more of a "spygirl vs. spygirl" storyline. They could've had way more fun with this, and turned it into something where Dorothy and Cinderella had to team-up to fight a common enemy like the Wicked Stepmother or something. However, even as a mature readers comic it was more gratuitous and cliche than it needed to be. DC Comics will eventually release this 6-issue series in a trade paperback.

Wicked in Top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Wicked was recently voted on NPR's as part of their Top 100 Science-Fiction/Fantasy Books list as voted by fans online. Wicked is ranked at #80, although the actual Wizard Of Oz book is listed at all, possible because its considered more of a children's book than a standard fantasy like Lord Of The Rings.

Oz Video Of The Month: Mellow Brick Road

This catchy original music video to Pogo's Mellow Brick Road was the winner of a contest the creator was holding for artists to put together a music video to. The winner was Reed Gauthier. All the video entries can be seen here.