Comics Review: Adventure Time Comics #25

The lethargy of waiting.

There are only two stories in ATC this time around.

Overview:

First off is “Bus Stop” by Sonny Liew. While searching around, Finn and Jake find the Ancient Lost City of Miniature Monsters, and down a potion to shrink to a more manageable size. They manage to defeat all the monsters before the potion wears off, and then realize they have to get home somehow. Jake suggests that they take the bus. They’re unable to read the sign and take to waiting instead. When a bus finally comes, it’s the wrong one. However, Marceline is on it, and she hops off to share some music with them. Marceline leaves, but shortly afterward, Bubblegum appears to inspect some imps that live at the bus stop. She expresses the issues with nomenclature, but that puts Finn and Jake to sleep. When a bus finally does arrive, it’s the 17, not the 7 that they were waiting for. Finally tired of waiting, they decide to go home the magical way, but agree that waiting at the bus stop wasn’t completely pointless.

Second is “Candy Flynn” by Morgan Beem and Warren Montgomery. Bubblegum has created a candy version of Finn that the duo can take on their adventures. They have all sorts of adventures, but Candy Finn is driven to consume every candy that he comes across, whether he knows them or not. This later escalates into him breaking into candies’ houses to consume them while they sleep. It makes Candy Finn grow noticeably larger and stronger, and eventually turns him into a monster. Distraught, Finn goes to fight the person he thought was his friend, and thus frees the candy people. Jake comes to the (somewhat incomplete) conclusion that it takes more than just spit and sugar to be someone like Finn.

Our Take:

The first story isn’t something I expected to see done in a comic form, but it does it rather well. The story itself isn’t exciting- it’s actually very mundane, but in doing so, it ends up doing what it’s meant to do- showing what it’s like to wait at a bus stop. As we all know, waiting for the bus takes an eternity and a half, as they never show up when we need them and when they do- they’re going in the opposite direction. We sometimes see familiar faces, and do things to keep ourselves distracted, but we’re still waiting for a long time. Sometimes we wonder if we could’ve gotten to our destination faster by doing something else. While it’s a strange thing to make a comic of, it’s charming in its own way.

The second seems very much like a horror, except replacing a serial killer on the loose with a candy monster. Since said monster is in the shape of the hero, people aren’t expecting it to come after them. It’s a simple story, but well done in how grotesque the monster is.

Both are fun but different, and it’s fun to see how they tackle different things.