Comic Review: Adventure Time (2025) “Best of Buds Part One”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Finn the Human and Jake the Dog meet Computer Princess and get Finn’s autotune voice touched up in exchange for accepting a quest to find the Enchiridion.

OUR TAKE

It’s kinda still hitting me that, before this, there hadn’t been any Adventure Time comics coming out for close to five years. It makes sense why, considering the show ended back in 2018 and it had long since passed the height of its popularity, but the franchise did have a bit of a resurgence with the release of the Fiona and Cake show, which was renewed for a second season…over a year ago. I mean I know animation takes a long time, but sheesh. It’s hard to say if the positive reception to that show got this new comic made, but what I do know is that this is the first comic of the franchise published by Oni Press, whereas the rest had come out from Boom Studios. I can’t find anything that says Boom lost the licence or anything, but last year Oni put out a press release of republishing the older comics in “Compendiums”, so it seems safe to say they have control of releases, and are now finally putting out stuff they made themselves. And hey, new comic runs under new companies happen all the time, and this could open up opportunities for new takes and stories set in this universe and with these characters.

This first issue, however, is very much back to basics, to the point that it could very well be a full on reboot. I say this because, as eagle eyed longtime fans of the show will probably remember that Finn gets the Enchiridion, the big hero book of how to be a hero, back in the fifth episode of the series. So, the fact that this involves Finn looking for the Enchiridion means this takes place, at the VERY least, early in the first season if not before. Which is perfectly fine as a starting point! As said, this is a new run of an ongoing series under a new writer, Nick Winn, with veteran Adventure Time illustrator Derek Ballard and lettering by Shawn Lee. This first issue is pretty quintessential Adventure Time, evoking a lot of the more sporadic and random humor of the early seasons, and I’m sure that will grab a lot of people who remember those fondly. But I also hope that this clean slate will be used as a springboard to do something more unique. Based on the synopsis of the trade paperback, “Best of Buds” will go for three more issues, so let’s see where this new era of Adventure Time comics takes us.

Get the new issue of Adventure Time Comics here.