Comic Review: Adventure Time – Quadruple Feature #1
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Finn, Jake, BMO, Marceline, and Lumpy Space Princess have a day at the movies, but split up when they can’t decide which one to see! First up, Jake watches “What’s Up, Princess?”, which follows an oddly familiar dog and his heated day out with an oddly familiar fiery princess.
OUR TAKE
It’s time for more Adventure Time special issues from Oni Press, this time being the start of a four part miniseries, with each issue following one or more of some of the main cast as they watch a movie starring characters that weirdly look like them. I mean, hey, I’m not judging, I watched Morbius in theaters three times! This is certainly an interesting idea for a miniseries, as sort of a love letter to the history of cinema, or at least the broad aesthetics of specific genres that people generally remember from cultural osmosis. And with the main Adventure Time series apparently taking a break after the sixteenth issue comes out next month, it makes sense that Oni Press would want to branch out to doing less serialized, low investment stuff that just has the characters we know doing some fun self contained goofy stuff. So, I guess we can look forward to three more issues of this particular mini to fill in the blank left by the main series. With that, let’s take a look at this first issue, which mainly focuses on Jake watching a movie about…himself! And Flame Princess? Huh, that’s not a combination I would’ve thought to expect.
Generally, at least in the main original show, Flame Princess has mostly appeared during stuff relating to Finn, at least when she’s not appearing during stuff related to her being a princess. And in terms of appearances with JUST Jake…well, nothing comes to mind, and if there are, I could probably count them on one hand. So, already this choice is a pleasant surprise! Now, the characters themselves aren’t TECHNICALLY interacting here either, just these movie specific versions, but it’s still pretty neat. The plot is basically the Movie Jake is a star on his way to a premiere but his train ride there is interrupted when Movie Flame Princess gets into a fight with a passenger (who might have been a jewel thief?) because of her hot temper, and both her and Jake get thrown off the train, leading to wacky hijinks as the two exchange witty banter. Add to that the early 20th Century cartoon style and you can practically hear the music and muffled sound quality coming out of it. And it even manages to have a wholesome ending when it’s revealed that Movie Flame Princess was actually on her way to Jake’s premiere but was too proud to say anything, which is perfectly in line with her usual character. And then they get married, and she might be a murderer? Well, overall, a pretty fun issue and a great way to start this fun experiment with three issues to go. Next time looks to be a horror movie starring, who else, Marceline the Vampire Queen! But will she be the hunted or the hunter?
