Comic Review: Adventure Time #6

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Finn manages to alert Princess Bubblegum and Marceline before the Lich takes full control of his body, while Jake uses the Robot Ice King’s crown to connect with an even darker power.

OUR TAKE

Things continue to escalate rather drastically as we reach the halfway point of this run’s second arc, “Friends to the End”. And the end might be coming faster than they might expect if Finn and Jake can’t get their bodies free from the control of The Lich and literal embodiment of chaos and disorder GOLB, respectively. If you’re a fan of the original show, that last name may make your ears perk up a bit, as this malevolent entity was only mentioned or seen in sparse amounts across the show’s ten seasons, only making his first big appearance in the final goddamn episode. He also didn’t really have any direct connection to Ice King’s crown in the original continuity, but this is clearly a different take on all of that, so changes to lore like this are fine in and of themselves. We’re also already seeing Bubblegum and Marceline in some sort of relationship, and everyone is well aware of Jake’s extraterrestrial shapeshifting origins, so whoever is running this series is clearly going in with the impression that readers will have already seen the source material. The potential issue is more that this still budding ongoing comic series seems to be doing a rather sudden speed run to the biggest possible boss that Finn, Jake, and their allies have ever faced…and it’s only up to the eighth issue.

And keep in mind, this is after its first four issues were basically just aimless and doing whatever, only for things to come into clear focus very abruptly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m liking this arc so far, mainly because the stakes and story have become that much more intense, but what I’m worried about is what comes after. We won’t know what that is until we get the solicitations for January’s releases later this month, but I would bet my bottom dollar that the next arc will be a considerably lower stakes story. Which is fine! You gotta have the more easy going arcs to offset the more serious ones, but I’m just hoping that it will be a chance for this new run at the Adventure Time universe a chance to get its bearings and figure out what it wants to do with itself going forward. Maybe mess around with some other established villains in an interesting way, or introduce a completely original plot, or some kind of mix of both, or even neither! Whatever they choose, we’ve still got two issues left of this arc, so let’s see where it goes.