Adventure Time #4

Eight years olds and LSD-affected twenty-something’s unite in their undying love for the unrelenting adventures of Finn the 13 year old Human boy and his adopted brother Jake, the magical shape shifting Dog, in the magical land of Ooo. The series has been a smash hit on Cartoon Network for three and a half seasons now and this year it made a very successful transition to comic book form, the first issue going back to the presses on multiple occasions. The series is published by a subsidiary of Boom Studios titled Kaboom which focus primarily on all ages licensed comics books such as Peanuts, Garfield and the extremely underrated Snarked.

This issue finds Finn and Jake at the conclusion of their epic first quest where they battled the Lich King for the fate of the Candy Kingdom and its inhabitants including Finn's long time crush Princess Bubble-gum. It's not called Adventure Time for nothing so it's not a moment too soon before they're headed out on their next quest, much to the chagrin of Jake. On their travels they soon run into some familiar faces including Marceline the Vampire Queen, the always hilarious Ice King (my personal favourite) and his penguin servant Gunther, Peppermint Butler (another fav) and the Desert Princess amongst many, many others.

After their Mega-Battle with the Lich King in the previous issues, the Earth is covered with a tonne of sand, the result of the countless Finn and Jake sand clones responsible for the Kings destruction and it is up to Finn and Jake to figure out a solution to somehow getting rid of all of it. After numerous strategies they get side-tracked into handling a favourite quest of many the adventurer; rescuing the princess. The Ice King is yet again up to no good, this time kidnapping the Desert Princess, presumably to taste her sweet, sweet innards (HEY! This is a kid's comic, keep it above the belt alright?!) and it's up to our heroes to save the day once again and come up with a plan to deal with about a million beaches worth of sand.

Handling the writing duties (or in other words the best job in the world) on Adventure Time is Ryan North who is most famous for his web comic creation, Dinosaur Comics. He does a decent job here in what is mostly a pretty average issue, apart from a few solid sight gags here and there and the usual Ice King hilarity. The pacing and tone are absolutely perfect and just what I'd expect from the ADD-affected cartoon series. While reading, I could hear the different voices of all the major characters speech so it's a job well done there. Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb handle the art and you couldn't really ask for much more from them. They have packed an almighty amount of detail into every page of a comic that they could of just phoned in.

Whether you're young or young at heart, you'll surely find something to enjoy in this monthly series. Sure the comic is not for everyone but to kill some time reading some light-hearted, laugh a minute adventures, you could do a lot worse.