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The Oz Series

So I always meant to get around to this one sometime after the Deadworld series. Seeing as the Wicked movies are a big thing now, it’s no time like the present to do so.

Alright as always a little history first…

The Oz comic series or at least this one I’ll be going over (Since there’s certainly other comics based around Wizard of Oz) came out in the ancient days of the mid 1990s. It was actually created by the same people who created the Deadworld series. (Ralph and Stu. Go read that thread for info about that one if you haven’t already)

The comic came out after Arrow Comics’ titles had all been taken over by Caliber Press, so unlike Deadworld it started under that brand until it wasn’t, but we’ll get to that when the time comes. In fact it started after the second failed attempt at keeping Arrow Comics alive, so Ralph and Stu needed a job to help pay the bills.

The series isn’t exactly “grimdark”, in fact it’s arguably not even the “darkest” version of someone messing about with the setting. Hell the original books from what I’ve heard can be nightmare fuel themselves in some places. However, if someone was only familiar with the 1930s movie, it’s definitely darker in that regard. The Return to Oz movie from the 80s on the other hand might’ve fit right into this comic. Still in general, it’s more classic good rebels versus evil tyrant fantasy rather than “everything is terrible” type thing.

I, myself really have only been familiar with the couple of movies based around Wizard of Oz and like one old cartoon movie that popped up on TV back in the 80s. So I wasn’t really familiar with a lot of the characters that get introduced in this comic, but they’re all from the various OG books. Of course there’s a few original character as well, most notably the protagonists as you’ll soon see.

Anyway, I’ll be going more or less in chronological order with the comic though the series jumped around a bit with some flashback issues, but of course I’ll mention that shit when it comes up.

Alright let’s get on with this and see if I can’t finish this series review before the new year.

Issue 1: Mayhem in Munchkinland Part 1

The limited edition had an extra “outer cover” with the scarecrow as well since the regular version just had the Jack Pumpkinhead cover that you see here.

So it starts off with three young adults and a dog waking up in the middle of a forest. Their names are Peter who is 19 and an engineering student. Mary who is also 19 and a Phys Ed student and finally Kevin who is 20 and a comic book dealer. Oh and Mary is his girlfriend.

Alright, first off this was definitely written by nerds because the comic book guy has a damn girlfriend. Even the engineering guy would make more sense to be with her. All of these folks look like they’re in good shape with at least above average looks too. So no fat comic book dude or scrawny looking engineering student. (The girl is phys ed, so makes sense she’s in shape)  Already the story is firmly in the fantasy realm.

Still, they actually look older than their ages would suggest. they look more like mid to late 20s than the teenage borderline. Hell none of them are even able to legally drink yet.

All that info isn’t just dumped in the story, it’s actually in the back pages of the comic with some sketch examples of all the characters they were planning out. Figured I’d just mention it because it supports the fact that back then comic readers didn’t want to read comics about people that looked like them, whereas nowadays if it doesn’t have some fatty with rainbow hair then the comic was obviously created by BIGOTS.

Oh the dog’s name is Max which is a pretty common name for a dog. Looks like a mutt mix, definitely bigger than Toto.

Anyway what the 3 are doing is trying to figure out what the hell happened since they were looking at some old dusty book and then they passed out, along with being carried away in tornado before winding up in a forest that has trees with faces on them. However, they don’t get to ponder this too long since they’re soon attacked by a bunch of munchkins and intend to take them to their king. Or “a midget punk gang” as Kevin puts it and already he’s saying he knows how to handle this type like he’s got fucking years of experience fighting gangs of dwarves.

Kevin’s already taken a halberd from one of them and doing the old “We can handle this one of two ways” action hero shit. The munchkins are unimpressed however and are doing a good job of overwhelming Peter and Kevin, but Mary shouts at them to just run instead of trying to fight them all. (But this is what men do!) Also Max steps up to attack too, but he gets knocked out. Peter and Kevin meanwhile get knocked off a short cliff instead. The munchkins would check to see if they’re dead, but apparently they fell into a “forbidden fields” and they’re not going in, so they decide to go chase after Mary instead.

Kevin and Peter are still alive, but it doesn’t take long before they both fall unconscious. Cue a flashback scene to before they got to the land of Oz. Basically it’s about the events on how Kevin got the book that sent them there which involve him buying a shitload of old books from some old guy in the hopes of them all being valuable so he can sell them for fat profits. Mary wasn’t exactly thrilled with Kevin spending money on this stuff since he was supposed to take her out that night too.

But Kevin’s like “Yeah no can do babe, we gotta price check these books to see how much money I wasted!” And Mary sighs and just puts up with this since she obviously has esteem issues.

Doesn’t take long before they get to the book that transported them to Oz It actually had a lock on it until Kevin pried it open with a knife. Cue the tornado coming out of the book and then…

Back to the present where Max is dragging Peter and Kevin out of the field at which point they wake up. Pretty sure its a case that the field had some effect on them that knocked them out rather than their exhaustion from dealing with the munchkins. Probably had poppies or something.

Since it’s getting dark, Peter suggests that they stop until morning to go look for Mary since it won’t do any good getting even more lost than they already are.

Cut to Mary who is still getting chased by munchkins and definitely lost in the forest. She might be on the track team, but the munchies are keeping the pace. In true dwarf fashion they have more endurance than she does and catch up to her, but then Jack Pumpkinhead appears to save her.

That’s the end of issue 1.

So who is Jack Pumpkinhead anyway? Well he’s a character from the later Oz books. I actually do remember him since he was in a Oz cartoon on TV and was also in the Return to Oz movie. In fact, he’s probably one of few Oz characters outside of the main 3 I even know about thanks to that 80s movie. (It really was underrated)

Remaining pages of the book are like a I said a lot of sketches of things to come and such. Plus Stu felt the need to spend an entire page to ramble like an old man about things changing in the world and how all anyone seems to be driven by is money anymore. He’ll do this a few more times

Issue 2: Mayhem in Munchkinland Part 2

Well just sit there and look scary then

This starts off with Pumpkin boy throwing out insults and beating up munchkins, though again the little guys aren’t overly impressed and are eager to collect the bounty on him when they present him to their king. Mary at this point goes into GURL POWAR mode saying “What am I a damsel? Not this 90s girl!” and leaps into the fight to help out Jack.

Though he doesn’t really need the help of some human seeing as he’s got plant powers and after a bit of fighting he binds all the munchkins in vines, leaving them only to yell threats that him and the rest of the freedom fighters’ days are numbered. Jack says Mary can follow him or go on her way but he’s got important shit to do. Seeing as he’s the only one that hasn’t attacked her and she has no idea what else to do, she starts following him.

She gets tired though eventually since Jack not having the weakness of a human is just constantly using forward to his destination. He grumbles about the weakness of her flesh what with needing to eat and sleep, but he  agrees to stop for awhile so she can rest.

Cut to Kevin and Peter where Kevin’s bitching about Peter’s boy scout skills not being enough to track down Mary which causes a little friction but Kevin calms down. So they’re trying to track Mary and that’s when they encounter a kalidah.

So what the hell is that? Well it’s basically a tiger-bear combo that has appeared in the OG books. It’s not the best thing you want to run into while there. There’s a long fight with it for a few pages. Eventually they manage to skewer it on a several tree branches.

Cut to a witch of some sort looking into a crystal ball and when she see Max, this alarms her enough that she’s gotta go see the king and report this immediately because they just don’t have dogs in Oz I guess (Petros would love it there).

This witch is Mombi. So Mombi was in the OG books as the wicked witch of the north before the good witch there deposed her (And no it wasn’t Glinda, it was her sister). Unlike some of the other witches in Oz, she apparently wasn’t naturally magical, she actually had to study and work hard at it as opposed to being born with it. She was the one who created Pumpkinhead as well.

Mombi was also in the Return to Oz movie, though like most movie adaptations, she was a little different in that version.

Anyway it cuts back to Peter and Kevin who are limping along with their wounds from the battle with the tiger-bear. As luck for them would have it they stumble upon an abandoned village and just enter one of the houses to rest. One of them says the place is starting to seem awfully familiar though. Meanwhile Max starts barking and there’s an old munchkin hiding in a cabinet, but fortunately he’s a doctor and he’s willing to help out.

While he’s patching them up he starts going on about the village looking like it is due to the kalidahs coming in and wrecking everything and eating folks. Eventually everyone that could escape did and he doesn’t think they’ll ever come back to rebuild. He also goes on to say Oz has turned into a hellhole ever since the Nome King took over (Yep, nome with no “g”). He’s worse than any of the witches they ever had.

At this point Kevin and Peter are like “OZ?”

After a bit of disbelief and then pondering the evidence, Peter is sufficiently convinced they are indeed in Oz, though Kevin still has his doubts. (You’d think the engineering student would be the skeptic rather than the comic book guy)  They ask about the scarecrow and tin man to which the old munch says they’ve turned evil and are acting as minor “kings” to the various areas in Oz. In fact the Scarecrow is ruling over the munchkins as their direct king.

So Peter suggests they go see the Scarecrow since he seems to be in charge and maybe he’s got Mary. The munchkin doc says he doesn’t see anyone, but they’re undeterred so he tells them, it’s easy enough to find him, just follow the yellow brick road.

“You gotta be kidding me.” - Kevin

So they follow the yellow brick road and eventually they get to a huge barn surrounded by straw fields. They run inside and that’s when they finally meet the Scarecrow who isn’t pleased about being disturbed.

And that’s it for issue 2.

And I might as well address who the Gnome King is too. He was another character from the OG books and he’s always an asshole wanting to take over Oz and enslave everyone to work in his mines forever. Always claims that the emeralds from Emerald City for example rightfully belong to him. In fact he’s probably the closest thing to an ongoing villain in the series even if the wicked witch of west is better known. He originally comes from a neighboring land called Ev which has a deadly desert separating it making travel pretty rare and tough to do normally.

He was another character in the Return to Oz movie and was the main villain in it. He was also allied with Mombi in that movie, but I don’t think they interacted in the OG books, so maybe them being paired up in this comic was a nod to the 80s movie.

Issue 3: Mayhem in Munchkinland Part 3

The Tinman is probably the only one they don’t change much out of the three to look more Eeeeevil

So after barging into the Scarecrow’s barn castle, they start asking him how to get back home and when he’s not very helpful with this line of questioning, Kevin immediately goes in with the insults saying he should be easy to beat up since he’s just full of straw.

Naturally it sets the Scarecrow off and he attacks, unleashing a shitload of crows from thin air. A struggle ensues with only the dog Max actually doing anything useful until Pete manages to grab a pitchfork to fight off the crows. Still the Scarecrow isn’t impressed and starts knocking them about with his staff until once again it’s the dog that does something useful and manages to tear off a medallion the Scarecrow is wearing. The dog gets zapped unconscious for his efforts, however it quickly transforms the Scarecrow back into his old self and he’s wondering why Kevin at this point is ripping the stuffings out of him.

After some clearing up of what’s going on and the Scarecrow healing Max with magic Kev and Pete see that he really doesn’t remember attacking them and says he must have some sort of magical amnesia that turned him wicked, though he doesn’t know who or how that happened.

Cut to Mombi speaking with the Nome King who is sitting with a young woman in a throne room. It’s somewhat implied that this is Dorothy (All grown up of course). In any case, the Nome King doesn’t want to be interrupted while he’s with his barely legal bride and tells Mombi that this better be important. He mentions seeing the dog and he tells her to keep an eye on it since it could fuck up all their plans.

Seriously, their plans are pretty shit to begin with if they can be ruined by one lone mutt.

After warning Mombi to not fuck this up, she’s secretly plotting to overthrow him because evil isn’t a club after all. She also mentions in her thoughts that he isn’t even the true Nome King anyway.

Cut to Mary with Pumpkinhead who summons some sort of horse made of wood for them to ride. This character is known as Sawhorse. Another one from the OG books.

Cut back to Scarecrow who thinks the Wizard would be able to help, but considering Em City is currently occupied by hostile forces, he’s probably not there and wouldn’t be a good idea to go there either. So his next plan is to go see the Tin Man (Or Nick Chopper as is his real name) who might help. Kev and Pete though relay that they were told the Tin Man had become evil just like he was when they first met him. The Scarecrow refuses to believe that the Tin Man could be affected by magic that could change his alignment in such a way as he has the most wonderful heart in Oz!

Kev and Pete aren’t really buying it, but they don’t have much choice so they decide to just go with the flow. Soon the Scarecrow calls his crows to carry them all to the Tin Man’s Kingdom.

Cut back to Mary and Pumpkinhead finally arriving at their destination. Mary mentions what a rough ride it was to which Sawhorse tells her to stop bitching which surprises the hell out of her since she didn’t know he could talk.

At this point Pumpkinhead introduces her to the Freedom Fighters of Oz who consist of:

Tik Tok (A clockpunk like robot, not the Chinese thing that spreads brainrot)
Gump (A flying moose like creature, not the retard who got into adventures and married his rapist)
The Winged Monkey (Just one apparently and he doesn’t have a name)
Hungry Tiger (A furry like the Lion, except a Tiger obviously)
Wogglebug (A giant intellectual insect man)
Hektor Hammerhead (Another mechanical type man. This one has a springy head with a flattop which he uses like a hammer. For whatever retarded reason, whoever created him didn’t think to give him fucking arms)
Jinjur (One of the few humans in the pack. She’s some sort of warrior which I’ll go into a bit later)
Amber Ombi (Another human and also another soldier type. Male. In case the name was too ambiguous)
And finally some munchkins and winkies who didn’t just fall in line like the rest of their kind when the new regime took over.

Again I’ll go into some of these characters after this last bit.

Cut back to Scarecrow and the rest finally getting to the Tin Man’s place which is now a steampunk fortress. They walk up to the gates and Scarecrow immediately starts saying “Hello Nick Chopper my old friend! You certainly look a little different than when I last saw you!”

The steampunk bot at the gate explains he’s not the Tin Man, but is Major Minor, the head of the mechanical royal army. He says he’ll take them to see the king though who may or may not decide to address them or not. On the way to the throne room, Scarecrow says he doesn’t remember the Tin Man having or needing an army before, which doesn’t inspire confidence in Pete and Kev.

They get to the throne room and there’s the Tin Man with a similar medallion around his neck and stating what business does the Scarecrow have with him and then sees the two humans and thinks they’re gifts. He tells Major Minor to take the meat people to service his great war engine until they fall down dead.

One can only hope servicing this great war engine is just working on some assembly line and not getting violated repeatedly with a giant steel dick.

Anyway that’s it for issue 3.

So real quick, most of the freedom fighter characters mentioned above were in the OG books. Tik Tok and Gump were also in that Return to Oz movie, though I remember Tik Tok better than Gump.

Wogglebug and Hungry Tiger are just two more funny animal folk that tend to be in Oz. Woggle is an intellectual type while Hungry Tiger is buddies with the Cowardly Lion. He’s also always hungry and longs to eat a fat baby, but he won’t because that would be wrong.

The munchkins and the winged monkey are self explanatory as everyone knows them from the old movie. The winkies are another Oz race in the books, but guess what? They were also in the 1930s movie. Remember the dudes in fur hats chanting “Oh We Oh” in front of the Wicked Witch’s fortress? Well those were the winkies. They’re a little shorter and more goblinoid looking here.

Now apparently there was a race of “Hammerheads” in the OG books, but they seem to be flesh and blood. Says they were also incredibly hostile to everyone. Hektor seems to be a mildly original character for the comic.

Same for Amber Ombi who is an original comic book character, however he’s supposed to be the son of an OG Book character called Omby Amby, because all of “Ombi, Omby, Mombi, etc” style names weren’t fucking confusing enough. Anyway Omby himself was general of all the armies in Oz, but he’s apparently dead by the time of this comic, so he won’t be playing any greater role in it.

Finally Jinjur gets a special mention here since she was a villain in one of the OG books where I guess she tried to overthrow the Scarecrow when he was in charge of Em City for awhile. She’s also a general but was in charge of an army of women which at the time was a parody of the women’s suffrage movement. Ha ha ha ha, oh those ladies and their big ideas of equality am I right?

Later though she calmed down and became a tradwife. No seriously, she settled down to become a simple married woman living on a farm on later books, though it was implied she regularly BEAT her husband since he’d always have black eyes. Women, go and figure ‘em.

Anyway, she’s back to being a warrior again because this is the 90s and Xena was really popular.

Issue 4: Allies and Enemies

Yep as you can guess he doesn’t appear until the end of the issue just like the other two.

So this one starts off with the freedom fighters all trying to determine if Mary isn’t some spy for the Nome King. Wogglebug questions the logic of Pumpkinhead bringing her here since even if she isn’t a spy, she’s going to cut into resources to feed her. Hektor gripes about hiding out and not doing anything about the Nome King. Hungry Tiger is already saying he could eat Mary to solve any doubts, Jinjur of course believes that she’s no threat.

Mary is just wondering where the hell she is and she gets some explanation, and reacts when she hears the name Dorothy which then makes her realize she’s in Oz and they realize she’s an earthling. Just then a munchkin mentions that the Scarecrow was seen leaving Munchkinland for the first time in a long time and mentioning he was heading west to the Tin Man who is king of the Winkies. This doesn’t inspire confidence in the Freedom Fighters that they might have to deal with both of them since they aren’t aware of the exact situation yet.

Cut back to the Tin Man thanking the Scarecrow for bringing him more oilers and polishers since meat sacks tend to die a lot when worked 24/7. However Scarecrow already protests saying they come from Dorothy’s world and he wasn’t bringing them as slaves. Naturally this doesn’t go over well and Tin Man is already telling his bots to capture everyone. Despite steampunk toasters advancing, Kev goes full Leroy Jenkins mode and states going for the leader worked before so it should work again.

Of course taking on hostile toasters is a lot different than taking on a bunch of crows so they don’t get far before they’re getting their slowly crushed by steel hands and told that the flesh is weak along with how steel will soon rule over all of Oz. (Apparently the Tin Man was having ideas of overthrowing the Nome King too)

Scarecrow tries to step in to help, but they easily rip him apart. The dog can’t even help much in this case. Fortunately the Tin Man spends so much time gloating as he’s got Kevin by the throat, that it gives him enough time to rip the medallion off his neck. This immediately causes him to snap out of it and call off his toasters.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters who are, actually I don’t know exactly where they are. They’re at some sort of large building, possibly a fortress, but it’s not Em City and it’s not the Scarecrow or tin Man’s place. I can only assume this is Mombi’s place or one of them since that’s who ends up attacking them while Wogglebug is going on about this potentially being a trap and Hammerhead saying now is the time to strike.

Mombi isn’t alone though she’s got the Ladies Auxiliary Brigade backing her up and yes that is the name of this group of warrior women. I can only guess they’re ones Jinjur used to be in charge of before she joined the rebellion. Though that doesn’t seem to matter since they attack everyone and after some fighting they get the upper hand and not only stab Hungry Tiger in the back (Still alive though) they also chop off Hammerhead’s head.

And he’s dead. So much for that original character. He wasn’t a likable character and was freakish looking anyway.

Cut back to the Tin Man’s place where they’re all going to head over to the Lion’s place since they figure he’s probably under the same spell that Crow and Tin were. Also it would be better to have him on their side.

Last page is of course of the Lion sitting on his own throne with two scantily clad lionesses (Though they have big long flowing hair) reporting that this group is on their way and should the warriors be called, but the Lion says he’ll deal with the prey himself.

That’s a wrap for issue 4.

Issue 5: Heroes Gather, Battles Fought

The trio reunited at last!

Starts off Tin Man and the rest heading into the forest where the Lion’s kingdom is and some talk about hoping they can get him to on their side. Doesn’t take long before they bump into the Lion who asks why the hell they’re intruding on his domain before he disposes of them anyway.

An appeal to reason is made, but the Lion claims he’s not under any sort of spell since he’s not wearing an amulet, but they try to tell him he must still be under an evil influence somehow anyway. The time for talking is over and the Lion is ready to get down to killing them all. Though only the Tin Man steps up to fight since the Scarecrow warns that only he’d be able to survive a fight with the Lion, all they can really do is stand back and watch.

Well doesn’t take long before the Lion is kicking the Tin Man in the nuts and bolts. As the Tin Man is losing badly, Kevin once again is the one who steps up and grabs the Tin Man’s axe (Which he threw aside since he didn’t want to kill the Lion) to help out. However, the Scarecrow stops him saying he really wouldn’t survive this attempt and unlike him he couldn’t be put back together.

Well fuck Scarecrow then YOU at least take the axe and fucking help out then. Sure you’re not beating the Lion, but you could at least survive getting shredded while distracting him.

Anyway Kevin notices that the Lion is actually wearing an amulet after all, it was just under his mane. He shouts for the Tin Man to rip it off of him which the Tin Man manages to do so.

Cut to the Freedom Fighters getting captured and mocked or at least the ones who aren’t dead (Hektor) or the ones that managed to slip away during the fight which is Wogglebug and Tik Tok. Tik comes up with a plan and tells Woggle to overwind him so he goes into spinning top mode to fight off the dimestore amazons and allow everyone else to get away. Woggle obliges and soon Tik Tok is coming out swinging and punching out more bitches than a pimp on a slow saturday night.

This gives the rest of them enough time to escape. Jack and Woggle on Sawhorse, while the three humans ride away on Gump. Poor Hungry Tiger who’s actually fucking wounded has to run by himself.  Zombi meanwhile throws some sort of magnetic powder at Tik Tok which not only stops him completely, but also causes all of the weapons the ladies were holding to be ripped from their hands and go straight into Tik Tok. Yeah he’s done.

Watching from a safe distance at Tik’s sacrifice is the winged monkey escaping with the rest saying something about being one step closer to the decision he dreads the most, making it sound like he’s planning something sinister which may or may not have been the point.

Cut to the Nome King speaking to some woman in a dungeon. This woman would be Ozma, the rightful queen of Oz. Anyway he’s doing the usual villain taunting and threats of how she’s not morned or a martyr as people are already slowly starting to forget about her. Her lands are being ruled by three evil kings, kalidahs run amok, the good witches and the wizard are nowhere around and how everything is just wonderfully terrible and nobody can stop him.

Still, he REALLY wants her to be his queen so he gets the throne with “legitimacy” because I guess he’s lawful evil. Though given how much he’s already horse fucked the place, he states that she better make her mind up soon otherwise he won’t really need this service of her…though he may still DESIRE it.

He’s talking about rape right? Yes, of course he is.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters or what’s left of them and half of them are still arguing over if Mary is a spy or not. Especially since they got ambushed. Jack, Jinjur and Ombi are all of the mind that she’s innocent and it was just a coincidence. Woggle accuses Ombi of thinking with his DICK, but eventually Woggle is outnumbered in his arguments so he lets the matter go, meanwhile monkey boy is back with the news that their comrade has Tik’ed his last Tok.

They all decide they really can’t afford to play it safe anymore since that isn’t working anyway, they need to just go ahead and make a major attack. There’s only one free army left in Oz though and that’s the flying monkeys. Nameless monkey boy isn’t sure they’ll even help, but he’ll go ask even though he doesn’t want to. (And this is the big decision he was dreading earlier) Woggle along with Gump go with him.

Cut back to Tin Man and the rest still wondering if the Lion has really changed after getting rid of the amulet since he’s still acting a bit hostile, but he soon snaps back to his old self. After some warm and fuzzies, Tin Man exclaims they need to take back Em City

And that’s it for issue 5.

Finally we get a letters page, however unlike Deadworld it isn’t nearly as amusing. You don’t have anyone like King Zombie calling the readers faggots for bitching about the comic being $2.95 for example. Yep, someone claimed that was a lot of money for a mere 32 black and white pages. In fact a lot of people bitched about it being in black and white. I can bet some of these folks if they’re still into comics are probably wishing for the days of a quality comic for such money regardless of it being in color or not.

One thing that popped up were people whining about the comic being “grim and dark” because it seemed like ALL comics were heading that way now. Keep in mind this was the 90s where this was happening in even the super hero genre, in fact Stu himself makes a rambling page about being positive and how negativity was now being “lauded as sophistication” and he didn’t like that.

Well gee Stu, why the fuck are you making shit like edgelord Oz killing off characters, not to mention zombie comics where you’re actively having edgy covers saying “Not for wussies” with babies getting ripped apart and clits being chewed off and eaten? (Go read the Deadworld review thread for more about that!)

Look if you don’t like darker stories, that’s fine. But saying how much you don’t like it and then writing the exact opposite is talking out both sides of your dick licker.

Anyway this is a good stopping point. We may or may not continue with the main story line first or go back to some prequel one shots they did. Haven’t decided yet. Stay tuned!

Decided to go with the prequel one shots.

Issue “0”: To Covet a Kingdom

Happier times…

Alright so this starts off in Em City with a big celebration and a sign saying “Welcome King of Ev”. It’s a big deal since this is supposed to be an end to hostilities between Oz and Ev, even though they
were never officially at war.

Everyone important is there, the usual trio, along with the Wizard and Dorothy who is still a little girl here. I don’t see Toto, but she’s got some chicken called Billina with her. I don’t remember this pet, but I guess they were in the OG books and it was in the Return to Oz too. Dorothy even mentions how the chicken saved them the last time from being statues the last time the Nome King tried to take over.

In any case this Nome King is a new one and is supposedly nicer, but the Lion isn’t convinced like the rest of them. They all just tell him he’s worrying over nothing though.

Cut to the Nome King walking with a shitload of nomes behind him. They stumble upon Jinjur’s place in the country where she’s living with her battered husband Filo. Filo immediately asks what they’re doing to which the Nome King says he’s here to take over the country fool! Filo isn’t even scared of him considering he gets beaten by Jinjur on a daily basis, so he’s like “Yeah right, like you’re going to be able to stand up against the queen, the wizard and all the good witches. Lol.”

Well NK isn’t in the mood for this bullshit, so he turns Filo into a crystal squirrel. At this point Jinjur comes out yelling at NK saying she’s the only one that can abuse her husband and demands that he transforms him back at once. NK goes on about how he’s got powerful artifacts that are going to allow him to take over everything. Funny enough Jinjur’s response to this is more of apathy/disbelief, she really only wants her husband back, she doesn’t even give a shit if he attacks Em City saying for him to just move on.

He does move on and even leaves her husband with her, only in several shattered pieces when he throws the crystal squirrel to the ground. He then tells her to spread the word that he’s not one to be fucked with.

Cut back to Em City where the Scarecrow and the rest finally see NK arrive, though Dorothy is wondering why he’s walking which the Wizard says that the Deadly Desert is treacherous to cross without magic so he probably transported himself and his entourage without realizing they had a longer distance than they thought (Yeah that must be it)

NK arrives before Ozma and the rest and she’s presenting him with a dove to symbolize the new peace treaty between their two countries. NK immediately cuts to the chase and says a better way of doing this is to marry, thus solidifying the union between the lands. Ozma says she’s not set on marrying anyone and NK in general starts getting jeers from the rest saying he must be mad to come in and start demanding such a thing.

NK at this point has more nomes pop up out out of floor of the palace and while the Wizard cast a spell to return them all home, Zombi (Who was hiding in nome form) appears and counter acts his spell and he goes flying straight up with piece of cloth wrapped around his neck. Which looks like it could be legit hanging him, but apparently he just got sent back home (Which would be earth of course) Ozma says Zombi has allied with a complete mad man, but she’s of the mind that she’d do better under his regime than she ever would under hers.

NK once again tells Ozma that she needs to submit peacefully or he’s going to make things worse in Oz. Ozma order Amber to take the rest and Dorothy away while she deals with Mombi and NK. Zombi tells NK to not let them go, but NK is fine with it saying they can spread the word of his glorious conquest of Oz. He’s also still thinking Ozma is going to give up the good stuff, but she’s still not marrying him regardless of what he threatens.

Meanwhile Dorothy is outside crying thinking its all her fault that they’re all not helping her because they’re busy protecting her. After some discussion though, Lawful Neutral Amber is like “Well she told us to leave, she didn’t say we couldn’t go back in.”

So they’re ready to go back in and try to fight a billion nomes, however at this point the two good witches and the entire ladies auxiliary brigade behind them have arrived and they’re already demanding that NK release the queen. NK though invites them in and says they can discuss this in a civil manner. Tin Man says does he really expect them to fall for such a ruse, and unfortunately the two good witches go in like fucktards by themselves. Amber sensing this isn’t going to go well, they rush back to Ozma.

When they arrive, there’s two new shiny objects on a table nearby. One a crystal figure and another a crystal ball, implying that’s what he’s turn the good witches into. Ozma by this point has already been thrown into the dungeon. Amber starts demanding what he’s done to everyone, prompting Mombi to zap him and NK to cast his own spell to turn the trio evil.

Realizing he’s severely outnumbered now, Amber makes an escape out the palace, fighting off nomes and vowing to rescue everyone eventually takes up about 6 pages. This detail I’ve mentioned is important which I’ll get to a little later.

After Amber’s escape, the trio get the amulets placed on them to ensure their obedience and then finally Dorothy gets one placed on her too. Cue NK making the villain boast about how OZ will become so demoralized that it will have no choice but to submit completely.

Finally there’s an epilogue which has a man that looks vaguely like the Wizard (He’s a bit shadowed but you can tell it’s him) putting together some magic lock on a book saying he only hopes it won’t be too late. This of course is the same book Kevin and crew ended up buying and opening later.

And that’s it for the comic.

There’s also another long rambling page by fucking Stu saying how they had an idea of how they wanted the comic to go, but just not enough time to shove it all in the beginning about the “dark times” when the trio were evil and they didn’t want to wait until way later to show up in later issues. So they decided on these one shot prequels. So y’know they focused on the dark shit anyway despite Stu moaning about it before. Granted I think it probably was Ralph that was more into that aspect, which we’ll get into later down the road with this series.

Issue “1”: Who’s Afraid of the Scarecrow?

Another cover with strawman’s mug close up on it

Okay so remember that epic escape that Amber did from Em City that took up 6 pages? Well that’s how this one starts off, though I think they cut a few panels since it’s only 5 pages here, but it’s the exact same artwork copy/pasta.

And I might as well mention this now, the next 3 issues after this one also start off like that! Guess they really wanted to save money.

So the proper start begins with Wogglebug speaking with his little fairy assistant Pyff who is struggling to carry a bag of books of his. Dude is a giant fucking insect with probably more strength than the average human and he makes pixie girl carry a shitload of books that are bigger than she is because he’s a fucking asshole.

Anyway, Woggle continue to be a fucking asshole to her exclaiming he’s late to the historic event of the Nome King at Em City because of her though she mentions that she tried to tell him but he threw a damn book at her. To which he says she always has an excuse. He also goes on to say he should’ve been given priority for an invite anyway seeing as he should be there for negotiations and he just goes on about how smart he is. He’s actually worse than a fucking asshole, he’s a fucking Redditor.

Anyway they see a dark mass in the sky up ahead and he’s like they should go investigate right away, though Pyff is a little concerned about all this.

Doesn’t take long before they stumble upon the Scarecrow crouched on a big rock looking creepy as shit. Pyff says how he scared her to which he merely remarks that’s what he does best with an even creepier smile. Already Pyff isn’t feeling this and wants to leave immediately, but Woggle for all his so called intelligence starts greeting Scarecrow and asking if he missed the main festivities.

At this point the Scarecrow is already tired of listening to Woggle’s pontification and tells him he’s a fucking moron compared to him as everyone knows HE has the superior intellect. Woggle naturally takes offense and again Pyff is attempting to pull him aways saying this isn’t it, but as usual he brushes her aside saying this is a debate between intellectuals and it’s far above her station.

Scarecrow now takes offense that Woggle even claims to be on his level so he’s putting him in his place by UNLEASHING THE CROWS.

Pyff always having a better handle on this situation immediately flees and tells Woggle to do likewise, but he’s still standing there like a dumb giant roach. Scarecrow decides to prove just how evil he is by sending his crows directly after pixie girl.

Woggle is still arguing with Scarecrow, but that’s not doing much good since he’s already going on about how he’s served Ozma too long and it’s time for him to be a king again and Woggle better surrender and serve him or else…

And then a crow returns with poor Pyff’s lifeless little body.

Woggle is so angry he start stammering causing Scarecrow to mock him being speechless for the first time. he starts laughing as well which finally motivates Woggle to directly start attacking and ripping the stuffing out of him. Scarecrow though once again calls upon his crows which attack and even bite off a bit of Woggle’s antennae.  Finally when he’s been weakened enough Scarecrow calls them off and says he’ll kill Woggle himself and starts choking the life out of him claiming he’ll use his body to feed his pets and his bones to serve as a warning to those who would defy him.

Fortunately Amber Ombi shows up jumping out of a tree and chopping off Scarecrow’s hand and they both start running off. Scarecrow puts his hand back together and releases his crows again to pursue them. They end up in a pond which fools the Scarecrow enough to believe they drowned since they don’t come back up.

Cut to the Nome King who is lamenting about how Ozma isn’t giving it up despite throwing her in the dungeon and taking over her kingdom. He hopes he doesn’t have to rape her, but if that’s what it takes…

“Geez can’t she see I’m being a nice guy?!”

Just then Mombi shows up saying “Yeah you might have to completely destroy her spirit dude.” (AKA Rape)

NK flips out on Mombi for just creeping up on him like that and questions if she’s spying on him. She’s just like “Calm down, I’m just reporting shit. Anyway, all of Oz is in a uproar and you need to do something about it before we have rebels all over the fucking place.”

Which sparks NK’s idea to bring him Dorothy since she’s pretty well respected in Oz so having her by his side should ease some tension. And having a loli for a queen is the next best thing to raping Ozma apparently.

Cut back to Amber and Woggle who of course didn’t drown since Wog’s incredible knowledge of Oz’s geography allowed him to know there were some underground caverns nearby if they swam long enough. Also fortunate that Wog’s got antennae that light up so they can make their way through the caves. Wog asks what happened to turn the Scarecrow evil and their scene ends with Amber saying he’ll tell him all about it once they make it to the surface.

Cut to the Scarecrow overseeing the munchkins build his giant barn fortress. He then tells a munchkin to chop down some sign he points to saying they could use the wood and it won’t be needed anymore. Last page is the Scarecrow laughing maniacally as the munchkin chops down the sign that says “Wogglebug College” and a whole bunch of other shit going on about his various titles (Which he probably gave himself anyway)

That’s it for the issue.

Oh and some last page with Stu pontificating about how Scarecrow is the scariest of the evil kings and how he genuinely likes the fear he instills. Shut up Stu, we don’t give a shit.

Issue “1”: Beastmaster

He’s no pussy anymore that’s for sure

After skimming past 5 pages of copy/pasta, we get a scene of the Lion beating the chicken soup out of Hungry Tiger. Though the Lion stops and says he sees he’s had enough so he won’t kill him. He then heads to his throne and grabs his crown saying it’s no mere ornament any longer and is a true symbol of regal power as he’s a proper king now.

Hungry Tiger asks why he nearly killed him along with turning his back on Ozma, to which the Lion says Ozma’s reign is over and to stuff whining since the lionesses will tend to his wounds. He even says he knows Tiger is a strong creature and a worthy subject. Tiger however is like fuck this I’m not serving your crazy ass, I’m leaving and healing up then I’m coming back to knock that crown off your head.

Probably not the smartest thing to do making threats to the guy who just kicked your ass when you’ve got 2HP left. Immediately the Lion sends three big cats after HG, a panther, a leopard and mountain lion. HG manages to best the panther (Black cat dies first, but the leopard gets the drop on him and he’s soon in a bad position with the two remaining cats circling him.

Cut to Mombi who is still worrying about the resisting population of Oz and feels this may be a losing war. However now the Nome King tells her not to worry and presents Dorothy who is now grown up magically (Since I guess NK decided having a child bride wouldn’t be a good look. He goes out to address the folks of Oz who are openly rioting in the streets of Em City. Well first he uses some sonic wave magic that gets them to collapse in ear pain first and then he shows Dorothy saying she’s willingly accepted his rule and is the new queen of Oz.

The Ozians (Ozites? Ozeneese?) see this and immediately lose their will to fight and NK tells them all to go home and he’ll be rolling out the new laws of the land soon.

Cut back to HG who looks like he might be done for, but fortunately Amber along with Woggle come in to rescue him by taking down the two large cats. Well Amber does anyway, Wog’s busy just being a look out saying there’s more large cats coming. HG is hurt though so Amber isn’t sure if they can get away in time. However HG says he just needs to heal himself. This prompts HG to enact his cannibalism perk and he quickly eats the carcasses of the three dead big cats healing himself immediately. Amber and Wog’s reactions aren’t dissimilar to when you start chowing down on bodies in front of your companions in Fallout 4.

“Don’t be repulsed, the creatures I eat, their spirit lives on in me!” - Hungry Tiger not making the situation any less weird

They travel to the caves that Amber and Wog first escaped to, though HG is reluctant to enter them at first since he’s apparently a bit claustrophobic, but he soon gets over it. He also isn’t familiar with Wog until some clarification of him having a college named after him, which causes HG to realize of yeah there’s only one oversized roach in all of Oz.

So Amber asks what happened exactly and now we get a flashback in a comic that’s already a flashback!

HG says he had been invited to a great feast by the Lion and everyone was having a good time until the Lion got summoned to Em City for the Nome King thing. the Lion told HG to just keep the throne occupied while he went to the ceremony since he didn’t like leaving the court unattended which HG was cool with.

So then shows the Lion leaving and then fast forwards a bit to HG enjoying the perks of the throne a bit when the Lion returns and he’s telling him to get the fuck off his throne. HG’s like “Hey you told me to keep the seat warm while you were gone, but I’m going you crazy bastard.”

This isn’t good enough for the Lion however and wants HG to swear allegiance to him. HG says the only ruler he recognizes is Queen Ozma and that’s where we came in at the beginning with their fight. At this point Amber fills HG in on what’s going on and so does Wog with his dealings with Scarecrow.

Meanwhile the Lion is beating up some leopard man (or is it a jaguar man?) for losing Hungry Tiger especially since he was at death’s door when he’d left. (Well gee Lion, you should’ve finished the job yourself then!) In any case he tosses leopard man aside and makes the villainous announcement that all creatures in the land are his to command, he’s king of the beasts and anyone who doesn’t like it gets their ass ripped apart.

And that’s it for this issue.

One last bit not with Stu thankfully this time, but Chet who apparently was the editor and he’s going on about how the Lion is actually the “scariest” of the three evil kings because unlike the other two who were either human at one time (Tin Man) or created with a humanlike design in mind (Scarecrow) he was always an animal with that primal law of nature survival of the fittest thing going on. Well in any case, Chet doesn’t go on as long as Stu does so it’s a plus.

Issue “1”: The Mechanism of Destruction!

Yeah, the Tin Man was always my favorite of the three

Alright after the copy/pasta again, this one starts off with Tik Tok in a forest looking fairly distressed and stating he wonders why the hell did Tin Man turn into a major dick. Tik continues his escape from presumably the Tin Man, but is concerned about his gears slowing down since he hasn’t been wound up in awhile.

Tik has some luck though and he soon bumps into Hungry Tiger and Amber. This luck doesn’t last long as Tin Man soon arrives with some wicked looking steampunk toasters. Tin Man calls Tik a miserable excuse for a machine and all he’s done is ensure his meatball friends’ deaths.

So this comic has a pretty long battle scene compared to the other ones (Like most of the comic is pure action with little dialog). HG and Amber attempt to fight the toasters but they aren’t too successful. Tin Man points out it doesn’t matter how skilled or strong they are, metal is stronger and will never tire unlike the weakness of flesh. Tinny is literally paraphrasing a 40K adeptus mechanicus at this point. He says he acknowledges them as skilled warriors, but fleshlings have no place in his kingdom except as slaves.

And since he knows they would never capitulate to being slaves, he’ll give them the honor of death by killing them himself.

Cut to Em City where Dorothy is giving a speech to the people saying they need to just obey the Nome King and how she doesn’t want them to cause him to hurt them even more. She then tells them she loves them all and then walks off like a pod person.

Mombi and NK are both exclaiming of how morale and resistance is getting lower every day and generally cackling about how delightful it is to see the Oz folk pathetically give up and mope about their queen rather than do anything about it. NK says the Oz folk are weak and if they were anything like his nomes they would still be fighting to the last.

This is all well and good, however there’s one problem.

There was a big fuck up with continuity with what Dorothy looks like. In this issue she’s back to looking like a little girl and she was already brought out last issue to talk with the Ozzites (Apparently that’s what they’re called) and she was grown up. So one can only assume this was a mistake by the Tin Man artist since there’s been a few different artists working on these books. (So far the art has been the same with the main comic)

Cut back to Tin Man kicking the shit out of Amber and crew, but before he can actually kill any of them, Tik manages to get into the fight and stop him. Tin Man is pretty pissed about another machine working with the meat sacks saying he needs to stomp that flaw out of him.

Though Amber and the rest get away and soon Tik escapes as well causing the Tin Man to shout about how he gave them a chance for a noble death and now he’s going to slaughter them like cattle if he finds them again. He then makes his own evil king boast about how fleshlings will only be in his kingdom to serve THE METAL.

Last bit is Amber, HG and Tik limping along through a deforested section of land saying that this war has just begun.

And that’s it for this issue.

Once again we get a page of rambling from Chet. This time he’s going on about why the Tin Man is the worst of the evil kings. He’s the first cyborg motivated by cold logic and without the kind heart he’s an unstoppable ruthless machine. Well make up your mind Chet, is it the Lion or the Tin Man you think is the most evil. (Yeah I get they just wanted to make an argument for all of them)

Issue “1”: All Together Now

Last of these prequel one shots

Alright same 5 pages of copy/pasta, however this one doesn’t immediately go into the title drop afterwards with the new page like the others do. This one starts off with Amber wandering through some forest with large vines and he soon bumps into Jack Pumpkinhead who asks if he’s friend or foe and after some discussion, they realize they’re on the same side and ready to join forces.

Then Mombi shows up to fuck things up. Jack gets the advantage and attempts to strangle her with his vine hands, but then Tin Man comes in and chops his hands off. Jack then gets his literal melon split open with Tin’s axe.

Amber who has been standing there the whole time like a dumb ass finally tries to do something, but Scarecrow grabs his arms behind his back while the Lion slashes him up. He eventually falls with the Scarecrow laughing at his dying breaths.

Then Amber wakes up from his nightmare. He then washes up a bit and someone knocks on the door asking if he’s alright as he’s getting dressed. He opens the door saying he’s fine to some girl that looks like a patched up quilt.

This would be Patchwork Girl or Scraps as she’s also called. She was another character from the OG books, though I guess like Jinjur, she was also very briefly seen in the Return to Oz movie but wasn’t credited or named.

Next page is finally the title drop of this issue as Amber addresses the first meeting of the Freedom Fighters. Apparently this base is established in Gilikin territory where the Nome King has the least amount of influence. Wog mentions how the Munchkin, Winkie and Quadling territories have all fallen.

There’s some debate about whether or not the trio have been truly bewitched to be evil or they just decided to become dickheads. Others say it doesn’t really matter since they need to be killed anyway. Amber points out an attempt to bring them back to the side of light should be in order seeing as they were/are heroes and they have indeed been magically charmed.

Jack and Wog back him up saying that it’s the Nome King and Mombi that really need to be taken care of to get rid of the evil in the land.

At this point Wog says he’ll take Gump and spread the word of fighting against NK while Amber trains everyone (And in a thought bubble he’s got concerns about the fate of Oz resting in the hands of a squabbling mob)

Tik Tok come rushing in claiming that Jinjur has gotten the other good witches apparently together and they’re ready to attack Em City. Though I was under the impression it was just the two NK that he already took care of, but I guess these are minor ones. Amber is set to lead the rest of what troops he currently has before the nomes get too entrenched.

Cut to the Flying Monkey Kingdom which apparently is in the far north. A flying monkey king sits on his throne addressing another one called Abella and stating he’s not pleased about hearing that he’s trying to convince younger monkeys into joining this fool quest to get involved in the Oz war. The law is they are to remain neutral now in the affairs of Oz, but Abella says it’s not a good idea to just leave the Nome King unchecked and it’s also just wrong to let the Ozzites get slaughtered without doing anything.

The king bring up the law of the CAP which means they have to obey, but Abella points out they own the damn cap, so their destiny is in their own hands. This debate goes no where and ultimately Abella is kicked out of the kingdom to go live in Oz and he’s stripped of his name (Yep, this is the nameless winged monkey in the freedom fighters). Oh and the king of the flying monkeys was his dad, so he’s also a prince or ex-prince now. Could be worse, could’ve lost the title being on an island with the “lost girls”.

Cut to Jinjur retreating of all things with a few troops, well really only one. They’re both being overrun by a bunch of nomes who soon kill her only one left and she’s got a spear in her leg. Though she gets rescued by Amber who shows up with just some of the known freedom fighter characters. Not an army at all.

So Jinjur tells her tale of woe that as they marched upon Em City, the nomes did their usual thing of attacking from below and ambushed everyone with her as the only survivor now. Not sure what happened to all the good witch magic but must not have been worth a shit if they couldn’t beat a bunch of fucking nomes.

In any case, they all realize this is going to be an even tougher war now, but they’re willing to do whatever it takes to win it.

Last panels consist of Mombi and Nome King gloating about their recent victory and NK in particular saying how he’s ruling Oz FOREVER.

And that’s it for this issue. No after ramblings about shit this issue either.

All in all, these prequels were cool. Honestly I sort of would’ve rather the comic been more about this time period than the main story line involving Kev and crew. In fact I'm not all that fond of Kevin and his peeps anyway, but that’s how they wanted to roll with it. There’s actually a few more comics that deal with the “dark times” but those are mini-series which we’ll get into later.

Anyway next post will go back to the main storyline, stay tuned!

Will keeps beating me to these comms, can't win against that timezone.

Next five coming up

Issue 6: A Gathering of Heroes

Didn’t they already gather before?

This starts off in Winged Monkey territory in the northeastern part of Oz and a brief mention of how despite their occasional role in its history, nobody really knows where their allegiances lie, but everyone knows them to be a noble race.

The monkey folk become alarmed when they see Wogglebug flying on Gump and the ex-prince monkey boy arriving. They immediately arrest them saying they aren’t allowed here, especially since the ex-prince is exiled. Woggle is a bit perturbed stating they have important business to discuss, but Mr. Nameless already says this wasn’t too surprising for him and they go willingly.

Cut to the other Freedom Fighters in the forest where Hungry Tiger is busy eating as usual while getting patched up by munchkins. Pumpkinhead states since HG is in better shape, he and HG are going to find a secret tunnel under Em City to try to just bypass defenses and get straight to the Nome King. 

Seems like a good idea, but isn’t the standard nome MO to attack from underground? Seems like they’d just all be under there anyway.

Anyway Mary isn’t too keen on Jack leaving since she feels he’s the closest thing to a friend she has since she first got rescued by him. Jack says its too dangerous for her to risk going being a puny human after all. Meanwhile Amber makes like a white knight stating that he’ll be around to protect Mary, which then causes Jinjur to state she’ll be around to protect Mary too…from Amber.

As Jack and HG leave, Mary goes over to Amber saying she’s been rude and wants to thank him for saving her life earlier

Then she kisses him on the cheek. Wow. Well make up your own mind that if Mary is just being a big whore here or if Kevin’s dick game is just so weak that it doesn’t make up for the rest of his personality so she’d be better off trading for a new model. (It’s a trick question, it’s both)

Cut to Mombi and her ladies auxiliary brigade. They’re currently at the former HQ of the Freedom Fighter and using it as a new base for themselves. Mombi’s already plotting the next major step in the Nome King’s downfall because she’s not content on being a servant stating that he forgets that once her sisters ruled this land and if not for her help, he wouldn’t have even gotten as far as he did.

She picks up a piece of Tik Tok stating she wishes he could be put back together and made loyal to her, but for now she’ll just keep the piece as a souvenir of her victory. She then tells her ladies for everyone to gather at Em City, the next step is going to be soon.

Cut to the trio with Kev and Pete. Scarecrow remarks on the things they’ve said about earth and he says the place sounds magical too and that Dorothy didn’t mention anything like what they’re saying. They then come across some Quadlings.

Tin Man and Scarecrow try to call out to them, but they immediately run and beg for mercy still believing they’re evil. When they learn that isn’t the case, they give the group some proper food and talk a little about their current situation. Pete and Kev are mainly worried about Mary, though Scarecrow tries to reassure them that she probably found refuge with those fighting the Nome King. 

As for getting back to earth, the Lion says since it was probably magic that brought them here, it’ll be magic to take them back so they’ll need to seek out such magic. Unfortunately the Wizard isn’t around anymore and a Quadling says the Nome King is going to try to marry Ozma to become the true king. Kevin says he doesn’t remember her from the movie leading to the Tin Man saying how Ozzite seem to know more about earth than the other way around since he seems to think it’s a fantasy land. (And Kev never saw Return to Oz obviously since Ozma was in that and this comic is taking place in the 90s long after it was already out (And on VHS)

Tin Man then goes into a bit of history about who Ozma is, then one of the Quadlings fills in a bit more background of what’s been going on to Kevin and Peter (and even the trio since they apparently are a bit out of the loop as well), though this is stuff we as the readers already know.

Then they all go to sleep and Kevin is just thinking how saving Oz is going to get him any closer to Mary, but there’s little else to do right now. He just takes comfort in that his dog is still with him. (Might as well seeing as Mary’s already kissing other dudes since their short time here)

Cut back to Wog and Monkey boy who are now sitting in a cell. Wog starts questioning Monkey about the situation, which he tells him that he got exiled for questioning the king and then Wog of course is stating how this is a fascist police state that shuts down independent thought, however he’s also pissed at Monkey for not explaining this sooner and was retarded since now they’ve taken themselves out of the fight against the Nome King. Monkey boy still thinks that the king will see them though since it’s his dad.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighter’s camp where Jinjur is speaking to an old munchkin who states he’s tired of the war and he longs for this vigil ends. He soon gets his wish when some giant wolf creature jumps out and rips his throat out. Jinjur kills it, but there’s more of them with the alpha stating that the BANEWOLVES will bring destruction to the two legs.

(Not sure if the Bane Wolves were a thing in the OG books or just this comic. Probably was some sort of mention of evil wolves in the books since that sounds fitting in a place where it’s a lot of talking animal or animal like beings.)

And that’s it for this comic.

Issue 7: Monkey in the Middle

This whole series is just folks constantly fighting armies of little people

Alright this one starts off with Wog and Monkey boy finally getting taken to the king where he’s yelled at for coming back in the first place. Wog tries to explain their situation, but nobody wants to hear from a pompous giant roach, so Monkey boy gets his say finally.

He goes on about the Nome King fucking up Oz and all that, to which the response is the same and that’s yeah that’s not our concern. Monkey Boy then points out the NK isn’t going to stop there and he’ll surely turn his attention to conquering them too, though it’s pointed out that their land is pretty remote and nothing of any real value that NK would want. The response to that is that doesn’t really matter since NK is just a control freak that likes power for its own sake. Not to mention he’s ultra paranoid that’s not likely to just let an independent well equipped unified army just sit on his doorstep. He’s not an honorable sort and needs to be taken out.

Well it took some doing, but Nameless Monkey Boy finally gets through to his dad who says yeah maybe they’ve been following the “Law of the Cap” too strictly for too long and so he gives his son his name back and says he can come back home. So back to Reynar Abbella it is.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighter camp that got attacked by the Bane Wolves and it’s not looking too good for the as they’re outnumbered and surrounded by them. Sawhorse takes on a few. Amber is doing his usual white knight shit of claiming how he’ll protect Mary, while Mary is going on about how she can handle herself. A couple of Munchkins remark about how they won’t shut up and meanwhile Jinjur is being an absolute Chadette by actually focusing on shooting multiple wolves with arrows.

Fortunately for all of them Hungry Tiger shows up and kills a few and threatens the alpha which causes them to slink off saying they haven’t heard the last of the Bane Wolves. Mary asks where Jack is, though HG says he’s on his way and he’ll soon show them the one who’ll guide them through the secret tunnels into Em City.

Cut to the trio who just show up at the front gates of Em City because fuck any sort of strategy. They knock on the gate which is answered by some nome who wonders what the hell the three kings are doing there. Tin Man states they want to see the Nome King immediately which causes the gate guard to state he’ll be right back.

Meanwhile the Nome King is talking to himself stating the obvious about how all his enemies have fallen but his one prize still remains out of reach which Is Ozma who continues to delude himself that she WILL love him. But then he snaps out of it and states he needs to focus on not only the remainder of the resistance, but also Mombi who he knows is scheming against him.

In comes the gate guard who states the trio are outside which really alarms NK and states what the hell does he pay Mombi for. He then tells him to stall them while he gathers his artifacts to destroy them for good.

The trio and the earthers are still waiting around and Kevin points out that while they wait, the nomes are probably trying to figure out how to capture them. Kevin might be a terrible businessman, but he’s actually got more common sense than most in Oz.

At this point there’s a REALLY fucking stupid bit with the Scarecrow where he starts replying to Kevin and during the dialog he says a line “Now that we three are free…” and then he breaks the 4th wall saying “Try saying that 3 times fast.” this is followed by his head shaking and going (Wakka wakka wakka) leading to the next panel going “Anyway…” and then returns to the story proper.

It’s really fucking retarded and probably the expressions they drew made things worse since he’s really punchable looking. Though I should point out, the Scarecrow says a lot of dumb goofy shit when he returns back to being good. This just happens to be one of the worst examples.

Anyway…

As Kevin predicted, the nomes come out in force with little clubs ready to beat them to death. A multiple page fight scene goes on, but soon the nomes do that death from below attack and more pop up from the ground to drag them under where hundreds of them are. 

Cut back to Reynar who is rebonding with his dad over some beers. Wog still doesn’t understand why the laws were so strict in the first place since it wasn’t even like Reynar was trying to take the throne from his dad. Reyna explains how their race used to be more fun loving rascals but one day they took the “It’s just a prank bro” thing too far, kidnapping the northern queen’s finance and dumping him in the river on their wedding day!

The queen didn’t like this and created a magical cap that would control the destiny of the monkeys to the wearer. So they created this book with a set of laws for them to follow. Fortunately when Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the West they got the cap back.

Unfortunately during the middle of this tale, a monkey servant reports that the cap is gone.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters where Jack says the nomes have mostly closed up all the tunnels they dug in order to get under Oz, but there’s still one they didn’t create that they didn’t know about. HG then presents who knows those tunnels and will e the guide and it’s the Queen of the Field Mice. (Another character from the OG books)

And that’s it for this issue.

They brought back the Munchkin Mailbag letter page and there’s another rambling page by Stu going on about some shit, but nothing major. Except for one guy who wrote that his comic book guy was so hyped about Oz that he let him take home the first issue to read to see what he thought of it. The dude said he had his doubts at first, but after reading it he liked it a lot.

In fact, he stated he liked it so much he didn’t take the comic back to the store and had essentially stole it. Not sure of the thought process of either, if the dude was just never going back to that place or the store owner was fine with him taking it without paying since he figured he’d have ongoing sales with the dude buying the new ones. Guess that’ll just be one of those little mysteries as Stu scolded the guy in his reply of saying he hoped he went back and paid for the comic.

Issue 8: The Itzy Bitzy Spider

Don’t worry, the first page still has folks fighting an army of short people

As already stated, the issue starts off with the trio fighting an army of nomes. Well the Tin Man and Lion are at least, the Scarecrow is being useless as usual having already been ripped apart during the fight last issue and his head calling for help. Though Tinny and Lion are doing the retarded thing of holding back, by not using the EDGE of the axe or claws, but state they will soon if they don’t turn the tide of nomes.

Which at this point Kevin is like “What the fuck are you waiting for?”

Kev and Lion soon manage to locate Crow’s body parts in the sea of nomes and reunite his body with his head again. Which allows him to FINALLY become useful as he does his tried and true “Summon Crows” spell and a shitload of them come forth from his cloak to murder the shit out of the nomes while they escape.

I suppose it makes sense that the Scarecrow isn’t really the fighter of the bunch given he’s just flimsy straw held together by some raggedy clothes. He’s obviously the “magic user” class and this gets addressed more in a prequel spin off I’ll get to later.

Nome King gets pissed at his minions for letting them all escape and orders scouts to go find them.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters speaking with the Mouse Queen and she says that while her rodents have found signs of the caves that the nomes are still using. Amber asks if she knows the way through them to the castle in Em City, but MQ says they haven’t actually ventured through them, they just know that enough nomes use them that the castle must be on the other side. They’re going to have to discover the way themselves.

Fat help Mini-Mouse was.

Cut back to Em City where Peter managed to be the unlucky one to not escape and gets thrown before the Nome King. NK demands to know how the trio overcame the mind control spells, but Peter won’t cooperate. NK asks wouldn’t it be better to be on the winning side and cooperate, but Pete stays consistent leading to NK beating him and throwing him in the dungeon.

Cut back to Mini-Mouse leading them to the entrance to the caves where they can figure shit out themselves, but it should lead to the unfinished portion of the dungeons. Mary asks why Em City even has dungeons since it’s supposed to be a friendly happy place before NK came along. Amber says in wasn’t always a dungeon and used to just be an extra food storage area for the banquets.

So the group set off and time passes. Eventually they get to the cave entrance where party members start leaving. Mini-Mouse takes off as she never went that deep into the caves and Hungry Tiger of all folks leaves stating that he’s going to guard the rear tunnel so if any nomes show up, he can deal with them and they won’t get potentially trapped between two enemy hordes. The big pussy is probably just feeling claustrophobic again.

Jack actually tells Mary that she’s free to stay behind as this really isn’t her fight as she’s mentioned earlier, but she tells him to stop being melodramatic and if it doesn’t work out, they’ll just have to find a way to escape. She also goes on to say she’s starting to feel like getting transported to Oz wasn’t an accident, like she was meant to do something important here. Just like when Dorothy did when she had her adventures.

So now it’s just Amber, Jack, Jinjur and Mary pushing depper ahead. Jack at this point mentions there’s rumors that goblins have started returning to the caverns closer to the surface. Much like the Kalidahs and the Bane Wolves, all the more evil creatures in Oz have been taking advantage of the Nome King’s reign. Jinjur says they haven’t been seen since before her grandfather’s time.

As far as I can tell there were brief mentions of goblins in the Oz books (Specifically the song the Munchkins sing when the Wicked Witch is dead), but they never actually showed up. Though goblins have been a staple in fantasy long before Oz, so it’s not really unusual to have them.

In anycase, they aren’t around at this time. What there definitely is though is spiders. A shitload of giant hostile spiders because hey it’s Ozland down under.

While everyone else is freaking out Jinjur once again is getting down to business shooting the 8 legged freaks. Everyone starts fighting and Mary gets herself in trouble by sucking as a fighter. Fortunately Jack grows some vines which allows her to climb up to a nearby tunnel entrance and escape. The others soon follow since the spiders are pretty much endless.

Cut back to Peter now chained to a stone floor in the dungeon where a nome jailer is insulting him along with stating that he’s still one of the lucky ones since NK has made the offer that if Pete gives up all the info on what he wants to know he’s free to leave unharmed (The jailer also saying that grieves him to say) Of course Pete still isn’t cooperating which the jailer states is fine with him since if he thinks he’s going to be rescued, he’s retarded. The Freedoom Fighters have spent 10 years trying to take back OZ and are no closer to their goals.

After the jailer leaves, Pete’s wondering about some of the stuff he said, specifically the Freedom Fighters, which then causes his cellmate hanging on one of the walls to speak up saying that they’ve heard about that group before and it gives them hope. Pete didn’t know anyone else was in the cell so he asks who’s there and it of course turns out to be Ozma.

That’s it for this issue.

More reader mail, none of it amusing as usual. Someone is still bitching about wanting the comic in color. If this had been a Deadworld letter’s page, King Zombie would’ve called him a faggot and told him to fuck off. Probably following up with “How’s that for color?”

Issue 9: Clash of the Titans

Evil again or just one of those classic misunderstanding between heroes in comic books?

This one pick up with Wog, Gump and Reynar flying in the air and spotting HG and Sawhorse standing by the cave entrance. (Both Gump and Sawhorse barely get any panel time throughout the comic and you often forget they’re even around other than occasional reminders)

So all these folks reunite with the only good news is that Reynar got his name back and welcomed home, but the bad news is that the monkeys won’t be joining the fight because the CAP was stolen so they can’t do anything being slaves to the law and all. HG says the rest entered the caves on their way to confront the Nome King though he’s currently smelling an evil scent in the air.

Cuts back to the Nome King who once is talking to himself for the benefit of the readers. He’s basically just going on about how his plans are looking less secure what with the trio becoming good again and earth’s showing up. He starts telling himself that Pete is going to talk after spending time in his dungeon, but then he gets pissed and starts breaking shit because Ozma is still holding out on him and has done so for a decade now.

He goes to some chamber where he’s keeping the older Dorothy stating he could’ve just put a mind control amulet on Ozma too and won that way, but it would be like putting in a cheat code to win the game and not as satisfying. He then goes on to say that Dorothy better pray that Ozma continues to hold out because the day she gives in and marries him is the day she won’t be necessary anymore and he’ll kill her.

I suppose the only upside to all of this is that NK has probably not fucked Dorothy in any way since he’s got such a hard on for Ozma.

Mombi enters at this point saying that there’s reports of the winged monkeys being in disarray since someone stole their CAP. NK says that’s good new they probably won’t be attacking, but it brings up the question of who actually did. He starts implying maybe one of Mombi’s lackies did it since he’s aware that she has her own plans.

Mombi states that’s not true and for him to not look for treason when there is none. He gives her one more warning that if he finds any solid evidence that she’s plotting against him he’ll turn her into an inanimate object along side the good witches.

NK then states that the trio are free of their spell which Mombi didn’t know about. NK also tells her earthers are about and he’s got one captive. He wants to know if the Freedom Fighters got more reinforcements coming from earth since its apparent that the barriers between the worlds are down now. He tells Mombi to go interrogate Pete.

Meanwhile Pete is talking to Ozma and currently fawning over how beautiful she is despite the more immediate concern of being chained up in the fucking dungeon. Ozma says she doesn’t even know how long she’s been in the dungeon though she’s guessing years, she also asks if Pete is from earth.

Pete says he is and the two sort of exchange info on what’s been going on from each other’s perspectives. Upon hearing that the trio have been freed of their charm spell, this gives Ozma even more hope that the tide might be finally turning.

In any case Pete’s obviously down bad for Ozma even in these conditions and it becomes apparent when Mombi comes in to have Pete taken away and they look at each other with hope. This leads to Mombi wondering what the hell went on between the two.

Cut to the trio who are hiding out in a nearby forest since the nomes can’t travel underground as easily when there’s a bunch of roots in the way which is fucking retarded, but whatever. Kevin though wants to get back in the fight immediately because he’s already lost two of his people and all he’s got left is his dog. Tin Man tells him to calm his ass down since going pants on head retarded again to the front gates isn’t the move.

Scarecrow though comes up with the bright idea of staying in the forest safely from afar, splitting up and scouting for weaknesses in nome activity with once again a big dumb ass expression on his stupid face.

Cut back to Jack and Amber who are still climbing the vine rope to escape from the spiders, though the spiders are chewing through the vine so Jack decides to do the heroic sacrifice thing of jumping down and keeping them occupied. Amber however won’t let this slide and jumps down with him so he doesn’t get turned into pumpkin pie. A noble gesture and all, but retarded since they’re still severely outnumbered. At this point Jinjur and Mary come running back wondering why the hell they’re still fucking around with the spiders.

Amber gets bit, Jack’s getting munched on and Jinjur’s out of arrows so she’s going to go jump down for close combat, but fortunately Mary holds her back. Amber shouts for them to leave, but Jack manages to grow one last vine for Amber to also escape. Amber at this point gets the hint and finally retreats to rejoin the ladies. Mary cries a bit as she hears the screams of Jack getting EATEN ALIVE.

Cut back to the Lion doing some scouting. He senses something and then gets attacked by Hungry Tiger. Tin Man clobbers HG in the back of the head with the flat part of his axe (As usual) and then Reynar grabs the axe from him. This causes Scarecrow to get ready to unleash his crow then he’s smacked to the ground by Wogglebug who further beats him saying this is for Pyff.

Kevin and his dog finally catch up only to find all these freaks fighting each other because one side thinks they’re still evil, and the other believing they’re allies of the Nome King. So yeah, it’s a misunderstanding.

That’s it for this issue.

More reader mail and about the only stand out is apparently some guy saying he didn’t like issue 2 any more than issue 1 and that issue 3 was a little better but still too corny so they need to work on it. The response was that they’re glad he’s giving the comic a chance, but seeing as they’re going on issue 10 now, he needs to consider a better delivery service. Lol.

Another page of rambling by Stu. This time he’s going on about the comic book industry, pointing out that as a more indy publisher they must be doing something right if people are paying 2.95 for a black and white comic with less access to big advertising, stating that people want to see new ideas and not just the same shit most of the industry shovels out. I can understand defending the artistic choice and not doing what everyone else is doing.

But then he also goes on about how more G-Rated stuff needs to be a thing. While the 90s started having the darker and edgier story shit in the main publishers (Marvel/DC) it wasn’t like there wasn’t any G rated stuff. The usual kids comics like Casper or Archie were still around. Meanwhile these guys are literally turning what’s traditionally thought of as a children’s story into something darker and edgier. 

Pick a side Stu, pick a fucking side.

Issue 10: Reunion

Spoiler: The Nome King does not in fact turn into a giant this issue

It starts off with Mombi bringing Peter before the Nome King sitting on his throne with Dorothy by his side looking off into space as usual. I thought Mombi was supposed to interrogate him, but apparently she just decided to drag him back to NK for him to deal with again.

Pete of course is still defiant, prompting Mombi to threaten him, but NK says he can answer willingly or become like his thrall queen and answer under his command. Which sounds like NK is proposing Booty Warrior style tactics. 

Ignoring the possibility of getting his cheeks busted, Pete ponders if this is Glinda sitting on the throne next to him causing Mombi to tell him to stop mumbling and to tell them what forces are coming from earth since they know the barrier is down between the two worlds. 

So Pete trolls them saying that a few Panzer divisions are coming along with Hercules Gunships and a few thousand special troops. They should be arriving any time now. NK doesn’t even know what the hell all of this means, but Mombi says she’ll get the truth out of him.

Cut back to Amber, Jinjur and Mary where they patch themselves up and rest before continuing on. They come across a solid black door with no handle. They can’t get it open and going back through the spiders is a death sentence. Mary somehow gets the idea that there might be another way to open it, and starts climbing the rock wall near the door. After being told to be careful and her stating she’s climbed harder rock walls before, she discovers and upper latch that she undoes to open the door.

They get in and after a bit of stomping around through more obviously man made (nome made?) tunnels they stumble upon Ozma’s cell and free her. They are going to have to go back the way they came though through the spider anyway, but Amber is positive that they’ll make it now that they have Ozma and nothing can stop their victory. 

Fortunately they don’t have to rely on Amber’s foolish idealism as they stumble upon Jack Pumpkinhead who is in a half chewed state, but not dead. (Half of his head is gone though) He says the spiders ended up leaving since they didn’t enjoy the vegetarian meal what with traditionally being meat eaters and all, so the way is clear.

However, Amber himself isn’t looking too great and falls to the ground. The spider bite he got earlier has finally kicked in with the poison, so they carry him for awhile before settling down to rest, hoping he can just pull through. While Amber’s going through his poison coma, Mary’s keeping an eye on him and even holding him at times. Yeah Mary’s definitely already forgetting about comic store boy.

Jack goes on about Amber’s background a bit and how it shapes his outlook on life making Mary realize that’s why he’s so hung up on being heroically brave to the point of foolishness. Next day, Amber wakes up and he’s completely better, in fact he’s telling everyone else to get up saying they got the kingdom to save (Or queendom rather). Mary once again is practically about to wrap her legs around him stating she was afraid he’d die from the poison, but he states his body is strong all the while shirtless and displaying a Chadly smirk on his face.

Meanwhile the other half of the Freedom Fighters are duking it out with the Trio over who is actually a good guy or not. Kevin is about to step in, but Sawhorse blocks him saying he isn’t sure what a skinny runt like him could do to help the evil kings anyway. Kevin protests saying they aren’t evil anymore because the spell was broken, but Sawhorse isn’t buying it saying they’ve terrorized the land for 10 years and he doesn’t even believe Amber that they’re under a spell so why should he believe him. 

Kevin doesn’t have an answer so there’s more fighting between the groups. And other than the Tinman, the trio are getting the worst of it with Wog even throwing some sort of fire beans at Scarecrow lighting him up. Kevin tells him to stop, drop and roll which the Scarecrow does thinking that was an excellent idea. 

Seriously, he never knew this? Wizard better give him an upgrade in brains at some point.

The fighting stops though when Amber and the rest stumble upon the group and then Mary shouts to Kevin excitedly running into his arms leaving Amber to look on in sadness. And he thought he was so in there too.

Mary asks what happened to Peter, Kevin says he got captured by the nomes but doesn’t know more than that. Ozma then pipes up saying she briefly met him in her cell but the nomes took him away after they talked and mentioned the trio were good guys again.

And then everyone makes up and they all have renewed hope on taking out the Nome King.

That’s it for this issue.

No letters this time, but Stu decided one page of rambling wasn’t enough so he did two pages this time. He mostly goes on about the price of comics and the whole dedication to making sure there’s at minimum 28 pages of story/art in an issue and keeping it fairly timely as far as publishing goes.There’s some other industry talk as well. (Like not reprinting their issue one under 3 million different cover thus making issue 1 genuinely scarce for those that collect)

I will say the Oz comic was coming out on a fairly regular basis when compared to say the other flagship comic Deadworld which had some major fucking problems with being out on time.

I imagine this is due to Ralph and Stu actually being directly in charge of Oz despite now working under Caliber. They basically were still operating with old Arrow comics moral code in place except now they didn’t have to really worry about all the unfun stuff that comes with actually running a company. (Until they resurrected it a third fucking time, but more on that later.

Alright we’ll probably continue with the next five comics in the main timeline rather than jumping back in the past again. Stay tuned!

Alright next 5.

Issue 11: The Perils of Peter

A day in the spotlight

Starts off with the Nome King roaring in anger about Ozma being gone. Mombi tells him that the jailer reported this to her and NK is probably ready to have him flayed. He tells everyone to search everywhere.

Mombi goes to her Ladies Auxiliary and tells them all except two are needed as extra guards. The remaining two need to keep an eye on Peter. So they’re escorting him to the dungeon and making jokes about Mombi along with telling Peter to not be such a coward since it’s going to be just as terrible for them when they have to hear his screams echoing down the hallways. Well Pete is of the mind that if he’s actually thrown in the dungeon again that’ll be it for him so he figures his only chance is to do what Kevin would do in this situation.

So he punches one of the LAs in the stomach and another in the face putting “Equal rights means equal fights” to the test. He runs off and tries to cut his ropes around his wrists on a nearby suit of armor holding a weapon. (Hey they were the ones stupid enough not to tie his hands behind his back) The LAs are eager to recapture him otherwise it won’t be good for them, though Pete states he’s also fond of being alive so it’s going to depend on who wants it bad enough. 

While I haven’t said much about this, but Peter and Kevin are both pretty damn skilled in combat for what are essentially being nerds. And Peter isn’t even supposed to be the brawler of the two. Now granted there’s plenty of folks who are nerds and also have combat skills, but these guys are more action hero level than normal. I suppose I point this out now because he absolutely dominates the two LAs who aren’t just armored (Yes properly armored, no chainmail bikinis) and have swords. These are SUPPOSED to be an elite warrior group on Oz. 

I suppose it could be a case though that they haven’t really gone up against any serious competition, but Pete just fucking thrashes them both as they bumble around trying to recapture him or actually they dispense with the recapture and are trying to just kill him. (At one point he does state he hates that he’s punching women while doing it)

Anyway after knocking them both out, he grabs a sword and runs off to save Dorothy though he’s still under the impression that she’s Glinda. (Probably believing her magic can save them both somehow)

Meanwhile Ozma’s giving a speech about how great it is everyone’s reunited. Various folks are apologizing to each other and Kevin interrupts everyone saying they need to stop the lovefest and go back to rescue Peter. Of coursethere’s problems with that given even the tunnels they used to save Ozma are probably well guarded (or collapsed) by now.

Wog comes up with the plan that he and Ozma should visit the 4 main kingdoms to try to unite their respective folk (The Munchkins, Winkies, Quadlings and Gillikins) against NK once and for all since things are a bit different now with Ozma and the trio on the good team again.

Meanwhile Kevin is speaking Mary and she’s apologizing for running off the way she did not realizing Kevin and Peter weren’t right behind her during the first Munchkin attack, but Kevin isn’t fussed about it since the important thing is to save Peter now and get out of Oz. 

Then Mary has this almost sly look on her face saying that it hasn’t been all bad here and she’s even made a few friends.

Way to be a big whore Mary.

Kevin brings her a bit back to reality saying Peter’s is possibly being tortured so he’s not to fond of things right now. Amber steps up stating that Ozma and Wog wants to speak with them. Kev asks Mary if this is one of her friends, and she explains the least damning way possible saying Amber saved her life a few times. Kev thanks him, not really seeing anything more to it all the while Amber has a bit of an annoyed look on his face.

As for Ozma, she actually doesn’t say much other than after they win, she can send them all back to earth, but they’ll be welcome to stay if they wish. She then leaves with Wog as they ride off on Gump.

Meanwhile Peter is still running about the palace looking for Glinda. Eventually he gets back to the throne room where everyone has left except Dorothy who’s still sitting on her throne.He sees the amulet around her neck and knows from the trio that if you take it off, it breaks the spell. So he does that and then soon finds out this isn’t Glinda. Dorothy is also a bit confused since she still thinks she’s a little girl, however she remembers the Nome King so she tells Pete that the Wizard had a secret passage nearby.

And then she passes a mirror and starts crying about how she looks. She says how she doesn’t want to be old and wants to be a little girl again and wants Aunt Em!

So what’s Pete’s response?

He bitch slaps Dorothy. Guess he got a little too comfortable hitting women. Lol.

Pete apologizes like a gentleman but says they don’t have time for a breakdown they have to escape, so Dorothy is like okay okay and leads the way. Pete adding “At least it’s not like you grew up ugly or anything.”

(Watch it Pete, she looks 22, but she’s really 12)

Cut to Ozma and Wog who meet up with some Gillikins and after explaining the new situation, they’re ready to commit their forces for the cause. They also give Ozma some metal scraps they gathered from the former  Freedom Fighter Hold which are bits of Tik Tok. 

Wog suggests they go visit the Winkies next since they’re good smiths and can put him back together

Meanwhile there’s a nome meeting with a character in a cloak. The face is hidden completely. The nome hands over a vial of blood and in return he gets a shitload of gold. Turns out the vial contains the blood of the true ruler of Oz and a WICKED plan is going to be set in motion.

And that’s it for the issue.

There’s a Munchkin mailbag at the end, but the only thing of amusement value is the editor telling Oz fans to take a MGM Dorothy doll and put a noose around her neck and place her on the Christmas tree because after all, aren’t you supposed to hang Garland for Christmas?

Finally one worthy of King Zombie.

Issue 12: All Things Wicked

Okay Pete, you’re pushing it now on getting main cover time

Starts off with Ozma and Wog arriving in Winkie land, which is now under new management seeing as Tin Man isn’t ruling the place anymore. Major Minor is still around and so is a majority of the mechanical shit that Tin Man was hyping up when he was evil.

Though seeing as he left, the toasters ended up picking a new king among the meatbags. Weird that they’d do this since even if Tin Man turned good, he was really instilling the whole machine superiority thing. You’d think maybe Major Minor would’ve logically taken over and continued with that, or at least taken over in general. 

However, instead Major Minor made the decision to pick a guy named Johnny Dooit to be king since he had the most mechanical knowledge so it was the most logical choice, plus he helped build most of them.

(Apparently this Dooit guy is a character from the OG books, though he’s portrayed way younger here than he is in the books)

Dooit explains to Ozma and Wog that he was the main one from keeping Tin Man from killing more Winkies whenever he got angry at them. So he was basically Ozcar Schindler. Ozma asks if he can rebuild Tik Tok, but Johnny says it’s going to be tough but he’ll try. He also gives his support of the Winkies to move against the Nome King when the time comes.

Cut to Nome King and he’s throwing a tantrum and breaking shit. he’s about to break the good witch figures until he stops himself saying he may have use for them later. So he calls Mombi in to bitch at her since now Peter and Dorothy have escaped. Tells her to stop fucking up or else she’s going to get fucked up. He basically tells her to kill everyone, even Ozma, he can’t take chances anymore.

Cut to Dorothy and Peter who has tried the best he can on updating her on the situation as they move through secret passage (which is going a lot deeper underground). She starts asking about Toto, Aunt Em, her chicken, etc. but Pete doesn’t know anything about that. When she mentions Ozma, he mentions he saw her in the dungeon since he was with her. 

Dorothy insists they go back and save her, but Pete isn’t keen on that idea. It doesn’t matter though since she’s already trying to go back, so he goes and follows her. Of course they don’t know she’s already escaped. This plan is cut short anyway when they run into goblins. 

Cut to Ozma speaking to the Quadlings on joining the coalition, but their leader Prince Quonto says as much as he sees the merit in the plan and respects Ozma, he can’t throw in his support and has to put his people first.

He then goes on to explain that while the rest fell with such little resistance to the point of cowardice, the Quadlings actually managed to drive the nomes out of their land and hold off NK from taking over. Though it’s been at a great cost, so it doesn’t seem like a good idea to throw more men in plan that’s probably going to fail anyway.

Wog gets pissed about this which Ozma has to calm him down before the guards skewer the roach for mouthing off to the prince. Ozma makes one last plea saying she can’t believe they’d defy their queen that loves them, but her words do not move the prince. He merely states that her fucktarded belief that evil couldn’t conquer her land lead them to this situation and so the Quadlings can only depend on themselves and will remain independent from now on.

Ozma leaves crying with Wog (Lol)

Cut to Peter who has a multi-page fight with the goblins. During the fight he mentions that this action hero stuff is supposed to be Kevin’s job, though he’s pretty much been performing like one throughout the comic as well and is doing it again here.

Cut to Mombi briefly saying she’s glad she’s got permission to just kill Ozma now, but as she’s spying on things, she notices Kevin’s dog Max and starts going on about how this beast won’t stop her. The evil witches really don’t like dogs.

It goes back to Pete still fighting the last goblin and now he’s making one liners like an action hero, but after has dispatches that gobo, one last one comes out looking a bit tougher than the rest saying a fighter who makes jokes is the most scared and now it’s time for a big joke, he’s going to die.

Cut back to some of the Freedom Fighterer riding on Scarecrow’s crows to assault Em City themselves, mostly to save Peter. While Wog had warned them earlier that such an action was retarded without waiting for the back up him and Oz were getting, they went and did it anyway (Which Wog figured they would)

After flying in and dispatching the one lone sentry on the battlements of the palace, they soon stumble upon Mombi who is glad they’ve saved her the trouble of seeking them out.

That’s it for this issue.

Not much reader mail and Stu didn’t ramble so we can move on

Issue 13: What on Earth?

These niggas about to have a bad trip

Alright so this issue is mostly one big troll. And if I had to guess it seems more like something that was Ralph’s idea than Stu’s.

Starts off with the Freedom Fighters bumrushing Mombi and then she puts that old voodoo on all of them. She knocks out Kevin first with a brain beam and then does something with the rest of the Oz cast. Only Mary and the dog seem to escape getting hit.

But before we get to those results, it cuts back to Peter losing against the gob boss. Fortunately for him Dorothy smashes the gob boss in the back of the head with a rock saving him, before they foolish run back to the dungeons to save Ozma.

Meanwhile Ozma and Wog are currently in Munchkinland where the munchies are falling all over themselves for her. They always were her favorite. Naturally the Mayor of Munchkinland is all for lending his support. Well 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

But let’s get back to what Mombi did because that’s the fun part.

So what she did is transport the lot of them to Earth and oh boy is it fun.

First thing that happens is they pop up in the middle of a busy street where Jack gets hit and his melon run over by a truck. He’s pumpkin paste (again). 

There’s a brief comment about the vehicles resembling armored wheeler which were a not so nice race that lived in Ev from the OG books. They also appeared in the Return to Oz movie as Nome King henchmen. Sort of surprised they didn’t bring them back for that again.

Anyway next monkey boy isn’t paying attention to the fact there’s power lines while he’s trying to get above the fast traffic situation. Electrocutes himself.

Meanwhile the rest of the group has all scattered into pairs and they don’t fair much better.

Lion and Hungry Tiger get riddled with bullets on the street by some cops that probably thought they were just big black dudes by mistake.

Amber and Jinjur get attacked by some gang members while running through an alley. The leader having a giant swastika on his forehead and imply he wants to RAPE Jinjur just to emphasize how evil he really is. He doesn’t actually do that though since she puts up enough of a fight for him to just outright shank her to death. Amber takes out a couple, but he gets beaten to death as well.

The last two are the Scarecrow and Tin Man who while immune to bullets and knives, they aren’t safe either. Special forces, an attack helicopter and a fucking TANK comes after them both.

“Is this this earth nothing but a WAR WORLD?” - Tin Man

Why yes, yes it is.

Anyway, the Scarecrow gets a flamethrower discharged at him, burning him up. Finally the Tin Man gets his lower half blown off by the tank before it rolls over him.

Then it shows the dead faces of all of them with this text:

“ For all their might and abilities in the magical land of Oz, this brave band of Freedom Fighters could not possibly face and survive the dangers of a modern day earth. An earth that is brutal and harsh with technology so advanced as to seem like magic itself. And now we can only wonder what hope is left in the land of Oz if its greatest heroes are gone.”

Wait this reminds me of something. Oh yeah this:

“With this character’s death, the light is gone and darkness now covers everything. Reload a saved game to restore the light or persist in this doomed world you have created.”

So next page is all of them still very much alive, just trapped in the Mombi mindfuck spell she cast on all of them. She’s actually using the mental images of earth from Kevin’s mind to fuck the rest of them up.

Mary attempts to rush her, but Mombi’s got Baba Yaga strength and starts choking her ass out with one hand while still mindfucking everyone else. She’s also going on about ruling Oz herself.

However, she’s then attacked by Max the dog, her one weakness! Mombi’s spell is broken and she even does a semi “This would’ve worked if not for that meddling dog” quip.

Kevin tells her she’s got bigger things to worry about, but Max begins to speak like he’s people and says nope, she was afraid of him the most.

This causes some shock from Kev and Mary and then Max begins to explain that he’s basically become more aware since they got to Oz, but he never revealed himself until now because it was his destiny to follow his master like a good boy to wherever that would eventually lead. Which was to Mombi eventually.

Now that he’s free of that destiny, he can also speak freely.

As Kev and Mary try to wrap their minds around this, there’s suddenly a big shake up. Like a REALLY big shake up. It’s a huge ass earthquake that affects all of Oz. The Nome King’s power on display. Basically it fucks up all four of the major territories, but there’s one place in particular it fucks up.

The home of the late Hektor Hammerhead (Remember him?) is so utterly destroyed by the quake that ALL of his people are flat-out genocided.

And nothing of value was lost. No, seriously according to the OG books, all of those guys are fucking assholes. Hektor was probably the “friendliest” one you see and he died so quick that you didn’t really get invested in his death. Never mind the fact he wasn’t from the books anyway.

That’s it for this issue.

A page of rambling by Chet this time going on about talking animals in the OG books so they had been planning for Max to do a sudden hero reveal from the start.

Issue 14: Battle Royale

Oh no, we aren’t going to be fooled again by a cover like this

Okay so we start this one off with the flying monkey king Reynar approaching Em City with his army since they finally got up off their rainbow colored asses to do something about the Nome King.

They bust in on NK who asks what they have to make all of Oz shake as much as it did. This confuses Monkey King since he figured it was NK (And it was) but it doesn’t matter since they’re putting an end to his reign.

NK pulls out another secret he’s been keeping which is the CAP. He puts it on and immediately takes control of the monkeys. One can only assume he pretended to not know who took the cap before so Mombi wouldn’t know he had it.

As far as NK is concerned now, he’s just going to wreck the shit out of Oz if he can’t rule it at all.

Mombi’s already escaped,and the Freedom Fighters assemble (Amber actually says this) but Abella goes flying off to join his brainwashed kin.

Meanwhile Ozma and Wog are sitting with the Gillikin and Munchkin leaders, waiting for the Winkies. There’s some discussion and disagreement, but nothing important other than Mayor Munchkin being a fucktard about the power of “Goodness” which is the same sort of thinking that lead to this situation in the first place. Eventually Johnny Dooit arrives with his steampunk machines and most importantly an improved Tik Tok.

Cut back to the Freedom Fighters following monkey boy and soon learn that NK has the CAP and a big battle between the FF and Monkeys ensues. NK’s staff gets destroyed in the scuffle.

During all this Kevin finally realizes what MIGHT have been going on between Amber and Mary. He sees Amber acting all brave like he normally does and thinks he’s showing off for Mary so Kevin starts trying to out do him. Amber reminds him that he’s not the enemy here and to keep his mind focused. Lion fights a particularly large monkey, though he spanks it hard.

Nome King is busy blaming all his failures on his lackies as usual, so he starts fucking with the stone and rocks magically to toss the FF around and let the monkeys gain the advantage again. 

Cut to…well nobody we’ve seen before. Or we have, just not the leaders. It’s the goblins again.

King Goblin Kraylor is talking with his shaman Krakatos who apparently was the one in the hooded cloak that gave the gold to the nome that gave him a vial of blood several issues ago. He states he’s got all the ingredients to bring forth a creature so WICKED that the magic will do what the goblin army couldn’t do in a lifetime.

He mixes the powder of life and blood of Ozma together and magically brings forth the new powerful ally for the goblins.

Cut to Peter and Dorothy who arrive just in time to see the FF and NK fighting. Dorothy recognizes the CAP and sneakily grabs the cap from NK since his back is turn to her and Peter. She then tosses it to Peter leaving the Nome King without his monkeys anymore.

He attempts to go for his Belt of Wishes, but that gets ripped off him by Reynar and causes his pants to fall down. (No not really, would’ve been a funny humiliation though)

At this point NK is screaming about having lost all his power, wondering how this could’ve happened and that he’s completely DOOMED, which the rest don’t argue with saying he’s spending the rest of his days in a prison that will hold even him.

Really have to wonder where the fuck all his nomes were during all of this. Surely some of them could’ve helped out.

Anyway that’s it for this issue, no reader mail or editor/creator ramblings in this one.

Issue 15: Victory?

A wrap around cover and they couldn't at least fit Gump in the background?

The finale to this arc at last.

So now everyone is taunting NK saying he’s going to pay for his crimes and Max unleashes some speech about him accepting his fate and such. NK remarks that maybe he’s correct, but given that he ruled over Oz for 10 years, do they really expect him to just give up like it was losing a game of cards?

He doesn’t have his artifacts, but he’s still got his stone magic and encloses himself in a stone barrier stating that he’s still got a powerful army of nomes and it won’t be long before they arrive. Reynar tries to attack from above, but NK encloses his arm in stone. Nobody can really get to him inside, though at this point a couple of nomes run in to give him the bad news.

Ozma and the rest have breached the gates of Oz and are kicking the shit out of the nome army. The FF tell him now it’s really over, but he won’t come out. They still continue to try to break the stone spines surrounding him, but only the Scarecrow’s crows manage to get in at all. Eventually they rip out an eye and Abella smashes the stone with a mace (Should’ve thought about that before)

Anyway it’s all a bit for naught as the Nome King has tunneled his way out straight down. Meanwhile Abel’s hurt enough he’s gotta get patched up, while his dead just up and dies, but not before he apologizes to his son for not making up with him sooner and at least glad there’s a worthy successor to the throne.

So NK got away, but he still lost an eye in the process which has now turned to stone. His nome army is also defeated and flees.

Abella takes his dead dad and the rest of the monkeys back to monkey land. He’s gotta bury his dad and rebuild the entire culture and says it’s going to be a long time before any of them return to Oz again.

And it’s at this point some old guy who looks like a wizard suddenly appears. He says the Nome King must’ve been finally defeated. He had no idea it would take this long.

Dorothy instantly recognizes him as the Wizard.

Peter and Kevin are like “You’re the wizard?” Mary asks how they know him at all and they state he’s the old geezer they bought the book from that lead them here in the first place and the Wizard explains that they were sent to Oz on purpose.

After some other characters speak on things, Amber talks to Mary who is going to be heading back to earth. Amber asks her directly if she really loves Kevin. She stumbles over her words a bit until finally giving a straight answer of she doesn’t know. (Big surprise there)

And she says that this whole adventure has changed some things and she might just need to go home to be alone for awhile. 

Amber takes all this in stride stating that he needs to stay anyway as his duty calls and while it pains him that she’s leaving, he’s not stopping her even though he’s grown to care for her and all that other emotional shit.

He states that he know his chivalry makes her uncomfortable too, but then she smiles and says she kind of likes it. (Again big surprise there)

And in Chadly fashion he smiles back saying he’s glad she survived and now he has other duties to attend to and goes off with Tik Tok to free Nome King prisoners from the dungeons.

If Amber had been a werewolf (or vampire) Mary definitely would’ve stayed.

Jinjur meanwhile is taking charge of the situation and stating that they need to get to rebuilding Oz immediately. The trio agree, though Ozma has gone back to happy happy joy joy says “Why so serious? Let’s all have a party with the munchkins and have an orgy instead!” (Alright she doesn’t suggest an orgy, Garth Ennis didn’t write this after all)

Cut to a bunch of goblins traveling into Quadling country and then getting promptly stopped by Quad guards.

A small skirmish ensues, but the Gob Shaman insists on speaking rather than fighting. He says they aren’t here to fight though the Quads aren’t convinced by this what with them being gobs and all. The gob shaman says they’ve already struck an alliance with the Bane Wolves (Remember them?) and are seeking another alliance with the Quadlings and they can unite against the likes of Ozma and usurpers like the Nome King and rule Oz like it should be.

The Quads still aren’t convinced so the Goblin King comes out of his covered wagon stating they could’ve just killed all of them without blinking, but instead they didn’t and wish to speak directly with the Quad prince to decide who is be trusted and who will make good allies.

Last scene is the group of gobs and quads heading to the Hall of Princes.

And that’s it for the issue.

There’s another “Ozitorial” (Though I’ve been calling them ramblings) by Chet. He mostly goes on about the new direction Oz will be taking. Which is never a good sign when it comes to Caliber or Arrow comics and usually means it’s going to get horse fucked.

So there’s mention of another prequel mini-series coming up which is going to be done by all the original guys. Specifically the artwork which is going to be different in the main story going forward. I haven’t said much about the art that’s been used up until now, but it’s fine and I definitely prefer it over the new art they use in the next five issue. 

I assume they had to use different artists to do the main story and the prequel story at the same time.

However, we’ll save the next five issues of the main story for the update after the next one. I’ll go over both prequel mini-series next post. Stay tuned!

Okay the first mini-series prequel 

Romance in Rags Issue 1

Hawt straw on straw action

Starts off with Jinjur traveling through the forest thinking about how much Oz sucks now and how things were better when she had a peaceful life as a trad wife and a husband to smack around. But she’s gotta go back to warrior mode and she gets a good test of that immediately when Kalidahs attack her.

She does alright with dodging for awhile, but it’s too much for her and eventually she’s about to become Catbear food then Jack and Amber rescue her ass and take her back to the FF stronghold since this is taking place just before Jinjur officially joined them

Meanwhile at said stronghold Wog is lamenting about his college getting torn down to build Scarecrow’s barn fortress saying what an outrage it is. Hektor says the bug’s right going on about how everything sucks now with an agreement by a guy named Shaggyman.

Shaggy man was in the OG books, and he actually was seen very briefly in the Freedom Fighters one shot special, but they never named him in it, he was just sort of in the background. He’s sort of known as a wanderer that takes notes of places he travels to. Traveling is a bit more dangerous nowadays though.

Amber, Jack and Jinjur arrive and Wog’s still bitching about his college and Scarecrow in particular seeing as he did also kill his little fairy minion Pyff. Amber insists that Scarecrow is being controlled magically, but Wog’s not hearing it and neither is Hammerhead.

Jinjur basically agrees that anyone who is helping NK just needs to be killed to weaken his grip and since this is war they don’t have the luxury of rehabilitating someone if they’re helping of their own free will or via magic enchantment.

Amber continues to argue that they can’t just abandoned their former friends, but again he’s the only one arguing for this point, everyone else is too angry with what the trio have done while in their evil forms. However, it keeps showing Patchwork Girl AKA Scraps being silent and looking sad during this whole time until she finally explodes into anger herself specifically defending Scarecrow saying he couldn’t be doing what they say he’s doing on his own accord and only magical enchantment could turn him into a slave driving tyrant.

Wog and most of the others are unmoved. In fact Wog blatantly says her opinion doesn’t matter since as a girl in love of course she’s going to see a prince where there’s actually a toad. Hektor states maybe they shouldn’t talk around someone so sympathetic with the enemy. Scraps runs off calling them all horrible people while Wog just says that they need to be more cautious speaking around Scraps in the future.

Amber in his usual chivalrous fashion goes to try to talk to Scraps and such, but while she’s glad he’s come to her defense, she’s tired of the rest talking shit about her now evil boyfriend. Amber says he’ll do everything in his power to make sure they don’t throw Scarecrow into a bonfire when they confront him.

Meanwhile Scarecrow is lording it over the munchkins, specifically some older munchie called Mr. Pipt. He states he know Pipt is a minor wizard that is skilled enough to make the Powder of Life and liquid of petrification. The plan is to create an army of straw golems like himself so that he can better destroy anyone that would oppose him or the Nome King. Also with such an army he’d be the second most powerful in Oz with only NK being higher.

Nice idea, but pretty sure straw golems aren’t outclassing Tin Man’s steampunk toaster army.

Anyway Mr. Pipt refuses, but Scarecrow unleashes his crows on him so he begs for mercy and gives in. Scarecrow says he’s already provided all the best devices and components he’ll need from various other shamans across munchkinland and if he needs anything else he can get it for him. He also tell him his top crow Heckle will be watching him at all times so if he tries to escape, then the rest of his crows will devour him one small beakful at a time. 

Meanwhile Scraps is sneaking about the FF hideout and having inner monologues with herself about how she’s not letting them do anything to Scarecrow. She goes into Shaggyman’s room (Who being a hobo is sleeping on the floor since he’s so used to it that sleeping in a normal bed is unnatural to him) and starts picking his pockets for an object he carries with him.

It’s the Love Magnet! With it, she’ll be able to track down Scarecrow and turn him back in no time! She then runs off to do just that.

“I can fix him!”

And that’s it for this issue.

Romance in Rags Issue 2

They certainly did nail an evil expression for him

Starts off with Scraps still running off to see Scarecrow and talking herself into believing that she can get through to him with the love magnet.

Meanwhile the rest of the FF aren’t aware she’s gone yet and some are sitting at the table eating. Hektor in particular is eating like a fucking disgusting pig with food all over his fat fucking face and belching loudly (He really is just vile to look at) He states they need to take care of Scarecrow first then the Lion, then Tin Man. Amber still insists they need to just face the Nome King directly, but once again Jinjur brings up the point that he’s too powerful with the resources he currently has. Taking out the trio first at least weakens his position.

And once again Amber insists that the trio are merely under enchantment and not really evil. Hektor pipes up from his sloppy feeding to state he was close enough to see the glee in the Lion’s eyes when he destroyed his people’s village and he did it for the lolz since the Hammerheads weren’t even the target, he was on his way to Quailing country where he killed their king.

Amber continues this argument, but it’s pretty useless as everyone from Jinjur to Jack Pumpkinhead is against him. They’re ready to move against the Scarecrow and not wait for some opening in the Nome King’s defenses like he wants to do.

At this point Shaggyman finally wakes up and starts shouting about his love magnet being gone. They also notice Scraps isn’t around so immediately they’re all going to search the forest for her with Wog saying he knew they shouldn’t have spoke around a creature the same as the Scarecrow. Amber just stands alone sadly since he was wrong as usual.

Cut to Scarecrow finding Pipt asleep at the alchemy table though he says he was merely concentrating. Scarecrow asks what he’s accomplished with all this concentration and it’s the first batch of the Powder or Life, though he says it’s a bit contaminated with dust so the effectiveness of it will be somewhat decreased but it’ll still work. Scarecrow mentions he’s been working on a creation of his own. Namely a son.

Just then another munchkin interrupts saying he’s got a visitor which pisses off Scarecrow since he doesn’t accept any. When it’s told to be a very special looking lady at the door, he accepts to see her.

Cut back to the FF getting ready to do their search. Shaggy wants to come, but since he’s an old hobo without a shotgun he’s not much use so better that he stay put. Jinjur, Amber and Jack are the three to go, though Hektor says he should go instead of Amber since he feels he’s still being a faggot over Scarecrow. Not liking the ongoing tone of this fat freak with no arms and a spring head, he tells him he’s still the fucking officer in charge and Hektor needs to shut the fuck up. Hektor attempts to explain what he meant, but Amber’s done with the bullshit, so Hektor backs down and apologizes.

I will say this that Hungry Tiger is suspiciously abscent and he’d already joined the FF at this point. Maybe he’s on another mission during this time though. (He would’ve been really useful here though)

Cut to Scarecrow who finally sees who his visitor is and even he’s surprised that it’s Scraps. He’s actually glad to see her and for a brief moment he doesn’t look evil, but he’s got too much toxic strawmanitivity to show his real fee fees for long. She comes to him with a proposal that it’s probably boring just sitting around being a king and that he should just leave his post and they can travel  the land together as hobo lovers. 

He states that’s a tempting offer, but he’s got a better plan which is she could instead stay here in this barn fortress and be his queen. Now she’s the one that’s surprised.

Cut to Amber, Jack and Jinjur (and a couple of FF munchkins) lurking outside the barn fortress (Why the hell did they need the magnet anyway, everyone knows he’s in munchkinland in a giant barn) and Amber and Jinjur are reassuring each other than while they disagree about what to do with the Scarecrow, they trust each other to do what’s needed in a battle.

So all three of them do a lot of sneaking about and more sneaking when they get in the place. They’re confused about there not being any sort of guards though. Funny thing is in this prequel the inside of the barn is a bit more complex looking than the design you see in the main story back in first issues. Like there’s multiple rooms and stairways like it’s an actual fortress. In the original it’s more like just an oversized barn just with a very high ceiling. 

Anyway eventually they find Pipt sleeping on his table again, and that’s when they’re also discovered by other munchkins who alert Scarecrow, but he states he already sees them as he’s looking on from a high stack of straw with Scraps by his side.

Jinjur asks if Scraps told him about their plan to which he states it doesn’t take a genius to know they’re his enemies and would logically be seeking to destroy him. However, he’s pissed at Scraps for not telling him and she was just distracting him. Scraps says she didn’t and was just trying to save him from being killed by convincing him to leave this place. This causes Jinjur to point out to Amber that this is proof Scraps is a big traitor and needs to be burned with the Scarecrow. 

Scarecrow at this point doesn’t want anymore shit talked about his queen and soon mother of his children.

Now all of the FF are like “Whut?”

That’s it for this issue

Romance in Rags Issue 3

Oh come on it’s a prequel, we all know how this really turns out later

 Starts off with Scarecrow doing a villain monologue bit where he’s stating they’re all fools to have come to oppose him and reinforcing that Scraps will be his queen and mother to his children. Scraps tries to say that isn’t why she came here, but nobody is listening to her and Jinjur says the children must all going to be liars and traitors too if their parents are any indication.

Jinjur shoots several arrows into the Scarecrow with the predictable results of doing nothing. He states that he’s eternal and that he IS Oz while munchkin soldiers come in to capture the FF.

Scarecrow then goes into a bit of an extra evil rant about how only the magical folk should be living in or running Oz anyway. Even the munchkins can be considered fairy folk that are natives to the place. Meanwhile folks like Amber, Jinjur, the Wizard and Ozma are merely immigrants (humans) and should be banished at best and just killed if they insist on meddling.

He even points out that Jack could be part of the new order if he relinquished his friendship with the humans, but knowing his allegiance to Ozma, he’s dying along side them. Jack can’t do anything since there’s no living plants for him to control. Dry hay doesn’t count. Jinjur and Amber are soon overwhelmed as well and Scarecrow calls for them to be hanged on the corn poles to serve as a reminder of those who would dare confront him. He even tells them to remove Jack’s head and place it backwards so he doesn’t have any power at all. (Seems like the best thing to do with him is just kill him outright, but villain arrogance and all) One of the munchkins asks how another can do this to him, but the answer is it’s just his pride that’s making him believe he’s chosen the right side and he needs to shut the hell up before he also hits him in the head.

Scarecrow then turns to Scraps saying they must prepare for the future with really damn sinister look on his face. As I’ve said whenever they’ve had the evil Scarecrow, they’ve usually gotten his facial expressions perfect for that deranged grin.

So the FFs get the Oz equivalent of being crucified except they’re lucky it just involves tying them up on the poles as opposed to nailing them to the poles or worse impaling them on the poles. Jack’s still able to talk, but he can’t see anything and not being attached to his body he can’t do anything else either. Jinjur and Amber are busily arguing about what they should’ve or shouldn’t have done while the two munchkins are lamenting about what’s become of their countrymen and how they were once a good and peaceful people.

Fortunately because of this, they aren’t the most effective in such matters of being guards and such, so they fall asleep while watching the FF group. Of course seeing as Jinjur and Amber are content on arguing for most of this time, it hardly matters.

Basically Amber and Jinjur spend a few pages arguing over trust and all that. Amber has too much of it and because he believed Scraps that’s why they’re in this situation. Amber claims if he gives up on trusting those he feels are friends then what’s the point since he might as well not trust Jinjur either and only himself. Jinjur points out he’s being a retard and that it’s not the same, but eventually she sees he’s point or just agrees with his dumb ass because they’re wasting time by not trying to escape.

Meanwhile Scarecrow is trying to impress his little patchy girlfriend and shows her what he’s working on which is his “son” who he calls Stitch. Stitch will be the firstborn, but only one of many to come. He then states that he’s glad he no longer has to oversee this along, but he can now share this joy with one that is actually worthy to be called their mother.

“Oh my!” - Scraps

Scarecrow wonders what’s wrong and why isn’t she thrilled by the idea of being mother to an army of straw golems to rule Oz forever. Scraps however says this is just so overwhelming for her little (female) brain which isn’t nearly as big as the Scarecrow’s. Scarecrow apologizes saying he didn’t mean to boggle her mind so much and that he was just so excited to show her what an evil genius he was and it eases his burdens to see that his true love has come to him who he can trust when everyone else has become his enemy. He passionately smooches her going on about more stuff he wants to share with her and then tells her to rest her weary head and then when she’s ready, they can go give Stitch life. 

Scraps is left alone and it turns out she was just playing along because she sees now that Scarecrow is indeed pretty evil and not the same one she knew. On one hand if she goes along with the Scarecrow then he’s just going to make Oz an even worse place and the Nome King will never be defeated. But if she helps the FF then she’s betraying the straw man she loves.

Well she goes and frees Amber and crew because ultimately Scraps isn’t a Ride or Die bitch.

Amber of course is overjoyed not just for the chance at escape, but this proves his point that Scraps was still on the good team, but it’s of little comfort to her as she sees herself as a betrayer no matter what. The crows and munchkins already start sounding alarms.

Scarecrow meanwhile is wondering what’s taking Scraps so long to think on everything he’s said since it shouldn’t take all night. 

“Pah! Women!” - Scarecrow (And yes he actually says this)

Of course he’s really pissed when he hears the crow alarm and calls forth all his munchkin guards to recapture the FF. A few pages of battle ensue including the FF munchkin killing the other from earlier that strapped him to a pole. All of the FF escape, except Scraps who gets brought back to Scarecrow. She states that she would say she’s sorry, but that wouldn’t be the truth.

Scarecrow is genuinely overcome with some grief that he was thinking with his pitchfork. The entire time he speaks he’s face palming on his throne even stating that Pipt escaped in the mayhem. He goes on to say never again will he allow his heart to belong to another and will remain his own. Those that have been calling him cruel and now going to have no idea of how much he was holding back before.

Scraps points out that if his heart has been his the entire time then use it to break free of NK since he’s the one that’s been lying to him not her. He tells his munchkins to get her out of his sight and he doesn’t want to hear or see her again.

So Scraps is off to the Nome King dungeons while Scarecrow goes to where Stitch is still laying on a table and he sprinkles the Powder of Life vowing that he’ll raise his firstborn in his image of not showing mercy and all that other shit.

Stitch then opens his eyes saying “Hello father” 

That’s it for the issue and the miniseries.

So next up is the mini-series Straw and Sorcery which basically just picks up right where the last one left off.

Straw & Sorcery Issue 1

Poor Scraps can’t catch a break

So this starts off with the FF talking about their recent encounter with the Scarecrow as they’re walking away from his barn fortress. Honestly they seem entirely entirely too casual for not being that far from it. Which is proven when they quickly get interrupted by more munchkins. Jack does his vine magic shit and they get away. They’re still arguing again about what to do next, but they do agree that Scraps turned out to still be on their side after all. 

Cut to Scarecrow who is uncharacteristically praising one of his munchkin lackies Pingo on his tailoring skills to help create his son Stitch. Pingo mentions that he thinks he and someone else called Wobbo have managed to recreate the Powder of Life so Stitch seems to be working as intended, though he’s a bit meaner and less refined. Scarecrow says he’ll teach him more refinement but the meanness stays after all an iron fist is needed to rule and he’s the perfect prototype for his army of tatterdemalions.

Cut to Scraps being taken to Em City on a wagon and getting taunted by the munchkins taking her saying she should’ve taken the Scarecrow’s offer since they would’ve been calling her Highness instead of throwing her in the dungeon. They fuck up though with driving the wagon and it overturns allowing her to escape.

They give chase complaining that all the running is making their corns hurt and if she doesn’t give up now, the nomes will soon come after her and they aren’t as nice as they are. Scraps manages to wiggle out of her rope cuffs being made of straw and all. It isn’t long before she manages to elude the munchkins who then have to go report to the Nome King about their failure.

Upon reporting, NK asks if he thinks he’s supposed to go hopping around Em City chasing the rag doll. He tells him to go see Mombi to handle this shit and for his sake it better get resolved soon.

Just as an aside, the dialog in this one is a lot more than any of the other comics so far. Seriously there’s so many word balloons and text boxes that they’re usually covering most of the artwork. Honestly it’s probably a bit overboard for a comic like this especially when the characters tend to repeat shit they already said last issue or even a few pages ago.

Cut back to Amber who is back Scarecrow’s barn this time with Wogglebug and Gump. Though it turns out Jinjur, Tik Tok, Jack and their munchkin allies are also along for the ride. A big battle takes place in the cornfields with the Scarecrow’s munchkins and his crows that he sends out. In fact that’s how they find out exactly where in the barn Scarecrow is now based on where the crows came from. While everyone is fighting outside, Amber sneaks into the barn and captures Scarecrow who now doesn’t have any guard or even his crows to call upon.

Again this is the time where just focusing on the battle would’ve been better than cramming in a shitload of text boxes dumping lore about say Tik Tok. Seriously, while he’s punching out munchkins there’s multiple long ass text boxes about who and what he is and how he works. It’s like yeah sort of already know based on the shit from the main series. 

And there’s also already more problems with all this.

Now keep in mind this is all still near the beginning of the dark times in Oz. They’ve apparently managed to capture the Scarecrow already with minimal forces, why the hell weren’t they able to do this again? Because ten years later when the earth crew shows up they pretty much just waltz into the barn and take him out with even greater ease with just two dudes and a dog.

Which brings me to the third problem and that’s Scarecrow isn’t wearing any sort of magic amulet that’s turned him evil. In fact he wasn’t wearing it in the other mini-series either. This actually makes it seem like everyone was right all along and Scarecrow is just being an asshole of his own freewill. Even if you dismiss this as “Whoops the artist forgot to draw it” (And that has happened in the earlier books in the main series) they fucking captured him. Surely Amber would know to just remove the thing given that he was there when the Nome King changed them.

In any case, Wog takes Scarecrow’s tied up body on Gump and flies back to the FF fortress while the rest of them fight their way out of the place.

Cut back to Scraps who is now being pursued by Mombi who isn’t pleased that she’s gotta chase down some escaped rag doll like a common guard. Throughout the chase, it’s thunder storming out side all the while Mombi is slutshaming Scraps calling her a trollop and strumpet. Meanwhile poor Scraps probably hasn’t even kissed anyone except Scarecrow.

Mombi starts literally batting her around like a cat since she’s got those long witch nails, but they aren’t doing the desired damage even if Scraps is pathetically begging her to stop but this just makes Mombi even angrier and unleashes powerful magic at which still doesn’t kill her, but she’s determined with the next attack.

And that’s it for this issue.

Straw & Sorcery Issue 2

Another close up of Scarecrow’s scowling mug

This starts off with another fucking info dump of text boxes and then is followed up with a shitload of dialog balloons as the FF are questioning Scarecrow tied to a chair. Trust me, I’m well aware of the irony of me complaining about too much dialog, but again it’s shit they keep repeating which granted is an ongoing problem with the comic series in general, but they go really overboard with it in this mini-series.

It doesn’t help that the text during all this is odd looking. Like it’s flattened and slanted to the right like they were trying to squash as much text in as they could. It’s actually hard to make out a few of the words at times.

Anyway Scarecrow is doing the whole taunting thing, while Amber’s trying to prove he’s under enchantment. Jinjur meanwhile is ready to torch him. Scarecrow then starts talking in weird poetry gibberish.

Cut back to Mombi who is about to destroy Scraps especially since she keeps calling her “moms” while begging for mercy. Out of desperation Scraps pulls out the love magnet and uses it hoping it’ll do something, which it surprisingly does.

Mombi hesitates long enough for Scraps to escape, though Mombi knows some sort of magic was used on her and now she wants that magic for herself.

Cut to Dorothy being taken to her dinner by her nome handler who acts a little concerned for her, thinking she need to eat more and wishes she could speak to tell him how she would like her food prepared, but Dorothy is just in her silent trance and eats the same way.

Oh and how briefly I just explained that? There’s four fucking pages once again filled with text boxes covering half the pics explaining a bunch of shit that isn’t really needed.

In any case Dorothy finishes eating and wanders back to her room with the nome saying poor girl and unfortunately for him the Nome King happened to be around watching all this so he turns the sympathetic nome into a squirrel.

Next he cut to the two munchkins that were helping the FF trying to find Jack while doing battle with their fellow munchkins. There’s a lot of talking between each other and while sword fighting their enemies. This stretches out over several pages until they encounter a munchkin in a scarecrow mask called Pinnok claiming he’s in charge in the Scarecrow’s absence. Honestly that bit was a cool touch and they should’ve had more unhinged munchkins doing shit like that.

Though his bravado doesn’t last long since Jack show up almost immediately to use his vine powers on him and his cohorts, but they aren’t completely out of it yet. 

More fighting (and talking) ensues. Eventually Pinnok gets himself free and Jack is getting his melon hacked at by more munchkins who also have a Quadling hound helping them. Fortunately Sawhorse makes another rare appearance and starts kicking munchkin asses and they all manage to escape.

Though interesting that Amber and Jinjur had just left them all behind and managed to get back to the FF fortress so quickly. (Wog at least had a reason for being back there so quickly, he was riding Gump)

Cut back to Scraps who thinks she’s finally eluded Mombi only to get fucking blasted by her suddenly with magic. She falls off the high roof she’s on with Mombi saying she won’t escape her that way and she’ll be down soon to get her.

Scraps at this point has lost all her energy due to the damage she’s been taken. Luckily for her Pipt and a friend of his are driving wagon looking for her and they just so happen to be riding by where she fell. Pitt picks her up and says he can bring her back with the powder of life.

Cut back to the FF questioning Scarecrow who is still speaking gibberish poetry. Eventually they get tired of this and Wog kicks over his chair. Tik Tok however tells them that he recognizes something about the poetry and it relating to Wonderland.

First reference to Wonderland, there’s going to be more a little later.

Amber and Jinjur start wondering if the evil is also infecting Wonderland or coming from it. All of which implies that Ozzites are familiar with Wonderland.

Last panel is Scarecrow spouting more poetry and mentioning the Jabberwocky with a big evil grin.

And that’s it for the issue.

Straw & Sorcery Issue 3

About fucking time he showed up

Alright this starts off with the FF still questioning Scarecrow and him still more or less answering in nonsense. At one point he asks why they’re so sure if the Nome King is behind his deed, and maybe he just decided he was done with fleshlings. Jinjur’s had enough of his shit and literally wants to beat the stuffings out of him. Amber holds her back stating it’s not going to hurt him anyway.

Jack and the two munchies show up which causes a bit of relief from the FF though Scarecrow takes the opportunity to state that Jack really should be on his team and that the Nome King could have use of him. At which point Scarecrow starts ranting saying he finally said it’s the Nome King in charge of everything and are they finally happy now. He starts singing rhymes and then demands that they release him or he’ll hold his breath until his head explodes. He sounds even more insane than usual at this moment, but then he actually does start doing it and his head starts to get bigger. 

Cut to Hungry Tiger who is wandering through a forest and then he gets attacked by kalidahs. There’s more text box info dump while the fight is going on. So by the third or forth page it turns out Monkey boy is flying overhead with HG and helps him out with the kalidahs using bolos and nets. The fight goes on a little longer, but eventually they kill the kalidahs. Monkey asks isn’t he going to eat the kalidahs, but HG says they’re part tiger and that feels like cannibalism which he can’t do.

Turns out HG and Monkeyboy have been looking for the Lion’s lair. Though shouldn’t just be in the same location it was before, it wasn’t like Lion moved it and HG should already know where it is. Meanwhile Lion is already well aware he’s being searched for and says it’s fortunate that the kalidahs confounded HG’s sense of smell because HG wouldn’t be walking away if he found him.

Cut back to Scarecrow’s madness routine and Wog is pulling out some sort of giant lighter. Amber tells him to put that away and tells Scarecrow to tell them more about the Wonderland poem, but he’s done with that bit so he moves on to something else and spouts more gibberish until he suddenly gets completely free by jumping out of his clothes (through the collar)

At this point he’s just a naked strawbody bouncing around as the rest try to catch him, but he gets away through a window taunting them the whole time. And even worse he had a munchkin minion waiting with a wagon right outside the fucking FF fortress!

What the fuck are the FF even doing? No wonder it took 10 fucking years to take back Oz! Hell they wouldn’t have done it at all without Kevin and crew!

Cut to Ozma in the dungeon and again a shitload of text boxes. Nome King arrives to basically be mean to her as usual long with threatening to RAEP her (Or “take her” as he puts it) but of course we all know he’s all talk in that department.

Cut to Scarecrow who is back at his barn and giving out a lot of orders to his munchkins. Ordering Pingo to make him a new set of clothing, a doctor to patch up the munchkins who got wounded in battle, having a letter sent to Tin Man and Lion to help deal with the FF, and have the dead crows cleaned (Even says poor birds) He actually comes off completely clear headed now.

Finally he goes to see Stitch who looks like he needs another dose of life powder again, but Scarecrow has plans for him to be his new captain.

Cut back to Scraps who is being revived by Pipt who thanks him for saving her and he suggests they go link back up with the FF. Though he feels like they’re going to be dealing the Scarecrow for a long time.

Final scene is Amber deep in thought and one more time a shitload of text boxes about what he’s pondering. It’s really the same old shit, won’t bother going into it other than he let the fucking Scarecrow get away again due to fucking around and now he's moping about like a faggot. 

That’s it for the issue and the series thankfully.

So Romance in Rags was cool. I actually would’ve preferred something more like that for the main series and just have Oz characters rather than focusing on the earthers. It really should’ve started with the dark times and went from there.

However, the S&S mini-series was a mess and should’ve been something other than focusing on the damn Scarecrow again (Guess it would’ve been called something else). A lot of it just didn’t go anywhere. It probably would’ve been better if they had explored more with Hungry Tiger and Monkeyboy tracking the Lion.

Don’t get me started on what the hell happened with Scarecrow’s straw golem army. I mean he had 10 years to work on that, and they’re nowhere around by the time Kevin and crew show up. Though given how incompetent the FF showing is in this issue, I suppose everyone is just retarded in Oz anyway.

And yeah I get that they probably didn’t have the idea at the time of the first issue, but this is the problem with prequels. They can create more unnecessary plot holes.

Anyway that’s it for prequel shit. Next five comics will be the conclusion of the main series, well sort of, but we’ll get into that later. Stay tuned!

I still need to catch up on the last couple posts, but I've been enjoying the recaps. This one looks like it ends with a big rant so that should be fun.

Alright first five in this post Nome King arc. and while technically not the last, but more on that later.

This was also about the time Caliber doing it’s “New Worlds” shit (You can see it on some of the covers) which they kept advertising in their various comics. It was sort of a way to try and tie all the various worlds together and while there were some one shot crossovers, it didn’t work out very well like most things Caliber did.

And as I mentioned before, this is when the artwork changed from the first 15 issues (And the prequel series) since they had a different artist working on it. It’s not as good. Something about it just looks a bit sterile compared to the one doing the art before.

Anyway let’s get on with it.

Issue 16: New World Order

New art, same trio

This one starts off with the Wizard shouting at Ozma and Amber that all his magical shit is gone. The worst loss being the the magic spell that makes Oz invisible to outsiders is gone too, so now anyone can just enter the place.

Amber is all set to raise and army, but Ozma as usual is like “Oh but the Nome King is gone, surely there won’t be anything bad like him ever again!” 

She’s reminded to not be a retard and that they don’t even have the good witches anymore and nobody knows what happened to them.

So they’re sending folks out to search for them (Not knowing they got turned into little tree ornaments a long time ago by the Nome King and are probably just sitting somewhere) using an updated Oz map by Shaggyman since he’s the traveling hobo map maker. Also they have to make preparation for the Earthers to leave since they still want to go home.

Cut to Peter who has been enjoying five days of non-stop partying and dressing up in Ozzite clothing. He visits Kevin who is in his room to ask if he’s ready to get going. He says he’ll be out in a moment.

Kevin goes to see Mary who is all dressed up like some fairy tale princess and he’s ready to just do her right there. They talk a moment while he’s groping and kissing on her from behind (No, they’re not having sex, she’s just standing in front of mirror) and while there’s certain things they enjoy about Oz, it’s time to go home and go back to normal.

“Yeah, normal.” - Mary as she’s literally rolling her eyes AND fantasizing about Amber kissing on her instead.

She’s totally dumping Kevin as soon as there’s an opportunity to do so back home.

Cut back to Peter who went to go see Dorothy because well let’s not dwell too much on the implications. Dorothy greets him and says she recently ran into her two friends Betsy Bobbin and Trot who she used to have adventures with when they were all little girls and not the hot jailbait they all are now. (These girls were in the OG books apparently)

No seriously, they fucking really glamorized Dorothy and her friends. All the women did. Mary certainly did. Hell even Ozma got an extra glow up and she didn’t even need it. Oddly Peter and Kevin actually look less action hero in this and more “normal” now. Like they actually look more like the nerds they always were so now Kevin REALLY looks like he managed to hit the jackpot with Mary.

Anyway Peter charms her friends and is in anime nerd heaven going to the party with 3 lolis in older bodies instead of just 1. 

Though this brings up the question if Dorothy actually got transformed older or did she just grow up?. Other than that one mistake of her being portrayed as a little girl in the Tin Man one shot, all signs indicate she got magically transformed into young woman.

So why are her friends grown up too? They didn’t get hit by the same spell, this is the first we’re seeing of them.

However ten years did pass after all, though supposedly nobody in Oz grows old. Maybe the kids in Oz grow up to at least adult age, so they just aged naturally?

Well doesn’t matter since the Tin Man comes walking into the party downing motor oil saying he’s getting a bit loose tonight. He’s got a really creepy degenerate look while saying this too, so not sure what he’s got in mind exactly, but he immediately runs off to speak with Tik Tok.

While Tin Man is chatting up Tik to screw his bolt into a nut, Scarecrow is out dancing everyone since he’s made of floppy straw and doesn’t tire. He stops though when some munchkin says someone wants to see him and it’s his little patchy girlfriend Scraps.

At this point Ozma and the Wizard enter and make a speech about how Peter, Kevin and Mary helped save Oz and all that shit. And with the rings he’s giving them, they can transport home.

Peter’s ready since he says he’s probably missed a lot of episodes of Babylon 5 (Honestly Peter probably would’ve missed just as many episodes if he stayed on earth given how much they changed the fucking time slot on it)

Kevin’s ready of course, and yet once again Mary’s thinking “A ring of transport…” meaning she’s already considering transporting her ass back to Oz for Amber’s dick at some point later.

Speaking of dick, Ozma tells Peter and Kevin she hasn’t been on such a grand adventure since SHE was a little boy.

“BOY?!” - Kevin and Peter

Don’t worry guys, this minor mistake will prep you for what’s to come in 20 years!

The Wizard laughs and tells the dude bros that they need to really go back and read the books.

Just for reference in the OG books Ozma at one point got turned into a boy by Mombi almost immediately after she was born and she spent her entire childhood as one until she got turned back into a girl.

Though there’s conflicting canon that even Mr. Baum didn’t bother keeping fucking straight (Ha ha) since there’s even one point Ozma is supposedly a never aging fairy (Jokes write themselves) that has always ruled Oz. 

Anyway, Max the dog is also addressed since he can just be carried by one of them to go back home, of course doing so means he goes back to being a regular dog as opposed to a talking one here in Oz. He decides to go back home like a good boi since apparently for whatever Kev’s faults, he’s always been a cool owner and is probably going to spoil him more. (It’s a smart choice too on Max’s part, given what happens later)

With that, the three earthers plus one teleport back home (With Mary still pining over Amber). 

And that’s it for them. You NEVER see them again. Their arc is done. Sort of abrupt to end it in the middle of the comic, but there you go.

So after this happens, another young black haired woman dressed like a soldier comes rushing in to tell the Wizard and Ozma that the Quadlings still aren’t reuniting with the rest of the kingdom. Now I thought this woman was Jinjur, but apparently it’s yet another character from the OG books called Jellia Jamb. According to the books she was a young Gilikin girl, but yeah she’s all aged up too I guess. She still looks too human though seeing as she’s normal height and all of the native Oz folk are dwarf height at best unless they’re immigrants from earth or something.(In fact she’s green in the books)

Anyway the Wizard is pissed about this, though Ozma tells him to calm down since they’re probably still upset about their king getting killed (By the Lion no less). Jellia also wonders why not just let them go since she doesn’t know what they really offer anyway. The Wizard reminds her that the Quadlings are the best warriors of the Oz folk and without them, Amber’s job of rebuilding the army is going to be harder. Well that’s enough to convince her.

Cut to the Quadlings who are still talking shit over with the Goblins of why they should ally with each other. It goes back and forth a bit, but while the goblin shaman tries to whip the Quad princes into a frenzy over the Lion killing their father and Ozma potentially coming back to force them back into the fold, they’re just not convinced that they should be allying with goblins and besides they don’t hate Ozma they just want independence from her.

Eventually the goblins are done with the diplomacy bullshit and reveals why they should join them. They introduce the Wickedest Witch of Oz. (And yeah, she’s in the whole sexy evil sorceress outfit because the good guys can’t be the only ones getting appearance upgrades)

“Now do you want to join us?” - Goblin King

And that’s it for this issue.

No ramblings or reader mail, because Caliber’s too busy trying to convince everyone to buy all their comics with a bunch of ads in the back. It’s sort of like this for the rest of this run.

Issue 17: Peace Be So Fragile

Betsy, Dorothy, and Trot. Fortunately Alan Moore didn’t write this one.

So this issue is a little fatter than the usual one, though not because they put more story in. It’s one of those double sided flip issues where they put an entirely different comic in it which is typically never a good sign. It was called Boston Bombers (Some sort of action adventure thing) and apparently they did this with the entirety of the mini-series with other Caliber comics which means if you genuinely enjoyed this, you were going to have to buy other shit you didn’t necessarily read. Never mind the fact that you could’ve been getting the middle of the damn story. The Oz issue had the first part which was probably the safe bet since Oz was the most popular title at the time.

Anyway on with the important shit.

There’s some panels with Amber training men and instilling that they should be soldiers not butchers since more than one of them are genuinely trying to kill Amber during training. Not sure why they’re so pissed at him, but I guess NK’s former reign made everyone at bit more edgy.

Cut to Dorothy and her gal pals who are going on about how hot Amber looks. Dorothy thinks they’re being weird for talking about an old man this way. Her buddies point out that Amber isn’t that much older than she is since she’s now at an age where she could be getting married and having children.

Dorothy is horrified at this idea stating she’s a little girl! Her buddies again are like not anymore you’re not and briefly mention how Peter seemed like he might be falling in love with her. Dorothy also makes some innocent comment about the Wizard being handsome and now her buddies are telling her SHE’s the weird one since he really is an old man. Though to be fair, he’s actually a lot younger looking than you’d think he’d look at his age. His bald head makes him look closer to his age, but not by much and apparently Dorothy doesn’t care about all that anyway.

I suppose Dorothy has still maintained her mindset of being a little girl might be due to the Nome King magic that put her in a magic trance aa well as getting magically aged up meanwhile it turns out her buddies had been locked away in a dungeon the entire time aging in real time (And all that comes with going through puberty the normal way and such)

She’s asked if she’s planning on going back to earth, but at this point Oz is more like her home and she didn’t like what Peter’s mentioned of the place now (And was just the 90s, just gets worse from there) Her aunt and uncle are still missing (Most likely dead at this point) and Toto is missing too (Definitely dead) who she cries a bit over.

But she quickly recovers and then states they should all go on an adventure to get the missing years back by seeking out the fountain of youth! Her buddies though seem a little puzzled by this since they seem a little more comfortable with the fact that they’re at the sexing up age now and are apparently a lot hornier than Dorothy.

Cut back to said Wizard who is speaking with all the Lion and some of the former Freedom Fighter crew. He’s going on about the Quadlings needing to be dealt with, but they’re still waiting on Ozma. Amber is annoyed with him saying he’s always interrupting people’s schedules, Jinjur (Who you can barely tell apart from that Jellia chick last issue) says she doesn’t know why they should bother with the Quadlings at all seeing as they didn’t do shit to help free Oz. The Lion however has his forest kingdom near Quailing country so he’s invested in what the Wizard has to say.

Wizard points out that a huge volcano has risen where the hammerhead village once stood and it’s obviously a magical construct rather than a natural occurrence. Now this is a bit of retconning or perhaps it just wasn’t explained well earlier, because it was implied that the Nome King caused the big ass quake that genocided the hammerheads. Though even he sort of flip flopped on claiming responsibility on that when he was getting confronted.

In any case, the comic is sort of going with the idea that the Wicked Witch did it and the Wizard is going to take an army to stamp out whoever did it if Ozma ever gets her ass to the meeting to give her final input.

So Ozma finally shows up (With Scraps who’s apparently her handmaiden now) and as usual she’s full of retarded optimism and doesn’t understand why the Wizard is making a big fuss. When he explains it in not so civil terms Amber starts getting pissed enough that he suggests throwing the Wizard into the dungeons so he learns to respect the queen!

However, Ozma isn’t bothered by any of this and tells Amber to calm the fuck down. Wizard also questions where Tinman, Scarecrow and Hungry Tiger are, but she says she’s got a different mission for them. (We also learn that the Wizard’s real name is Oscar since this is the first she mentions it) So the Wizard picks Lion, Jinjur, Jack and Scraps for some reason to go on the Quadling mission.

Oh and during all this, Tik Tok’s text in his word balloons is in a different font than everyone else’s now. Looks more like a digital clock, not sure why considering he was speaking like everyone else before. Even after he got rebuilt.

So it cuts to Tin Man, Scarecrow and Hungry Tiger (Or the New Trio because one big pussy is just the same as another) who are wondering what this new mission is supposed to be. Tin Man is also going on about how he thought about returning to Winkieland to try to fix some of the war crimes he did there, though apparently Johnny Dooit is currently fixing shit up there.

Then they bump into Dorothy and her besties all dressed up in action girl attire. (Trot apparently designed the clothing if that means anything) In any case, this is what the new trio’s mission is and that’s to escort them to the fountain of youth. Scarecrow doesn’t understand why since it’s not like the citizens of Oz have needed it in very long time, but Dorothy once again reminds everyone that she was a 12 year old girl and now she’’s an OLD woman so she wants to go back to being a child.

Dorothy believing that 22 is being an old woman is pretty in line that she never really grew up like her buddies did. It is an amusing childlike way of seeing age since we all know it’s actually 25 when you officially get old.

Anyway getting back to Johnny Dooit and the Winkies, the next scene cuts to a full on goblin invasion totally fucking them up. The goblins got that magically enhancement so they’re tougher than usual. The machines are destroyed and the winkies don’t do much better, actually they do worse since they were relying on the steampunk toasters for defense anyway.

Major Minor comes back looking a bit more enhanced, but after slaying a few gobs, he also gets wrecked. 

Then Johnny Dooit himself comes out like a fucking action hero and start beating down gobs with his hammer and throwing gears like they were ninja stars. He’s another one that got a serious “upgrade” in appearance because he was just some little skinny nerd in the old art work rather than the semi-muscular dude he is now.

Anyway he smashes the skull of the last goblin as they argue over metal or flesh being stronger. It’s a short lived victory though since soon the Wickest Witch comes in with magical powers and crushes his legs to powder. The Goblin King wants to finish him off since he just killed his son, but the Wickedest Witch is talking with her sister (Who apparently is just a disembodied voice at this point) and they’re debating on whether to spare Johnny since he is a skilled dude that could be useful. 

However, they decide to finish him of since he might try to secretly build toasters to betray their side later. So she drops a huge metal ball on Johnny and laughs evilly about it. (As one does)

And that’s it for this issue.

Issue 18: Quadling Quandary

Yeah not sure what they were doing with this art

This one starts off with some rather horrific looking tree folk explaining that they’re not going to just let the Quadling army march through the forest to take out the Lion and his followers. The Quadling leader explains that they have to avenge their father’s death and if they were flesh, they’d know the pain of losing those close to them. Of course the tree folk take great offense to this stating the Tin Man was chopping and burning down entire forests when he was evil. They definitely know loss and they’re not seeking revenge on him.

At this point the princes start debating the issue again with one saying maybe they should just go home or even trying to compromise saying maybe just killing the Lion would be enough. (This one is Quanto) However Quizlun, Quinn and Quum (Who is the leader and heir) are all decided that total war is the name of the game in this case and Quanto is just being a faggot.

So they attack the tree folk with predictable results. This prompts Quum to unleash fire on them with equally predictable results. Quanto was trying to reason with him saying the tree folk have never been enemies, but it fell on deaf ears and soon the army is marching through burned up trees.

Meanwhile the Lion and crew have reached the Quailing capital only to find that there’s a big beautiful wall surrounding it now. A Quadling with a scope on his crossbow tells them that they need papers to enter the city. Jinjur says since when and that they’re here on business from Ozma. Quad sniper says they ain’t listening to Ozma or her allies anymore and they can go home or get a bolt in their ass.

Jinjur’s pissed, but the Lion even more so and speaks up about how when King Quark was around he wouldn’t have done this. Bad choice of words considering that’s what got him killed, never mind that this statement was made by the one who killed him in the first place. Recognizing the Lion, the Quads on duty open fire immediately.

Jack has to step in to take the bolts while the others start running. Jinjur gets a safe distance and is ready to fire upon them back, but she’s stopped from doing so since Ozma said they weren’t supposed to hurt any Quads and it’ll only make things worse anyway. In the distance, the Quads shout that the Lion better run and hide before the princes track him down.

Cut to some meeting in a little cottage in a woods somewhere. You don’t see who is talking for awhile but there’s an exchange of magical items. One of which is one of the baubles that a good witch got turned into and that’s in exchange of a magic scroll.

Then it finally reveals who took the good witch ornament and it’s a human sized white rabbit stating he’s got other places to go and he’s late for another appointment. After he leaves through a portal, it turns out the other person was Mombi who is plotting the take over of Oz. And if it wasn’t apparent, this indeed was the White Rabbit from Wonderland.

Cut to Jinjur at their camp asking Scraps where Jack went and she tells her he has to go get a new melon so he had to find a pumpkin patch. Next scene shows Jack finding a rather oversized pumpkin all by itself, but since his current head is attracting flies, beggars can’t be choosers.

(More on this a little later)

Cut to the New Trio and crew where Betsy is taking practice shots at Scarecrow who compliments her skills saying Jinjur would probably want her in her all girl army. This prompts Trot to state she’d rather be in an all boy army because she’s a dirty redhead that thinks about dick all the time. In fact Dorothy even slut shames her for it. Trot does bring up the point though that this whole mission is boring because they’re just wandering around unsure of where fountain even is. 

So Dorothy asks the Scarecrow where he thinks it’s supposed to be and he does his goofy riddler shit of them having to fucking guess, until the Tin Man gets in his face and tells him to just fucking tell them already. So he says Glinda’s old castle should still have magic items there that they can use to locate the fountain, so they start heading there.

And then they get attacked by a pack of kalidahs. Yes, a pack of these fucking abominations and they’re actually even meaner and bigger looking than before. During the fight it becomes even more surprising when they actually speak! 

In their halting grasp on language they mention they’re only like this due to Oz folk using magic to make them in the first place. They made them and then drove them away so yeah of course they hate the Ozzites. Dorothy says this isn’t an excuse for their behavior and maybe if they acted civilized then they could join the rest of society. Now victim blaming on top of the slut shaming, Dorothy’s pretty based sometimes.

So they kill the Kalidah pack though Dorothy goes back to a little girl mentality and cries over the fact she had to kill the beast at all since it really wasn’t its fault that it was just acting as an animal would. After a bit more talking the group continues their adventure.

That’s it for this issue, but before we move on to 19…

Oz: Daemonstorm

Another failed Caliber crossover

Alright not going to spend too much time on this since I forgot what the fuck this was even all about and I no longer have this comic and I can’t even find a synopsis on it (or maybe I just didn’t look hard enough)

Anyway Caliber had this Daemonstorm event hit all their best seller comics, Oz, Deadworld and a few others. Probably LegendLore too since I think that setting had something directly to do with the event. It was something to do with demons invading various worlds. So in the case of Oz, you know how Jack found that giant pumpkin to use as his new head? Yeah well it was something infected with the daemonstorm and Jack gets temporarily possessed by a demon trying to call in his fellows.

As I said, I can’t remember all the details, but obviously his group eventually cures him, wards off the storm and everything is back to normal next issue.

That’s it really. Nothing more with this arc other than it was one of those Caliber attempt at connecting all their world probably in the hopes of boosting sales.

Well, moving on…

Issue 19: From Bad to Worse

Well evil’s not a club after all

So this starts off with Lion and crew heading back to Em City. Jack is remarking how his new head is wonderful and compliments Scraps on her carving skills which she says she had plenty of time to practice while in the Nome King dungeons.

Okay, once again the comic has ignored its own canon because according to the SS prequel, Scraps actually never went to the Nome King dungeons! She escaped and it was said she rejoined the FF by the end, unless she got captured again off panel at some point, but seems like Mombi would’ve ended up destroying her given how pissed she was for getting away the first time.

Meanwhile Jinjur is telling them both to stop being so damn chipper while things are going to shit in Oz. Lion says things are dire, but with hard work things can be fixed. Then some random pipes up stating no things are indeed doomed!

This rando is some Ozzite called Fignut and he’s a “hopper” which apparently is some other race of folks in Oz that hasn’t been seen in a long time. (They move about on one big leg) Fignut goes on to say he’d rather have the Nome King back than witness what he just saw and his tribe has been hiding out with another group called Horners.

So they ask what he saw, he’s afraid to tell the Lion, who then threatens that he better tell him or he’s going to see worse. So Fignut tells Lion that his kingdom just got razed to the ground and all his subjects scattered by the Quadling army (And some goblin allies)

Well the Lion isn’t happy and he’s not heading back to Em City now, he’s going back to check on what’s left of his kingdom and he’s already stating he’s going to finish what he started under the Nome King’s tyranny.

Cut to Amber who is already reporting the news of what the Quadlings did. The Wizard states he was afraid that the repercussions of the Nome King’s reign was going to still have after effects and this is one of them and why Amber insisted on rebuilding the army. The Wizard states that the Quadlings are unruly children that need to be spanked and taught a lesson. After some time has passed, they’ll soon see the wisdom of why they needed this. Lol

At this point one side is committing warcrimes and the other is talking about conquering them to bring them under the jackboot and hell the Lion is just blatantly saying he’s genociding all of them. Arguably Oz is more fucked than it ever was under the Nome King.

Tik Tok goes on some rant about how maybe this is the end of the golden age for Oz and they’re entering the silver age or even iron age, or zirconium age, until Amber tells him to shut the fuck up before he stops winding him up. Still Amber says Tik might be correct if they don’t take care of the Quads immediately. Ever optimistic Ozma however says she’s not going to war and she’ll meet with the Quads herself and to summon Sawhorse so she may ride immediately.

However, the bad news doesn’t stop coming before she can even get that far since Shaggyman arrives to tell them that all the Winkies are dead. Like ALL of them. Shaggy says he watched from afar to see the goblins not fucking around. 

Tik Tok’s response is amusing since the first thing he says is they’re the only ones that can repair him and Amber starts moaning about how they couldn’t even repay the Winkies for helping them against the Nome King and now that they’re all dead, this brings him great dishonor. I’m sure Tik’s mortality and Amber’s honor were the top priority in the mind of the last Winkie. Lol.

Amber declares that a force should be sent to meet the gobs immediately and now Ozma’s pissed enough to order that a force be sent to meet the Quads. Amber refuses the order which enrages Ozma that he’s defying her at such a time. though Amber states it’s not that, it’s just that they don’t have the manpower. If they send a force to deal with the Quads too, then Em City would be completely undefended.

“Oh Fiddlesticks!” - Ozma shouting in anger

Ozma apologizes for her outburst and says she’s retiring to her chambers while Amber and the rest carry out orders. 

Cut to the Goblin King who states that his shaman is treading on thin ice with his dealings with the witch who is starting to get more powerful. The shaman assures the king though that he’s got her under control with spells. Gob King says she’s talking to herself or like someone else is there with her and if she’s crazy then that makes her even more dangerous.

the shaman points out that the Wickedest Witch is made up of the old Wicked Witch of the West and East. And they weren’t nice, so she won’t be either, but he’s got her under control. Gob King isn’t entirely convinced and says you couldn’t trust those two so can’t really trust this incarnation that combines them. 

The shaman leaves full of reassurances that he’s got her under control and of course while he’s out of earshot he’s snickering to himself that already they aren’t needed for his plans that are in motion. Gob King and his son (Another son or the same one that may have gotten killed? Who knows, they all look alike) however are already untrusting of the shaman and the witch (Who as a FEMALE shouldn’t have power over a goblin in such a way) so they plan to kill her at a banquet.

Cut to Wickest Witch who is talking to herself (Well sister) about how nobody ever truly dies in Oz and at worst they get dissipated until they can somehow get recalled into a new body. (Yes, very convenient). They go on about how while they couldn’t take over Oz by themselves, together they certainly will and even if Glinda was still around they couldn’t match her. They also wonder how the shaman is so much smarter than the rest of his kin and that maybe they’ll spare him.

She soon meets up with the shaman who states he’s well aware of how powerful she’s getting and always knew this was going to happen. He says he’s fine with her ruling Oz and he just wants a high position so he can live comfortably. WW is a little surprised by his candor to which he states there’s no point in deceiving her since he knows his power will never match hers. Better to be on the winning side. WW is like well okay can get your wish then.
WW then goes on a villain rant about how she’s going to rule Oz and make everyone pay who opposed her, but especially Dorothy who she plans on murdering the shit out of in the middle of the public streets. To be fair, she did crush one with a house and melted the other one with water.

Cut to Dorothy and crew looking for Glinda’s place which isn’t easy to find anymore due to when the Nome King was around, her lands started slowly becoming rocky like his home and hard to travel. So they gotta make camp before setting off to where the Scarecrow thinks it might be located now.

Cut to Quum returning home with his brothers where one of his people states that the Lion was at the gates not long ago with an entourage. Quanto points out that they could’ve just stayed home and took their revenge on just the Lion and not burned down the entire fucking forest. Quum says there was no way to know this and he’s not going to be swayed by any of his brother’s tears, besides once the Lion sees what was done to his kingdom, he’s surely going to be back and THEN they’ll get him.

Cut to the Lion and crew arriving at the remains of the forest kingdom and it’s a charred graveyard. A single furry with an arrow in her back has managed to live long enough to info dump on what exactly happened. The Quads ordered everyone to leave before they finished destroying the place. When there was resistance, that was met with violence. Besides killing a lot of the furries, they even took some as slaves. Some did manage to escape though.

As the furgirl dies in the Lion’s paws he vows vengeance on every single Quadling even if takes the rest of his life.

That’s it for this issue.

Issue 20: The Season of the Witch

Hey she’s not black coded at all!

Okay this starts off in some Gob tunnels under Quad country where they’re having their banquet. Jack and Jinjur are spying on them and they see WW but don’t know who the hell she is yet other than why is she cavorting with gobs.

The gobs are enjoying their victories and saying hail to their king and prince and then one dummy praises WW magic which then of course causes the king to get mad. The shaman tries to say she’s powerful and surely the king can see that, but that just makes him madder and states that the shaman is obviously no true goblin and is obviously a freak. He even shows fear in his eyes when threatened. Maybe it would be better to kill him so he doesn’t breed.

The king and prince start a fight with WW and as you can expect, it doesn’t end well for them as she easily downs the both of them. Though she actually levitates the king stating isn’t the king not supposed to show fear. Look at his eyes now which are full of fear. Obviously he’s not fit to be king. She impales him on a stalactite which immediately causes the rest of the gobs to fall in line. Jack and Jinjur have seen enough and decide to get out of there to go report to the Wizard and Amber.

Though the shaman thought he saw someone watching from a nearby opening in the caves and before they can escape, they have to deal with gobs that were alerted to the area. Eventually they defeat them and continue looking for an unguarded way back to the surface.

Cut to Ozma who has calmed down and decided she’s going to ride off to see the Quads on her own after all. Amber strongly advises against this, but Ozma says she’s going to try one more time to convince them to come back into the fold and if not well she’ll return and they can keep their independence. (Or “silly” independence as she puts it) Before she can go riding off on Sawhorse though Lion and Scraps return with more bad news.

Well this puts another change in plans since the Quads are now considered even more dangerous given that they destroyed the Lion’s entire kingdom. Ozma says she’ll send for Tin Man, Scarecrow and the others since the Wizard was right that they need everyone. then when Jinjur and Jack come back they can begin their quest to reunite Oz proper.

Cut back to Jinjur and Jack who have found a way out, though the shaman and several gobs have caught up with them. And these are “super” goblins that the shaman has been creating for WW. A fight ensues, and they’re defeated, but the shaman just calls upon more. Eventually they’re overwhelmed and Jack gets thrown off a cliff. Jinjur gets beaten and captured while the shaman mocks her stating that it is time for goblin kind to rule over Oz.

Last panel is Jack’s body and his broken melon all over the rocky ground.

That’s it for this issue.

And despite it saying “Next issue: Confrontation” that doesn’t happen or at least not under the Caliber name.

These would be the last issues under the Caliber brand because after issue 20, the series would limp a bit longer under (drum roll) the Arrow comics brand. 

Yep, Arrow gets resurrected for a third fucking time and the Oz series ends up following since it was pretty much the only one that Ralph and Stu still had full control over at that point, plus probably because Oz was public domain so wasn’t like Caliber could claim it like say the Deadworld series.

Oh and there’s ONE last ramble by fucking Stu who goes again about how he was speaking to a school about the comic and a teacher asked about why it had to be so violent and he gave the reasons that it was to show the bad guys doing bad guy shit and the good guys only using violence in the pursuit of doing good.

All well and fine, except then he goes on his douchebag “righteousness” routine about how maybe other writers should tone down the violent aspects in their heroes.

Fuck off Stu, just fuck off. You’ve been in charge of writing this comic and in the last few issues you’ve had a bunch of “morally gray” shit going on even with the heroes or “good” folk. In fact it resembles more Game of Thrones where everyone is starting to suck now than fucking black and white morality of Oz. This isn’t even counting let’s see, the hammerheads getting genocided, the winkies getting genocided, the treemen genocided, the furries nearly getting genocided and some of them enslaved.

Hell, fuck Game of Throne, this is starting to resemble a W40K setting or the average CYS Fallen Land gaming session.

Anyway, the last 6 comics will be the next post. Stay tuned!

Alright the home stretch here and the completion of the post Nome King arc. Or Wickest Witch arc as it is now.

I assume because of name trademarks, they couldn’t use the name Oz even if they had the rights for everything else. So the series was called “Dark Oz” instead. It was a lot harder to find too due to Arrow having smaller distribution which is saying something since Caliber wasn’t exactly a major company. I’d argue that the only reason I managed to regularly find anything from either company is due to living in Michigan where both companies were located and the comic shop I used to go to often carried more obscure shit or local stuff.

Happily the artwork for Dark Oz was done by the old artist that worked on the first 15 issues (and the prequels) so it looks much better.

Anyway let’s finish this.

Dark Oz Issue 1: Children of the Corn

Fine time for them to show up now

Starts off with Dorothy and the rest finally showing up at Glinda’s old place. It’s gloomy looking but Hungry Tiger doesn’t smell anyone living there. Scarecrow uses Heckle to scout the place just in case. At this point Dorothy laments how much Oz has changed in 10 years which prompts HG to grumble about how she was fortunate enough to at least sleep through most of it. 

It then goes into a recap of what happened in the comics before Dorothy got snapped out of her trance. I guess this was for the benefit of new readers, but honestly anyone who was into the series was probably already following from the old Oz name. One thing that gets mentioned is what potentially happened to the good witches and Scarecrow says they probably got turned into ornaments which prompts HG say of course, why didn’t anyone think of this before?

Anyway eventually they get to what they’re supposed to be doing and approach the castle door. The castle however is surrounded by a lot of corn and there’s creepy scarecrows everywhere. Scarecrow tells Trot he’ll ignore that remark, but she mentions they aren’t nice looking and she feels like they’re watching her.

So they get inside and it looks like the place has already been ransacked. They assume it was probably the nomes that did this, but it’s a huge place so something might still be around. In his infinite wisdom Scarecrow suggests they split up to search the place quicker. Dorothy says to just gather anything that looks magical and they’ll look at everything later.

Trot and HG got the basement which he’s pissed about, but he was busy eating up mice while they were making plans. So he grumbles and goes along.

Betsy and Tin Man search the main level, but there’s not much left. Betsy also says this whole search is wrong anyway. Everyone lost 10 years, but she’s trying to effectively erase what actually happened. Tin Man says maybe she just needs to find the fountain rather than use it and then she’ll find her new place in the world. Betsy says she hopes that’s the case.

Trot and HG are in the basement where HG tells her she can put the knife away since he can’t smell anything down here. She says it makes her feel better, but he says the only thing he’s smelling is bales of hay. She says isn’t it odd to have bales of hay in a cellar.

And at that point HG is smashed over the head with a club by a straw man. Trot starts stabbing it, which just causes it to laugh and she’s overwhelmed by more straw men. Yep, they finally got back to this prequel plot point.

Dorothy and Scarecrow are searching the upstairs and they’re finding a bunch of other scarecrows hanging up on the walls. Dorothy is wondering why Glinda would have them and Scarecrow says something about all this seems very familiar. Apparently during the brief reunion Scraps never reminded Scarecrow he was trying to build an army of golems. 

They find a secret door which has a room with a crystal ball and some other magic looking items which Dorothy is sure will be able to help somehow. Meanwhile Tinman and Betsy are done searching the main level since it seems to be pointless, so Tinman heads upstairs to see what Dorothy and Scarecrow are doing while Betsy heads to the basement.

Betsy doesn’t get far before she stumbles upon HG and Trot’s unconscious bodies. She’s soon taken by the straw men as well. Tin Man has found Scarecrow and Dorothy when they hear Betsy’s screaming, but they don’t get the chance to go save her since a horde of straw golems arrive with one of them shouting “Father!”

Tin Man an Dorothy are confused by this and Stitch is also confused since he’s wondering why dad is hanging out with a fleshling and the other evil king asking if he’s a prisoner.

Stitch orders his golem brothers to attack. Dorothy screams that she’s come too far just to get stuck like a pig by a pitchfork. Scarecrow pushes her aside and she falls right into a mirror. Instead of it shattering though, she passes through it entirely.

Then during the fight, the mirror falls and shatters. Tin Man exclaims their pitchforks aren’t going to work on him and asks who he is. Stitch asks if his metal ears aren’t working,  and that he’s Stitch, son of Scarecrow and he’s creating an army to rid Oz of the fleshlings. The scent of straw will be the perfume of the air and all those horrible liquids and smells of the fleshlings will no longer foul the air.

Scarecrow is calling for Dorothy, but Stitch tell him to not honor such a creature with a name and is glad she’s gone. Meanwhile Tin Man is mobbed by the straw golems who say he has no authority here and that they will throw him in the river to rust away forever.

Stitch is trying to get through to his father saying that he must be under some sort of spell, Scarecrow is confused and Tin Man is still getting mobbed and smacked repeatedly with blunt clubs until he eventually get thrown off a balcony crashing through shit.

Stitch is then showing Scarecrow Betsy, Trot and HG tied to scarecrow poles and states they will die.

That’s it for this issue.

And that’s also it for Dorothy. You don’t see her again. Where did she go? Well remember the few references to Wonderland? Well that’s where Dorothy ends up and Arrow published a mini-series called Wonderland documenting what’s going on over there while shit’s going down in Oz.

I am unlikely to entirely go over that short lived series (3 issues) for various reasons, but I’ll explain a little more about it later.

Dark Oz Issue 2: Between a Rock and A Hard Place

Just gets worse from here

This one starts off with a bunch of lore about Gillikin Country stating its known for being a big producer of various items for Oz. Also goes on about how it was free from direct Nome King rule due to him having stretched his forces as much as he dared. 

However after his defeat the Gills soon felt into a false sense of security and soon got wrecked by the gobs when they came strolling into their capital. However it mentions some of the Gillikins were natural warriors and one of them by the name of Julian.

Next scene is him speaking with a bunch of others and their King Erburt. They’re going on about the goblin threat and how the Winkies fell and the precautions they’re should be taking.

And that’s when they get alerted that the gobs have already breached the gates and there’s a shitload of them coming. Julian tells the king he needs to flee to Em City to get help from Amber while he and the others fight off the horde. The king almost dies but Julian prevents this and eventually the others are carrying the king to Em City while Julian is holding back gobs all by himself.

Cut to Shaggyman recovering from his wounds in a bed while Ozma is telling him he couldn’t have fought off an army of gobs by himself and it’s good he made it back to tell everyone since Amber and the Wizard can now prepare.

The plan is for Scraps to take Gump and go get the Scarecrow and the others while Amber and the Lion head over to Winkieland with an army to liberate the place. (Though they’re really just retaking territory since all the winkies are supposed to be dead)

Ozma tells the Wizard she wish she could just make friends with the goblins and live in peace instead of following their wicked ways. The Wizard tells her to stop being an optimistic bitch and start realizing that Oz ain’t ever going to be the same anymore. Even the good guys need an army.

She still holds out hope that when she sees the Quadlings that they will finally see reason, but the Wizard isn’t holding out such hope even though it would be nice if that turns out to be the case.

Ozma soon goes to the stables to get Sawhorse where she has a rose conversation with Scraps who is about to take Gump. They go on about how there’s too much doom and gloom and everything will turn alright since the goblins are just a minor nuisance compared to the Nome King.

Jesus Christ is this Ozma bitch a fucking retard. At least Scraps has straw for brains and has an excuse.

Meanwhile Amber’s speaking with some of his lieutenants and they all have concerns about attacking the goblins with inexperienced troops. Amber agrees but they can’t afford to let the gobs get any more entrenched than they already are, plus they’ll have the Lion with them.

Meanwhile the Gillikin capital is in flames and the gobs are raising their flag in the ruins. Still there’s some arguing over how they lost too many men and the king escaped which the shaman won’t like. More arguing ensues saying they NEED to follow orders or else they get punished. It isn’t like the old days anymore.

The goblins aren’t really having a great time with all this since the fighting isn’t even as much fun now, it’s a (gasp!) FUCKING JOB. In fact the Wickest Witch has made it so they can’t even directly fight each other anymore over minor arguments since unity is more important.

They then argue some more over what orders to follow and such. Some stay at the capital ruins to “hold it” like the witch said while others say they need to return to Winkieland to ask for more soldiers.

Cut to Ozma and the Wizard heading to Quad capital. Before they get there, they’re arguing again about how Ozma doesn’t really grasp the seriousness of the situation, meanwhile Ozma’s busy gazing at flowers.

They’re soon greeted by a surly Quad who states she must be mad if she’s come here given how unpopular she is. He also says they ain’t afraid of her royal guard or even her wizard, but he’ll inform the princes that she wants to speak with them.

Cut to Lion and Amber who are talking on their way to Winkieland and going on about how grim this situation is. There’s just too many goblins, but they have to still find a way to win because defeat at this battle probably means losing the war.

Cut back to Ozma about to speak to the four princes who state she’s not really welcome here. She makes her opening speech to them about unity and such, but the guard that first spoke to her is already pulling out his crossbow saying that they shouldn’t be swayed by her pretty face and word and he’s taking care of that right now.

A Quad prince tells him to put that away since they don’t have intention of hurting her, but it’s already done. He shoots Ozma just like you saw on the cover!

The Wizard summons a small tornado to prevent anymore attacks while they get away. After getting far enough, the Wizard heals her up while muttering that she needs to live otherwise Oz is DOOMED.

Ozma recovers, but now she’s saying she thinks the Wizard has been right all along. Evil has come to Oz and she’s too much of a weak bitch to stop it. She fears that Oz is DOOMED.

That’s it for this issue.

Dark Oz Issue 3: Inferno

Always funny how most of the covers never match what the majority of what the focus is

Starts off with Stitch standing with Scarecrow and Tin Man chained up in a chair. Scarecrow for some reason can’t call his crows so he  continues to plead for his friends and after some debate, Stitch is still under the impression Scarecrow must be under some influence for him to be acting the way he is and then tosses Tin Man into a well. Scarecrow vows he’ll save Tin Man before he rusts while Stitch says that there may be a magical spell book that can cure him of his current condition.

Cut to Scraps flying around not really knowing where to search until the murder of crows appear and Heckle speaks to Gump as to the where abouts of Scarecrow. They head to Glinda’s place immediately.

Cut to Amber and Lion fighting goblins. A whole lot of them. They win the battle, but it’s just one of many to come since it’s not even a tenth of the entire horde. Amber says they won’t behave in an uncivil manner though and will not slaughter prisoners. Instead they’ll be kept bound until this is all over and they’ll be released back underground. The Lion states Amber’s far more merciful that he’d be and growls at some goblin prisoners before destroying their flag and moving on to the next location to fight more of them.

Cut to Stitch who is showing his dad that he’s been continuing the work he started in Munchkinland. Scarecrow once again explains he was under a spell that turned him evil and what he sees now is his real personality. Stitch continues to be unconvinced stating that the Tin Man must’ve done something to him.

Scarecrow says he doesn’t think he’ll ever be convinced, but asks how the hell did Stitch even wind up here anyway. And now we get the backstory that fills in that big plot hole.

So shortly after Scarecrow created Stitch and some other straw golems, Nome King found out about it and told him to knock that shit off because he was paranoid that they would be used to try to overthrow him later. (Not wrong) Scarecrow claimed it was all to support his regime but NK wasn’t taking any chances saying his nomes were army enough to keep control of Oz.

So Stitch and the rest of the golems were stored at Em City and one by one they eventually “died” as the contaminated powder of life wore off, though since Stitch had receive the purest dose he was fine, but he eventually played dead since the Nome King was still keeping an eye on him. Eventually NK forgot about him. (If NK was really that fucking worried he should’ve just burned the lot of them immediately)

Later, Pipt was captured and taken to the dungeons. Mombi however had Pipt create more powder of life for her own purposes. During this time Stitch was still playing dead, just laying in a corner plotting and planning. When he knew he was totally alone he explored the dungeons and eventually found an opening which lead to the nome tunnels.

He escaped the dungeons, also ripping off Pipt’s flasks in the process. Stitch says he was glad he thwarted whatever Pipt and Mombi were planning since that was less competition. He also mentions the smell of worms in the tunnel wall gave him satisfaction that fleshlings lived short pointless lives. He vowed to end their days forever.

Eventually the tunnel lead to Glinda’s place and he’s been building his army ever since using the magic books he found here. He also learned how to create the powder of life. 

Again all of this probably would’ve been better had the series been set during NK’s reign, rather than being told in a flashback.

All in all he’s incredibly proud of everything he’s accomplished leveling up in alchemy and the wizard class.

He shows his dad a shitload more straw golems he’s already got made saying it’s almost time for them to be unleashed on Em City. Scarecrow is overwhelmed by all this saying he needs to sit down which Stitch takes as a sign that his dad is impressed by his work and finally sees the light.

While Stitch excitedly runs off to go get his flask from his secret hiding place, Scarecrow is plotting to free the others.

Cut to Betsy, Trot and HG tied to the poles asking if each other are okay and wondering if Glinda set all these scarecrows up as some sort of defense system.

Just then Gump arrives and draws away the straw golem guards while Scraps unties the rest. HG rips up the golems and he also pulls Tin Man out of the well while the rest go to free the Scarecrow.

Cut to the goblin shaman and WW speaking. The shaman is reporting the bad news about losing ground in Winkieland and Amber having a large enough army to cause trouble. WW orders all their forces to make a stand at the Tin Man’s old castle where they’ll meet his army. The shaman doesn’t think this is a good idea as they could lose all their forces this way, but WW isn’t swayed. She wants to destroy Amber’s army in one battle.

Cut back to Stitch who is ready to use the remainder of his powder to wake up the rest of his army, but then receives news of the fleshlings having escaped and are on their way to save Scarecrow. Stitch is planning on killing them, but Scarecrow tells him to stop this madness and he’ll ensure that he’ll be left alone in peace.

Stitch literally says peace was never an option because he can’t possibly live side by side with them.

Meanwhile Betsy, Trot and Scraps are on their way with torches in hand. Well Scraps doesn’t have one, but the other two do and are setting golems ablaze. The straw men spread their own fire even quicker as they flail about in pain. Tin Man is also ripping up some golems

There’s a couple of straw golems that looks a little different than the rest, one of them is even female in design (The only obvious one) and they turn out to be a little stronger than the rest. This is even pointed out by Trot when she engages them. They get the better of Betsy and Trot, though Scraps overcomes her own fear of fire and picks up a dropped torch to attack them with it.

Stitch knocks the torch out of Scrap’s grasp and takes it himself saying she’s another one fallen under a spell, but he’s got no problem destroying her if she’s siding with the fleshlings. Scarecrow of course isn’t going to let him burn her so he grabs it from Stitch allowing Scraps to help out Trot by knocking the other female golem into fire. Trot then helps Betsy with her golem, also knocking him into some fire.

Tin Man shouts that they need to get out now because the whole place is going up. Trot asks about Dorothy, Tin Man says HG soaked himself in water and went to search the castle but there’s no sign of her. Betsy says she could be trapped somewhere, but there’s no more time, Tin Man says the heat will soon get to the point where even his metal will melt.

Meanwhile Stitch and Scarecrow are still fighting with Stitch saying if there’s no curing him then let them perish together. Scraps however is already on her way to help Scarecrow even though the rest have managed to leave the castle. Tin Man goes back in to try to rescue them since he can still withstand the fire.

Stitch at this point has gone into a madness rant about feeling the purifying flame and says perhaps when their powdery ash lie mixed together then he will at last be healed and will forgive this great sacrifice. Scarecrow calls him insane.

Stitch finally gets pissed at his dad saying he’s not insane as it was his spark of genius that gave him life. Proof that he’s his son. Scarecrow gets angry back stating Stitch is NOT his son, the Nome King is his son and he’ll gladly die if it’ll keep him from blighting the face of Oz.

Scraps can’t reach Scarecrow at this point and Tin Man grabs Scraps before she gets burned up too.

Last panel is the rest of the group watching the still burning castle while HG saying nothing could’ve survived and Scraps weeping over Scarecrow with Tin Man trying to console her.

That’s it for this issue.

Dark Oz Issue 4: The Beginning of the End

Seems like they spilled green ink all over this cover

This is one starts off with Amber and Lion making their stand with their army at Tin Man’s old fortress. There’s some brief banter about how this battle will be an important one, but concerns about the goblins not being the idiotic brutes they were always told they were as well as there seemingly being no end to the savages. 

The battle then begins and it goes well for the Oz army at first, but by the time the gob shaman shows up with his new magic powers the tide begins to turn. 

Eventually even Amber’s lieutenants get massacred and soon it seems like Amber and Lion are the only two left. They’re pretty tired now and then it doesn’t help that they get ambushed by some of those super goblins. 

More fighting happens and the Lion does well enough, but Amber barely manages to defeat the one he was fighting and getting a broken leg in the process.

With all of the immediate attackers dead, Lion goes over to help Amber, but he says this is his dying place and there’s some word spoke between them about how Amber is the most noble of souls to have lived in Oz and such.

Just then the shaman arrives with another horde of goblins. The shaman tells them to kill the Lion immediately but to kill Amber slowly and let him ponder the mistakes his ancestors made when they drove the goblins underground. Amber tells Lion to save himself. Lion however says he cannot and will not let the goblins slowly torture his friend to death. 

Lion then snaps Amber’s neck and then charges into one last battle with the goblin horde. Hardcore.

Cut to Em City where Ozma is still trying to recover from her wound. Jellia (Who apparently is a handmaiden) says her body has healed but it’s her spirit that has been broken which is why she’s still so weak. The fact that one of her subjects would try to kill her was devastating to her.

The Wizard points out that the Quad had seceded long before they shot her though. Jellia says Ozma’s great power lied with her optimism and she always still held the belief that her honesty, compassion and goodness would eventually win them over regardless of any negative thoughts they might’ve had.

There’s some debate between Jellia and the Wizard about how Ozma actually “works” but it can be boiled down to Ozma sort of being a demi-god that is only as powerful as people believe in her. And her trusting act that was repaid with treachery and hate has caused her to severely go down in power level so she doesn’t believe that good will eventually win out either.

At this point Ozma wakes up and the Wizard tries reassure her that there are many who would still lay down their life for her, though she says she doesn’t really want that. Tik Tok comes in saying that the other group has arrived. 

This group would be the Ex-Dorothy crew minus Dorothy (and Scarecrow). They explain what happened at Glinda’s place, Stitch, and the loss of Dorothy and Scarecrow, though they aren’t entirely sure if they died, hoping that maybe they found a magical way to escape with the items that were found in a secret chamber.

Well this doesn’t make Ozma feel any better losing her friend Dorothy and Scarecrow, but she’s reminded that Dorothy chose her own path and the rest went of their own free will. Ozma apologizes that she’s so weak and she’ll try to do better.

Jellia tells everyone to leave as Ozma needs her rest, though Ozma keeps seeing Glinda’s castle in flames now when she closes her eyes.

Cut to WW who is cackling over the Army of Oz being defeated, Amber and the Lion being dead and even Tin Man’s fortress is now destroyed. She claims nothing can really stop her now and Em City is next. 

A gob reports to her saying they await new order, but she tells them to spend the next three days to rest, eat and even drink as they’ve earned it and there’s no hurry. He asks about a prisoner, and she says she’ll drain her essence before the attack on Em City, but to let her know her days are numbered.

Cut to the Wizard and the Tin Man with the Gillikin king and the ones who brought him to Em City. They’re all going on about what to do next and generally arguing until Shaggyman says everyone needs to stop it because the goblins are about to tear up the fucking place. Betsy says Shaggy’s right so they need to do something constructive while they wait for news of Amber and the army.

Just then the Wizard receives a message. He then says he’s got some very bad news, the army has been killed to the last man and Amber and the Lion are dead. F.

Cut back to WW three days later and she’s glad to see that the shaman managed to survive the battle with the Oz army even if there were heavy losses. She’s also ready to see the prisoner.

The prisoner is Jinjur who states what the hell does she wants as she thought she would’ve killed her a long time ago. WW states she was busy with other things and Jinjur wasn’t really important enough to worry about. However WW figures that Jinjur might have some info on Em City that might be useful for the final push seeing as she’s been in the place. No reason to leave anything to chance and it’s always better to increase the odds of victory.

Jinjur refuses to tell WW anything and spits in her face. This prompts WW to tell her she just ruined her chances for a quick death and proceeds to use that life drain spell turning Jinjur into a withered husk. 

WW states that she didn’t learn anything they didn’t already know, but it was a task that needed to be done anyway. She then tells the shaman to get ready to ride to Em City as they’re going to burn it down like they did to Tin Man’s castle.

That’s it for this issue

Now before we get to the exciting conclusion, there was one more book tied directly to the arc. It was a one shot that was actually created after it was done, but chronologically it fits in between issue 4 and 5 so we’ll get that out of the way now.

Issue "1": Wogglebug

Were you wondering what happened to him?

Before we get into this one, a little bit of a personal anecdote about it. I never did see this one in stores at all. I only stumbled upon it during a visit to a comic convention. In fact, it wasn’t even in the normal area where all the various store keepers set up shop, it was in the personal artist/writer area who had their own space with whatever stuff they had.

And yep, ran into Ralph (Fortunately not Stu). I actually wasn’t planning on speaking with the dude since I was never going to those things to meet anyone, just to find shit I couldn’t find before. They had all their backlog stuff they hadn’t sold and that’s where I found this along with their old “The Dead” comics. Ended up speaking with him a bit since he started a conversation first while I was looking for stuff.

In any case, he was cool enough.

Anyway on with the comic.

Starts with a munchkin running in stating that the ones who brought in the Gillian king (Loolooba and Perriwinkle) have reported that the Gillian capital has been razed to the ground and the gobs will be marching on Em City any day now.

Ozma continues to fall into despair though the Wizard tries to remind her to keep her spirits up and that besides the forces they have here at the city, Wogglebug is also on his way to help. Ozma tells the munchkin to spread word to all that wish to see Oz survive to make their stand at Em City.

Ozma still isn’t feeling optimistic about winning though and wishes the Wizard could just lead since he might be able to stop the evil tide, but the Wizard says it’s not that simple and Oz is really dependent on her maintaining a positive attitude so she should rest up try not to give into despair.

Cut to some Gillikin warriors who have been doing a hit and run tactic on the occupying goblin force for days. Now it makes it seem like these folks are going to be important, but after a few pages, one by one they get picked off by goblin ambushers. Once again though the gobs talk among themselves saying they don’t like all this sneaking about to kill people. It’s cowardly and worse, it’s not as fun. But one reminds them that the WW will reward them and they still got the big Em City fight to look forward to.

Cut to the secret Gillikin refuge where we see the remaining hold outs, including Julian who they made a big deal about in that one issue and then you assume he probably got killed when the capital got wrecked. Well he’s still alive and trying harass the goblins as much as he can with who he has left, which includes Loolooba, Perriwinkle and another called Bard (Who has an attack cat). It hasn’t been going well though.

Then he receives word that he’s got a visitor and Wogglebug appears. After some brief introductions and stating his position as a founder of the Freedom Fighters, Julian accept that he may be of help. He asks what’s in the bag he’s carrying and Wog states that it’s the remains of Jack Pumpkinhead. He hopes that upon their triumphant return to Em City, the Wizard will be able to return him to an animated state.

Julian isn’t too sure about triumph though after a bit more talking Julian accepts Wog’s help since he needs all he can get.

Cut to a bearded goblin leader called Klaktus telling a group of other gobs that following the WW isn’t the way. They should be fighting for themselves not her. I states its time for another goblin warrior to be king again and he’ll be the one to do it.

Another goblin called Broggy though says this is retarded because WW is not only stronger than Klaktus, but she’s already giving them food, drink, good weapons what’s he going to do different for them? He states that he’ll give them freedom to do whatever the hell they want. They can fight when they want. He states the WW doesn’t give a shit about the goblins and might even turn magic against them after Em City falls.

Broggy says Klaktus sounds like a surfacer. He can’t fight the witch, so he just talks a bunch of shit. If he kills the witch, he’ll follow him. Until then WW is the leader. Broggy also mentions Klaktus is afraid of the witch so he’s trying to use the gob council as a shield and they’re not falling for it. 

Besides giving them a lot of stuff they like, she’s got the Ozzites on the run. The old witches didn’t do that and neither did the Nome King so there’s no reason to not follow her.

Klaktus gets angrier stating he wonders if Broggy is even a real goblin anymore. They used to be free to fight anytime they wanted. Now they have to sit around and wait for orders and run like bitches to do chores. Better to be free in the caves than witch lackies on the surface.

At this point WW comes strolling in stating she had no idea that her general was so dissatisfied with things seeing as he obeys just the same as the rest of his fellows. Klaktus not backing down tells her that she’ll discard the goblins as soon as Em City falls and she won’t be happy until everything’s dead.

WW calmly says that as long as the goblins follow her, they’ll flourish on the surface as the dominant race and if he behaves himself she’ll forget all about this and not turn him into a toad.

Cut back to Julian and the rest going on a gob hunt. Wog makes some references to cowboys based on the stories he’s heard from Dorothy. Apparently this goes on for the entirety of the trip until they get to their destination where they have to go in some caves on foot. Julian tells Wog he need to shut the fuck up for once.

Upon entering the caves, it doesn’t take long for them to stumble upon some gobs. A fight breaks out and Wog’s being a little more flip with the combat comments than he’s ever been portrayed before. In fact he’s been a little less serious so far in general. This might’ve been an attempt to have him match his OG Book personality, but still a little jarring compared to his FF days.

In any case, they’re doing alright at first against the gobs until Wog takes a severe hit to the back while he’s been picking off gobs with his bow. Wog attempts to goad the the goblin into having an honorable hand to hand combat and that might have worked under the old goblin ways who liked to fight for fun, but they got jobs to do now, so Wog gets fatally wounded and falls to the ground dead.

Sheesh, he didn’t even make it to the end of his own one shot special!

At this point Julian goes into a bit of a rage mode and cuts down that goblin. He also notices his other two buddies are dead too. He picks up Wog’s bag with Jack’s remains saying he’ll get him to Em City to return him to life if he can.

He almost makes it to the exit of the cave, but two goblins block him and strike him down. He dies too. 

The last panel is of his hand and Wog’s open bag with pieces of Jack’s head scattered out of it. Text box stating that another band of brave Ozzites fighting for their freedom have fallen and there are none left to mourn them.

And on that happy note, that’s it for this special one shot!

I can only imagine this one might’ve been created partly due to the odd absence of Wogglebug in the Dark Oz series what with him having played a pretty large role in the main Oz series. Seems like they wanted to do more with the Julian guy too so he got a role 

Well I suppose they could only shove in so much in a one shot.

On with the exciting conclusion

Dark Oz Issue 5: The End of the End

About fucking time

Starts with WW being frustrated that she can’t find Dorothy at all. She starts thinking maybe Ozma is shielding her with magic or there’s a spy. The shaman says Ozma doesn’t even know of WW at all (Only two that did were Jinjur and Jack and they’re both dead) so she can’t be shielding Dorothy. He says that maybe she’s just off on one of her adventures and she shouldn’t let this small loss cloud her vision as they’re very close to victory.

WW says of course and asks for a report. The shaman says the forces are gathered to attack Em City as planned, however he’s worried they may be falling into a similar trap that they set for Amber and his army. He believe caution might be in order. WW ain’t got time for all that and says she’ll win and the attack will go as planned.

Cut to a group of gobs getting ready for the big attack, but to their surprise the Quadlings show up saying when they first made a treaty there was nothing about conquering Oz and they need to stop it. The gobs of course aren’t listening to this, so a battle it is. They overcome this group of gobs and begin their way towards Em City.

Meanwhile gobs are busting down the gates of Em City already. Trot, Sawhorse, Betsy and Tik Tok are all shown trying to hold them back from reaching the tower. 

The Wizard is watching from a window somewhere stating that the remaining munchkins, gillikins and winkies (guess some lived) are all crammed together in the courtyard blocking the path way for soldiers to get through and it’s a hard enough battle without their side tripping over themselves.

Scraps says Heckle and the rest of the crows went to search for Jinjur and Jack, but haven’t returned and that she fears the worse. The Wizard shares the negativity that when he sent those two to the volcano to spy that they’d come back with info, but he fears he may have sent them to their doom.

Meanwhile Trot is getting tired even if Sawhorse still has endless endurance. Unfortunately he gets hit with a fire arrow and starts acting wildly as he starts burning. Trot is tossed off, but before she even gets a chance to really recover, she’s cut down with goblins mocking her.

The Quadlings finally arrive to help, but so does WW who demands to know why they’re breaking the treaty. One of the princes says the treaty wasted under short sighted anger and that they can’t allow her to destroy the heart of the land. WW says very well and then pretty much sets their whole damn company on fire.

Speaking of which Sawhorse is completely engulfed in flames now and tells Betsy get back since he’ll be ash soon anyway. Hungry Tiger and Gump are in the fray now

Tin Man mentions the fight is going badly and the Quadlings have been dispersed by some sort of sorceress. He says he’ll be joining the fight directly soon and it’s up to the Wizard to protect Ozma. The Wizard says his magic is going to be needed in the battle if there’s a sorceress out there. Tin Man says Scraps certainly can’t defend Ozma so he’ll have to use his magic to teleport her away. Ozma asks where the hell is she going to go. Tin Man says she could hide out on earth where she’ll be safe.

Well safe from witches and goblins anyway.

While Ozma mopes about how things could’ve ever gotten this bad and the Wizard says the only thing they can do is fight to the last a figure walks in stating there may be one thing left. It’s the Scarecrow and he’s fairly blackened holding a big ass book.

Meanwhile HG has gotten shanked repeatedly by a life stealer blade wielded by the shaman, though he doesn’t get to gloat for long after Gump stomps him to death. However as with how this battle is going Gump catches two spears in his side.

Cut back to the Scarecrow who shows the book to be the Book of Undo which was thought to be a legend. Tin Man asks what it does, the Wizard basically says exactly what it says, it un-does shit. However it’s a huge damn book and would take awhile even for a level 20 magic user to study the entire thing, not to mention it’s not in the best condition with a lot of pages either missing or faded.

Worst of all the Wizard can’t even read it. Only an Oz born can read it which means they’re no better off than before.

Cut back to the battle outside and displaying the corpses of HG and Gump. Betsy is the last one guarding the tower door saying she won’t let them pass, but she’s definitely not wearing a gray robe so she gets mobbed and stabbed gobs who tell her to shut up forever and break through. Tik Tok is the next layer of defense and tells Jellia to get the hell out of the combat zone and back to the queen. Jellia though catches an arrow in back.

Tik Tok shouts that they will get no further as they now face the final defender of Oz however Tik Tok suddenly starts sensing something going wrong internally and then his head explodes.

As the toaster falls down with a loud clank, WW says if he was the final defender then she’s already won. (Fool!)

Tin Man approaches the door stating that it’s too quiet out there for goblins. He opens the door only to find Jellia’s body as she whispers a dying “They’re here.”

Tin Man shouts that Jellia never harmed anyone and is there no shred of decency in all their smelly carcasses. The only one really around now though is WW who states she was looking forward to killing the Tin Man along with all her other enemies. Tin Man charges at her, but much like what she did to Tik tok, she casts her “dismantle machine” spell and Tin Man is reduced to pieces of metal.

Wizard casts a haste spell on Ozma for her to read the Undo Book so that she can cast the spell. Ozma isn’t sure, but the Wizard says there’s no more time for doubt because whatever happens with the spell it can’t be worse than what’s already happening.

WW comes strolling in saying the Wizard needs to give up already as she’s clearly won at this point. She conjures a giant metal brace to wrap the the Wizard to the wall. She then hogties Shaggyman with his blanket. She then turns her attention to the Scarecrow and Scraps and just flat out sets them on fire.

WW finally turns her attention to Ozma and goes on a villain monologue about how Ozma’s goodness and beauty makes her sick. Though it’s not exactly like WW is some ugly green crone anymore, but bitches always gonna be jealous I guess. She also states why be a queen if she’s not going to actually use her power.

She on the other hand knows how to use power and it won’t do any good to beg for their lives because she’s killing everyone in the room and then making everyone in Oz her slaves.

“I HAVE WON!” - WW

However, now it’s Ozma’s turn to make the hero monologue. 

She goes on about how she’s the heart of Oz and she gets her power from love and her side only lost due to her losing faith in herself. The fact that the Quadlings came back to help is proof that they came back because they ultimately loved her as she loved them. WW only gets power from fear and hate and ultimately that will never satisfy her.

“I pity you.” - Ozma

Well as you can expect that makes WW pretty angry and they do more debating over what’s better taking control by your own hand or shit that’s just given to you freely though Ozma says there’s strength in sacrifice too and she freely will sacrifice herself to free Oz of WW’s evil. 

WW is disappointed Ozma didn’t beg or cry but is instead going to just die with her ignoring reality and clinging to faith that everything will be well in the end.

So WW casts her killing spell, which doesn’t work and there’s the whole good vs evil banter while Ozma is using the Book of Undo. WW starts turning into the crone she actually is and then realizes what the book is and states that the book will destroy everything including Ozma. She even begs her to stop and she eventually fades from existence along with everything else else surrounding Ozma.

The last panel is Ozma holding her face with one hand and the other still on the book with a completely white background around her.

“What have I done?” -Ozma

And that’s all folks!

Well not exactly.

So there was another series that started right after Dark Oz called The Land of Oz which was basically a reboot of the entire world thanks to Ozma’s restart spell.

It follows a bit closer to the OG books and isn’t nearly as grimdark as either of the old series. Hell, it’s practically kid friendly.

It was 9 issues total and I’m pretty sure I owned all of them at one point, but they sort of sucked also the series just ended suddenly in the middle of a storyline since Arrow was probably going bankrupt again. (They got better again though, they can’t seem to die)

I couldn’t even tell you what they were about since I don’t have them anymore, but everyone was pretty much alive again. No Nome Kings enslaving Oz or goblins overrunning the place.

As for Dark Oz, well they tried to tie up as many loose ends for characters as possible, especially what with making a special one shot for Wogglebug and all. 

Though one major one that got skipped was Mombi since it did show her scheming during the last issues of the old Oz comic after trading with the White Rabbit. However I suppose it doesn’t matter seeing as whatever she was plotting got cancelled as soon as she got erased with everyone else in the reboot. Glinda never shows up either, I assume she remained a crystal ball until she got rebooted.

The only other loose end is Dorothy who as I said went to Wonderland. And yes I do have those 3 comics, but they also suck a lot so I’m not even skimming them. Surprised I didn’t toss them and I probably only collected them out of a sake of completeness. The artwork is pretty bad too, like really bad. Alice herself looks like some gender fluid faggot rather than female mostly due to her dykey haircut and attire. She make a lot of annoying looking expressions too that make her punchable.

So a real quick run down from what I remember just to tie this up. Dorothy immediately bumps into Alice and her crew when she transports to Wonderland. After getting through all the getting to know you stuff, it’s a case that Alice is sort of having her own rebel alliance thing against the Queen of Hearts and the rest of those card people. 

Queen of Hearts looks like some Jabba the Hutt abomination and she’s keeping the heads of the folks she has decapitated to drain their souls or some shit. They also got the Love Magnet from Oz which I assume was brought by the White Rabbit in one of his deals. 

So a bunch of shit happens and Dorothy helps out Alice and one of the good witches who got turned into a Christmas Ornament is found too. (Remember the white rabbit did bring that one to Wonderland when he was trading with Mombi) It’s not Glinda though, it’s the other one called Tattypoo (Lol)

The Queen of Hearts gets defeated and turned back into her regular fat self rather than the Jabba form she had since apparently there was some creature possessing her. I think Tatty imprisons it.

Anyway, Tatty opens up a portal to Oz and her and Dorothy return to it though Dorothy says it’s weird that they’re only seeing a white light and wonders what has changed implying Dorothy’s time in Wonderland spanned the remainder of the Dark Oz series to when Ozma hit the reset button. Once again Dorothy got lucky and missed all the worst shit.

(For that matter the earthers and the dog also got lucky too. The dog especially since he had the better option of sticking around.)

Alice in her final scene wants to know more about these alternate dimensions from the Chesire Cat and the White Rabbit.

And that’s basically it for Wonderland other than the publisher stating that the series has ended because the lack of sales so much that it wasn’t even cost effective to even reprint the comic. (Issue 2 apparently was really limited) and they had to drop the comic altogether, but they have plans to bring it back at some point. This is not the end of Wonderland!

Um, yes it is and nothing of value was lost.

Anyway that’s also the end of this series review. 

Until next time when I decide to do one of these things again.