Review: The Legend of Oz - The Wicked West #2

I’m sure there are a lot of creators out there kicking themselves for not thinking of the concept of: Wizard of Oz + Western = fucking cool. I really enjoy this concept and the twists on the old idea for sure. The second issue isn’t as strong as the first issue and is mostly fan favor than anything else. Our marry group of misfits is loosely assembled, but other than that the story doesn’t progress that much from the point we left it at last issue.

The remaining monkey’s that Gale hasn’t killed transform and flies off to report to their master, you know the green lady in which I’m referring to. Gale proceeds to then free our cowardly lion chained below the piano of the bar she was just in while the Tin Man Law Man followers her around. His role is a bit strange considering he’s the “law” of the town, but he doesn’t stop her or anyone else from doing anything illegal. Gale finds one remaining monkey and beats the crap out of him until he tells her about the path. He’s little help to her and so she decides to take off.

On her way out of town she runs into a Native American girl with strange markings standing in the middle of her path. Luckily the Tin Man is following her and snatches the girl out of Gale’s way before she can touch her. Turns out our girl is a soulless scarecrow that doesn’t know what’s right or wrong. This concept was the most interesting addition to the second issue. The fact that there are more than one scarecrow and that it was added to the story to fit a western was very intelligently thought out. It also plays upon the fear that a western settler would really have had of Native American’s which gives the story a layer realism that wasn’t there previously.
The story keeps a continuous pace never really slowing down and Gale bounces from one end of the town to the next and then packs up and moves out. But the only thing it did to progress the plot was introduce the villain of the story. This was only for one page and frankly didn’t give me any real thrill to the reveal. Additionally the Wicked Witch looked exactly as you would expect which hasn’t been the case for any other character. I was half hoping that she would have been a woman in a duster with a green complexion rather than the typical witch with an elongated nose and pointed hat. She also caught a tumble weed on fire which made me laugh at the ridiculousness of it, rather than be intimidated by her.

There were a lot of elements of the original story introduced in this issue and it’s good to get those done and out of the way. There are a lot of good moments in this issue that will make you smile or chuckle while reading the book, I just wish the story had progressed more. The art and dialog are still as strong as the first issue and I can’t wait to see what the third issue has in store. This series was Big Dog Ink’s first book to crack the Diamond Comics Top 300, so a big congrats to them and hopefully they’ll repeat the success with the second issue.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Tom Hutchison
Artist: Alisson Borges
Colorist: Kate Finnegan
Publisher: Big Dog Ink
Price: $3.50
Release Date: 1/18/2012