Oz: Ozma of Oz

This is a graphic novelization of the 1907 book by L. Frank Baum. Eric Shanower sticks close to the original story and does a great job of turning it into comic format. What is brilliant about this and the other books in this Marvel series is the artwork of Skottie Young, who brings a fresh look to characters that are over 100 years old. His Ozma has range of emotions never before seen in her, and his Tik-Tok rises to new levels of Artificial Intelligence.

If you love the story, this will be a great way to revisit it. If it is new to you, then you are in for a treat as Dorothy returns to Oz in a convoluted manner that places most of the story outside the fairy land. Instead she is cast ashore in Ev, a neighboring land to Oz, when she falls overboard from a ship bound for Australia. There she meets Ozma for the first time. Ozma has raised an army and come to Ev to free the Evian royal family from the Nome King who has enslaved them in his underground kingdom. At first young Ozma and her top-heavy army (26 officers & 1 private) seem no match for the cunning nome king, but poultry power carries the day.