Saturday, August 1, 2009

Worth a Second Look: The Mice Templar, Vol. 1: The Prophecy


The Mice Templar: The Prophecy
By Bryan J.L. Glass & Michael Avon Oeming


The adventures are Karic are a special journey that begin here. Long enthralled by the local Blacksmith's tales of an ancient order of Mice who keep all of mousedom safe, Karic is a boy prone to fantasy day dreams and eager to play swords and sorcery. When a stranger comes to town with a tale no one will hear, a dark destiny is carved out for our young hero.

The Mice Templar is a love letter to fantasy. It throws in a tablespoon of Star Wars, a cup of Redwall, a knob of Nymh, and a dash of The Lord of the Rings, but manages to come off not only as homage, but as a unique entity. This volume deals almost exclusively with how Karic becomes the last hope for an ancient order and a dying religion. He is not the first choice of the masters who need to see the legacy carried on, but he is a choice and that is something that they have long searched for.

Glass and Oeming's story is magnificent in its density and scope. The schedule of these first six issues was a bit of a problem, it seemed to come out almost haphazardly. The amount of story presented in each chapter and the unfortunate, yet incorrect, assumption that all the mice looked the same, made it hard to follow on a bi-monthly or longer schedule. The momentum of the book was lost in between chapters. The new volume which saw its first issue released this past Wednesday promises to be different with a new artist and its next issue shipping in a mere two weeks.

As you can see below, the review for that first issue of Volume Two showed that there was no love lost to this reader during the wait. That love for the story sparked this rereading and short review of the first part of the epic and it was not time wasted. This is a great story that is massively entertaining. Like those Lucas films that it seems to admire, this is one worth enjoying time and time again.

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