The Emerald City of Oz #5 (Marvel)

(via CBDB)

writer: Eric Shanower

artist: Skottie Young

They started on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 2009.  Then came The Marvelous Land of Oz, and then Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, and Road to Oz.  "They" of course being Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, adapting L. Frank Baum's original whimsical material.  And if you never really knew Oz whimsy because all you knew about it was Judy Garland singing "Over the Rainbow," then these comics were a master class in Oz whimsy.  

I started taking them for granted.  Well, that became kind of easy after I stopped reading comics regularly.  I just assumed they'd continue indefinitely.  This is more possible than you'd think, since Shanower himself has been among the many would-be "royal historians" who have continued writing new Oz adventures over the years.  There are in fact eight more Oz books by Baum himself (that there was more than one at one point surprised me, but here there are six of them better represented than they have in more about a century now).  If Marvel has decided they want to stop publishing these things, maybe Shanower and Young can take their act on the road.  Or perhaps everyone's just taking a break.  Or maybe this really is the end.

Personally, I would hate to see Shanower continue without Young.  I've read some other Oz comics, and they don't come near to the right tone for a number of reasons, and one of them is the art.  Young instantly became the signature Oz artist for me.  I know opinions on him for some reason differ, but to me he's a genius.  Baum did a lot of variations on the crazy loner character, but their greatest unity came from Young's designs.

The great news is that these adaptations go out with a bang.  I don't know what else Baum could have done to complete his Oz adventures, other than continue them, because Emerald City presents a pretty definitive statement, one that I hadn't even considered until reading this issue.  

I now believe that Oz was Baum's impression of the pre-WWI world, one that still struggled to exist even into WWII.  One in which nations could still consider themselves relatively isolated from each other.  Oz could be Japan.  It could even be America.  It's the idea that the unknown, isolated land can be anything.  It's the exotic possibilities Marco Polo encountered, that allowed Jonathan Swift to send Gulliver on his travels, Odysseus to visit strange islands, the rhinoceros to become a unicorn.

It makes Baum out to be quite the clever visionary after all, not merely whimsical but strange for a reason.  The end of this story places Oz apparently forever free from outside interference.  But even Peter Pan eventually grows up.