Monkey Prince #3 – Gene Luen Yang, Writer; Bernard Chang, Artist; Sebastian Cheng, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: Gene Luen Yang is clearly having a lot of fun with this book, as he merges elements of superhero teen drama with a surprisingly deep plot centering around ancient Chinese mythological figures and their enemies. The best part of this issue is definitely as Marcus continues to train with his offbeat mentor Shifu Pigsy. The eccentric pig-man has a sink-or-swim style that involves dropping Marcus from the clouds on occasion. Meanwhile, Marcus’ parents are in a fix of their own—having accidentally come across a demon-possessed giant version of Penguin, who wants to either consume their souls or use them as bait for Batman, depending on when you ask him. While Marcus’ criminal parents put up a fight, they soon find themselves in over their heads—but Marcus is preoccupied with a much more trivial matter. At least, Shifu thinks so—but it involves a girl, so it’s priority #1 for Marcus.
That girl would be Kaya, who saw Marcus right before he transformed and is still a little suspicious of him. But she also has a secret of her own—she’s the sister of the Riz, the obnoxious bully to targeted Marcus in the first issue, and he’s gone missing. The culprit is a bit of a surprise, although it continues to be rough characterization for that character, given another book that’s going on right now. The plight of the Riz doesn’t really seem to play much of a larger role in the book, and while this is going on Shifu Pigsy is off on his own adventure—dealing with an army of ancient demons infiltrating Earth. Overall, this book is pretty fun, but it often feels like it’s juggling a lot of plots and tones. That’s fine in a more established book, but with a new character it can find of feel like it’s competing with itself. Given Yang’s track record, the odds are it’ll come together as a great whole in the end.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
