To open with some blatant editorializing, this was not originally the Friday Rec I had planned to write. I had discussed previously with another writer of this site which series I wanted to discuss, and up until earlier this week I was all set to sit down and write said article. However, as is my comic reading habit, I have lately had an edict that I need to finish all the various series that I began reading in trade and a) never finished or b) never caught up with. This week saw me sitting down and reading the complete second volume of Bryan JL Glass and Mike Oeming’s Mice Templar (collected in two trades) and three issues of the latest volume currently on stands. And as I read the most recent issue, Mice Templar v3 #3, I noticed it featured a note asking fans of the book to spread the love of the series amongst their peers. And when I thought back to the original purpose of Friday Rec – which was to recommend ongoing series for readers to check out – it was decided that the Friday Rec would change to be about a little series that most of you should be reading.
Check behind the cut for some thoughts on the series.
This is actually not the first time I’ve shared my enjoyment of the series with the readers of this site. Back in 2009, I co-wrote an article with David Harper weighing in on the debate of the Mice Templar vs. the Mouse Guard, having only read the first volume of both. While there is ostensibly no reason you can’t enjoy both, I offered my reasons for finding Mice Templar the more endearing title. That was a year and a half ago, only having read six issues. The story is now in it’s 18th issue overall, and with three times as many issues out now than before I can’t say I waver from my original stance. It’s in that regard that part of me was literally tempted to simply copy and paste my old argument, thus essentially plagiarizing myself albeit for a good reason. However, considering how good the series has gotten over time, I feel it would do it a fair amount of injustice to not give you a brand new argument with newly formed opinions of why you should check out the Mice Templar.
To put it quite simply, Mice Templar is essentially the modern version of the kind of literature I read when I was a child. Brian Jacques’ Redwall series (which writer Glass gives tribute to with the most recent issue) was an incredibly influential read to me. The series starred anthropomorphic animals living in an abbey during assumedly the late 5th/early 6th century of Medieval history. It was pretty much the only book I regularly read as a kid, because it was a fantastic way to get kids like me to begin to dive into the world of the mythological (and when I say kids like me, I mean the kids who owned D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths and read through it twice a day). That’s what Redwall existed from – the fuel from established mythology from our own history books, now changed to the form of mice and other woodland critters. In this was the immediate connection I had with the title Mice Templar.
Whereas Redwall took place in the eponymous abbey, Mice Templar takes place in the world we never see. As the night begins, the world of mice begin to thrive (as is their nocturnal wont). We open in Cricket’s Glen and meet our protagonist Karic, a young mouse growing up in a time where the ideas of grandiose heroes and epic battles is no different than it is now in our legendless world. Thriving on the stories passed down from generations of the legendary hero Kuhl-En, Karic lives a simple and carefree life, That is, until the uncanny and non-existant war of king Icarus against a long since destroyed foe is brought to his doorstep and his town is destroyed, his family captured, and Karic himself let loose into a world he is not ready for at the behest of Pilot, a mouse who reveals his identity as that of a former Templar, who were a sect of mouse knights charged with the duty of protecting all mousedom. And as luck would have it, it’s Karic’s destiny to be the next great thing.
Continued belowThis is the opening of Mice Templar, an epic mythological tale that should never be overlooked due to it’s diminuitive status. As tiny as the characters may be, these are some of the characters with the biggest hearts you’ll find in comics today as this tale deftly finds itself wrapped up in the world of yester-year, where heroes weren’t just born but instead legends made. Glass is admittedly a huge fan of classic mythology, and you’ll find all of that ringing quite true within the pages of Mice Templar. If you don’t believe me, the glossary’s and back-up material in each issue will certainly help to illuminate the initial source material that helped shape the Mice Templar into the world that it is. What Mice Templar ostensibly is is a title that takes all of your favorite aspects of the hero’s journey, mixes in some Lord of the Rings epic-ness, and wraps up the entire package in a world that then births and defines it’s own singular mythology. While yes, there are characters that are amalgamations of classic folklore heroes, the series does stand on it’s own with it’s own intense universe of storytelling, as you’d generally expect from an entirely different species. The mice don’t see the world as we do, so why should they refer to things like the sun and God in the same ways as we do? Who is to say that their notions of Wotan aren’t as legitimate as our own beliefs about the greater universe? Or that the battle at Kros Cur Onnor Da, that now-desolate tree of grace where the noble dream of Kuhl-En finally came to its end, is not as legitimate a battle as any other in modern fiction? To me reading this, it’s the work of a great fan of the genre putting his own mark in the shelf, with a world that comes to life in a way that is as real as any other.
While some might find this element of “reinventing the wheel” a tad off putting (as I’ve heard in the past), I’d argue that a) they’ve never cracked a Lord of the Rings novel before and/or b) they’re being a tad ridiculous considering that the average comic book features a man or woman in tights flying around in the air fighting other men and/or women in similar forms of fashion faux pas. You can’t blame a comic for going the extra mile in trying to do something creative and extensive when developing it’s own mythology, especially when it’s incredibly form fitting to the universe that it’s narrative takes place in. Heck, if people had laughed at Tolkein when he first thought up Gimli, son of Glóin the Dwarf who had been one of the famed companions of the great Thorin Oakenshield, we would honestly be lacking in one of the greatest pieces of fantasy fiction today.
Glass and Oeming have created a multi-layered story with the Mice Templar, and the inherent pay-offs so far have been quite incredible. The story as it stands at the end of Destiny is quite different from the story we began with, and watching the character journey as it is throughout these 15 issues is quite a story to watch. The Mice Templar is the type of tale that exists for people who are fans of the fantasy genre, a genre that is very poorly represented in the modern media. There are not a lot of great fantasy epics anymore, as it seems the days of Narnia (who couldn’t even survive at the box office with hundreds upon thousands of dollars of cutting edge CGI!) and Middle Earth are long behind us. This is where Mice Templar seeks to fill a specific void in creative fiction, and it does so quite well. While most characters in comic book fiction are on the proveribal epic journey through six or seven hundred issues worth of content, it’s definitively not the same as the type of story driven journey we see in great fantasy tales, and if there’s one thing we assuredly need more of it’s the same great fantasy tales that we all (assumedly) read as kids. While literature is usually a reflection of the times, something has to be said for the fact that there are no more great stories of swordplay, maidens locked in towers, and evil kings who just need to be ousted (usually in heroic battles that clash against the darkest of magics). Thank Wotan for Mice Templar.
Continued belowSuffice it to say, the creative team behind this book is a powerhouse of talent. The first volume is illustrated by Mike Oeming, whose kinetic style is both endearing to behold and steadfast in it’s angular details, giving the universe a very recognizable visual scope. As the second volume begins, Victor Santos takes over and begins to do the second best Oeming out there. While Oeming’s talent is certainly missed, Santos manages to keep the visual style Oeming has created for himself alive throughout the rest of the story, while giving it his own personal slant in a very vibrant tone. Santos is actually an incredibly underrated talent, as he proves in the grandiose visuals present in the finale of Destiny which comes to a head in an epic four page spread that helps bring the second volume of the story to a tremendous finish.
Meanwhile, Glass becomes the champion of the slow burn, as you can notice Glass takes all the time in the world to effectively build up the mythology of Mice Templar before letting things come to an epic head at the end of Destiny. Seriously – most comics never get that big for their entire run, but as the second act of this multi-part tale draws to a conclusion, it does so in a big way with reverberations that are deftly felt throughout the third volume. And the only real reason that the finale of Destiny is as big as it is is due to the amount of time Glass has been building up Karic’s journey as a hero, whether it be his adventure to the Great Tree with Pilot, or even beyond that with Cassius as they face a prophecy of bats. It has all lead to an enormous visual and emotional pay-off with the three trades currently in stores – and the story isn’t even done yet. No, instead Glass gives us his Empire Strikes Back as we all wait to see what comes next in the continued adventures of Karic and co. Additionally, what’s nice to see is that Glass has yet to introduce a character that has been completely throwaway, because most characters end up returning in one dastardly form or another, which leaves creedance to paying very close attention to the story as it evolves. So many stories will often times just throw in a character when it’s needed, but Glass has instead built a world of characters whose destinies are all intrinsically intertwined, and we’ve only seen some of the pay off for this so far. I can only imagine that the best is yet to come.
Ultimately, if you look at my previous write-up of the series and the current one, you won’t see a lot of inherent differences in my argument or opinions. The thing about Mice Templar is that this is a story for people who want to read, who want to invest in a story. It’s a story for fantasy fans who appreciate the long form storytelling, where things do not wrap up that nicely at the end of each volume. This is not a book where readers will have have everything thrown at them wrapped in a soft blanket simply because the reader is a participant in it’s existence. No, to really enjoy the depth present in the Mice Templar, you have to go the little extra mile to dig beneath the surface, learn the mythology, and appreciate what’s there. The more you do that, the greater the story becomes, and with 18 issues of this tale under our belt so far, things are only looking up for the Mice Templar, even now that they’re in their darkest days.
The Mice Templar is currently available in three trades in store (Vol. 1, Vol. 2.1, and Vol. 2.2) with a third volume currently underway (issue #3 came out last week). You still have plenty of time to catch up, and in a world lacking in legend you’ll be glad you took the time to.
