Kate Leth and Ian McGinty take on the universe’s most courageous combatants in “Bravest Warriors” #21! Are they brave enough to fight this war? Did I look beyond the cover before starting this review? All that and more in our spoiler-free review!
Written by Kate Leth
Illustrated by Ian McGintyFeaturing the debut of new writer Kate Leth (ADVENTURE TIME: SEEING RED) and artist Ian McGinty (ADVENTURE TIME 2014 ANNUAL)! Beth, Chris, Wallow, and Danny finally get to sit back and relax as they take on their next mission—having a picnic! NOT! It’s another crazy adventure with our favorite teen-aged heroes as they save the universe, one mission at a time!
True story: a second after opening “Bravest Warriors” #21 I threw it on the ground. Chris, one of “BravWars”‘s protagonists is described with the caption “Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.”, and his other teammates are given some variant of the famous catchphrase from Friday Night Lights. A Coach Taylor reference is one of the three ways to ensure your comic will be critically acclaimed, so I was completely ready to just end the review here, give it a 10.0 and spend the rest of the night revisiting Dillon, Texas — but fortunately the rest of “Bravest Warriors” #21 proved to be charming beyond just the pop culture references.
Also, that would make this review a paragraph long. Matt would probably fire me for that.
Anyway, “Bravest Warriors” #21 sees our valiant fighters enjoying a lovely picnic where nothing could go wrong besides getting bloated. Then everything goes wrong. There’s been this recent trend recently, what with the “Adventure Time”/Cartoon Hangover comics coming out with characters and situations that have all the direness of your typical superhero bout but with a sense of humor that allows the comic to rise above the dredge of super-serious storytelling, with integrity intact. In this tradition, Kate Leth excels at writing a hilarious script while not surrendering the plot for the sake of the jokes. I mean, yeah, there are lines with words like “butt toots” or “tinkle poison” but they arrive as part of this world, not a reach by a writer grasping for cheap laughs.
Of course, a major reason why those laughs work so well in the high-concept world of “Bravest Warriors” is McGinty’s art. Not only does he make the comic look like it’s coming straight from the television (or YouTube, or whichever internet thing Cartoon Hangover uses) but McGinty excels at character expressions and timing. You may or may not have seen Catbug around the internet (half cat, half ladybug, somewhat incompetent yet apologetically adorable) but his depiction in here is like a sack of sugar being poured down your throat while you’re tied to a chair. Though Leth’s dialogue is great (as is her snarky commentary found in the body of some pages), McGinty’s faces and posing accentuate these words to make “BravWars” #21 a complete delight.
Between Leth’s penchant for character-based humor and McGinty knowing just when to go big with the characters or restrain their physicality, this might just be one of the funniest comics on stands.
We also get a short story from Mad Rupert and Toril Orlesky. Somewhat similar in tone to the first story, this one sees Wallow and Impossibear learning how to play baseball. It’s a fun little story with a message made all the more enjoyable when read in Impossibear’s actual voice (imagine Black Dynamite in the body of a rainbow teddy bear).
“Bravest Warriors” is still one of the most fun all-ages titles in comics, and with the new creative team even more so. Nothing but good times for these kids.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose.
