Comic Review : Adventure Time The Flip Side 2
In the first issue of Adventure Time : The Flip Side, Finn and Jake, restless and questless, picked an adventure from the back of the “Adventurer’s Posting Board.” They didn’t expect that jobs posted on the back need to be fulfilled in reverse, so that their quest to free Painting Princess from Monkey Wizard becomes an attempt to coerce Monkey Wizard to kidnap her instead. In issue two, having struck out several times in their incompetent attempts to do evil, Finn and Jake seek out a master of wrongdoing, Ice King, to assist them. Ice King has many devious ideas on how to get the Monkey King to kidnap Painting Princess, including the penning of fanfic, phoning in some flowers, or planting the Gem of Desire on the Monkey King, but Ice King ends up being overcome by Flip Side magic and it is his evil heart, Ricardio, that emerges. Ricardio, like a true Romeo, seduces the Gem of Desire, and the two depart, leaving the questers again empty-handed.
While Finn and Jake’s agreement to undertake the quest in the first issue merely seems whimsical, in the second issue we discover that all of Ooo depends on their completion of the reverse quest. Since they have chosen to undertake it, it must be completed, or due to the magical laws of the land of Ooo, land will become water, fire will become pudding, shoes will become ostriches, and right will become wrong. So Finn and Jake must be part of this crime or the entire moral order and physics itself will be in upheaval. While Adventure Time : The Flip Side is all ages fiction worthy of Kaboom!, this is a sophisticated adult moral—that sometimes the ends do justify the means in a world with consequences and responsibilities, that sometimes we become villains by necessity to be heroes by choice. Like a true fairy tale, however, it conceals this moral in the fable so you won’t have to explain this to your kids just yet.
On the one side, Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, the Eisner-winning team from Bandette, have written an interesting story to bewilder children of all ages; on the other side, Wook Jin Clark draws the world of Adventure Time with a unique perspective, drawing as much inspiration from the Golden Age of illustrators as the Golden Age of comics—as if Edward Lear worked for Will Eisner’s studio; on the flip side, there is no reason to buy this comic, which by the Bizarro logic of the flip side means you must immediately go out and buy it or risk world-wide havoc. Really. Go out and buy this comic. It is highly recommended for all ages, and you will be glad you did.
If your local comic shop has no copies remaining, Adventure Time : The Flip Side can be found on comiXology.