The tale of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a classic loved by many. I personally love Judy Garland's portrayal of Dorothy Gale and the journey she takes on the yellow brick road to get to get back home to Kansas. I read the original story a while back and I saw quite a lot of editing done in the movie compared to the book. I felt it was much needed editing after I finished reading it. There was just too much filler. But, I decided to give Ozma of Oz a try because generally comics make stories seem better - at least I think so.



Ozma of Oz is the third book in the Oz series. The second one, like the introduction explains, didn't have Dorothy but this one does. I was curious who Ozma was and happy I could read a different Dorothy book so that's why I landed on this one to read out of all the graphic novels available for this series.

The story starts off with Dorothy Gale on a ship that's in the middle of a storm. She's trying to visit relatives in Australia with her uncle before this storm hits her. She gets thrown out of the ship and into this box crate - getting herself stuck with a hen named Bill who remarkably talks (probably not so remarkable based on Dorothy's past experiences). That's when the real adventure begins through this island full of creatures named Wheelers, to a castle with a collector of heads, to meeting new characters including the ruler of Oz herself - Ozma, and finally, onto the journey to save children from the evil Nome King. All done with animated characters and illustrations. Skottie Young, the artist, and Jean-Francois Beaulieu, the colorist, have great style. They made the characters come to life with their expressions and the beautiful colors across the page.



The problem I found with this story was the same I felt with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - there is too much packed in. Plus, there are too many new characters. I know that's not Shanower's fault. He includes what's in the original story presumably. I did like elements of the comic like the main plot where Dorothy had to find the children who were turned into objects by the Nome King. If you really loved the original book, then you don't have the problem I have so I would recommend Ozma of Oz to continue your adventure - comic book style. ( )

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Ozma of Oz is a bit of an oddity in the first six Oz novels: moreso than Marvelous Land, even, it's driven by plot, eschewing Baum's usual rambling journey narrative. After some independent misadventures in Ev (where she meets Billina and Tik-Tok), Dorothy links up with Ozma and sets off with her Royal Army on a mission to rescue the Royal Family of Ev from the Nome King. The book is one of Baum's better ones, and it's even better, I would argue, in the hands of Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, as like Marvelous Land, it introduces a whole new set of strange-looking characters for Skottie Young to draw the hell out of: his Tik-Tok is stalwart, his Wheelers are terrifying, his Nomes are wispy.

My favorite, though, was Billina-- Young always does a good job with the characters who are conventional animals (like the Cowardly Lion in Wonderful Wizard or Eureka in Dorothy and the Wizard), I think partially because we all know what, say, a chicken looks like, so he can get more expressive in the design in a way that he can't with a woggle-bug. His Billina is wonderfully sardonic, annoyed and unimpressed by the world she travels through and the company she is forced to keep.

I also like how Young handles Ozma: it's easy to forget in the novels that Ozma is a kid, and one only recently come into her true identity as royalty at that. Young makes sure you remember this: when she shouts, it looks like a kid trying to get her way. She's no less a princess, but it injects a certain amount of realism, even if via Young's cartoony style.

The third in Shanower and Young's very successful set of graphic novel adaptations, Ozma of Oz emphasizes both the strengths and weaknesses of the series. Young's art continues to be fresh and vibrant; special praise is due for his zaftig Princess Langwidere and her voluminous masses of hair, the world-weary and sarcastic glares of Billina the hen, and best of all, the wispy, furry little Nomes who populate the Nome King's Dominion. These are wonderful creations, and if his Nome King seems little more than a stressed-out, potentially inebriated take on the John R. Neill original, it can be forgiven as an attempt at authentically representing the text (where the Nome King is described as resembling Santa Claus). The demented energy of the character makes the reader question how he could ever be assumed to be anything other than the villain of the piece, but that's a choice Shanower and Young seem to have consciously made.

That's the sort of thing that brings up the shortcomings of these adaptations, though, and it's particularly glaring here in Ozma. As a life-long fan of L. Frank Baum's books, it's possible that Eric Shanower is simply too close, emotionally, to be a totally effective adapter. There are numerous sequences in all the graphic novels that simply don't need to be included, and the fact that they remain feels more like Shanower being unwilling to condense than anything else. There is, for instance, an entire scene where the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman pridefully compare themselves to Tik-Tok, the Mechanical Man; it's a nice character moment, but there's no real reason for it to be there. Similarly, there's a moment where Tik-Tok runs down and Dorothy is forced to return to an earlier location for his wind-up key; it doesn't add anything to the story, and it just fills a few panels. There are no less than three long flashbacks to earlier events (including one recounting The Marvelous Land of Oz, the previous Oz story), and the ending is just as anticlimactic as it ever was in the original novel. All of these elements could have been tightened up. Shanower also has a habit of leaving Baum's slightly Victorian dialogue absolutely unchanged, so you have characters making all sorts of formal declarations ("...We will hold a solemn conference to decide the best manner of liberating the royal family...") when some even slightly modernized or compacted dialogue would be, frankly, far easier to read.

Despite my criticism, all I'm really doing is calling attention to what keeps this from being a full five-star graphic novel. It is still very, very good indeed, and as an Oz fan, I enjoyed it tremendously. I just can't help but think it would have been even better - and the Shanower/Young series might have lasted longer - if Baum's original texts hadn't been treated as sacred objects. ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )

Oz: Ozma of Oz by Eric Shanower is the third in a six book graphic novel adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novels. To understand why his version is so wonderful, one must see it in the context of the original and its other adaptations.

Ozma was first introduced in The Marvelous Land of Oz in 1904. She inherited a power vacuum left behind when the not-so-honest wizard of Oz left in his hot air balloon. In the third Oz book, Ozma of Oz, Ozma has settled in to her position as ruler of Oz, and now she's about to meet her match when Dorothy returns.

Now Dorothy's return to Oz in the books, while still often an adventure in itself, is set up as a normal part of her life. She is an adventurer and someone Oz can rely on in times of need. Oz is a magical land surrounded by desert and outside the earthly bounds but can be traveled to by near death experiences or by magical means.

In 1985 Disney released Return to Oz which draws from Ozma of Oz but has this strange need give a "reason" for Dorothy to want to return to Oz. They set up this entire insane asylum plot rather than let Dorothy's aunt and uncle to accept on faith that she had been somewhere and come back.

Remember in the 1939 MGM musical, Dorothy awakes from her adventure to realize she had seen fantastical stand-ins for the people she knew — the woman who hated Toto became the Wicked Witch of the West; ranch hands became the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion; and so forth. Oz adaptations seem incapable of ignoring the MGM movie (meaning the Wicked Witch always has to green skin, even though she doesn't in the book). If Dorothy's trip to Oz was a Jungian one as MGM implies and if it is the starting point for the 1985 film, then there can't just be a direct route to Oz.

A year after Disney purchased Marvel, Marvel began releasing a series of graphic novel adaptations of the Oz books. I swear these books are in part an apology for the whole psychological crap stuffed into Return to Oz. These books which cover the first six books, are a wonderful subversive homage to the originals.

So, if Dorothy didn't get to Oz through a psychotic break, how did she get there? In the same way that Gulliver got to Lilliput — shipwreck. Well, actually she's just tossed overboard during a bad storm and is washed ashore with one of the farm's chickens. She and Uncle Henry were en route to Australia for his health. She was along because she "was quite an experienced traveler .... so she wasn't easily frightened, whatever happened...." (p. 15) When the ship runs afoul of an ocean storm, Dorothy goes on deck to make sure her uncle isn't in danger. That's how she ends up once again risking her life and ending up whisked again to Oz.

Except Oz isn't the only magical land at the edge of death. It's just one kingdom. Dorothy ends up on the wrong side of the border just as the Nome King is planning to invade Oz. Oz should be ripe for the picking given the years long dictatorship by the Wizard and now with a child on the throne.

So on the one hand, Ozma of Oz is about Dorothy once again apart from her family, trying to get home. Now though, she has to find Oz before she can find someone who can then send her home. On the other, it's the first glimpse of Oz as a kingdom and our first look at it while it's at war.

Though it's primarily a story of one girl trying to find her way home, and another one trying to save her country, it's also an examination of gender, feminism, war, and colonialism set in a post apocalyptic wasteland.

They prefer the name Bill

While Dorothy ends up proving herself worthy of being Ozma's champion in this book, there's a second hero who is sometimes overlooked — Bill the chicken. Dorothy, being uncomfortable with non-binary expression, nicknames Bill, Billina. Bill, understandably upset by this turn of events but still needing Dorothy's companionship in this hostile environment, begrudgingly agrees to the moniker.

Bill tells it like it is.

Shanower and illustrator Scottie Young, though, take Bill's part in the book and uses it as the wedge to expand the social commentary already present. Much of that is done through facial expressions and body language — which is saying a lot since Bill is after all, poultry.

Through Bill, Shanower and Young subtly return to Ozma's never spoken again life as a boy before being returned to the throne. In all fairness, Baum never does re-address Ozma's life as Tip either but that can be taken as an unspoken message that Ozma is now a woman because she says so and that alone should be enough. For Bill who refuses to fully transition from one gender extreme to another just for the convenience of uncomfortable travel companions, there's room to examine gender expression. ( )

This is the third book in Marvel’s Oz series, these are graphic novel retellings of the L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. This was a fantastic book I really really enjoyed it. I loved the illustration and colors and really enjoyed that Dorothy was back in the story.

Dorothy has returned to Oz with her only company being the chicken Billina. Right off the bat they run into some very scary Wheelers and find and activate Tik-Tok who assists them in their flight from the Wheelers. The whole thing culminates in Dorothy meeting up with her friends from the first book and facing off with the Nome King.

I have absolutely loved these graphic novel retellings of the Oz series. I absolutely adore Skottie Young’s artwork and think it depicts everything in a creepy yet colorful way that really does it justice. I loved how the Wheelers and the Nome King were portrayed.

I also really enjoyed the fact that Dorothy joins forces with Ozma in this book. They are both strong and interesting female characters that I like reading about. Additionally we have some incredibly fun new characters. Tik-tok is one of my favorites from the original full length novels and he was awesome in this graphic novel series too. I loved that the Cowardly Lion was back in the story and really enjoyed his friend the Hungry Tiger.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first book in this series and more than the second book in the series. It is a wonderful graphic novel retelling of the Oz series. I think the best part about this series is the wonderful colorful artwork throughout.

Overall this was the best installment yet in this graphic novel retelling of Baum’s Oz series. I really love the illustration style and enjoyed the characters and story as well. This is a graphic novel series that is great for all ages. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy fantasy graphic novels, especially those who are already a fan of Baum’s Oz series. ( )

It's always the most difficult to review the books you love the best. At least, it is for me. I tend to throw around words like "fantastic" and "awesome" and then stare at the ceiling in silent reverie, none of which makes a good review.

Ozma of Oz is my favorite Oz book of the entire canon. I was thrilled when it made Fuse #8's Top 100 Chapter Books, proving that I wasn't the only person in love with this story and have mentioned it here and there over the years but I've never actually reviewed it. Now that I'm recataloging and reviewing my personal library, and own both the original book, the audio narrated by John McDonough, and a beautiful hardcover of the graphic adaptation courtesy of my friend Sara the Librarian, I think it's time I explained just why I love this book so much.

It's the third book in the Oz series and reintroduces Dorothy, the heroine of the first book. After being shipwrecked with only the Yellow Hen for company, she discovers herself in a strange fairy country. With Billina for company she begins to explore and encounters the dinner pail and lunch box trees, one of my favorite moments. They find a machine-man, Tik-Tok and eventually civilization. Unfortunately, civilization isn't very civilized and consists of the Princess Langwidere, who changes her heads and her mind and Dorothy is imprisoned. Happily, Ozma, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Hungry Tiger appear, traveling magically across the great desert. Old and new friends are reunited and the group sets out for the domain of the Nome King, intent on rescuing the true royal family of the fairy country known as Ev. They encounter a few mild adventures, but their real adventures start when they arrive at the underground caverns of Ruggedo, the Nome King. At first friendly and funny, he soon proves to be tricky and cruel and only the cleverness of the Yellow Hen and the bravery of Dorothy save the day. After a happy celebration in the Emerald City, Dorothy gives the Magic Belt to Ozma and chooses to return home to Uncle Henry, who is ill with worry over her absence.

Shanower's adaptation is true to the story keeping all the delightful details and quirky characters. Young's illustrations bring a depth to the story that's missing in the print version, highlighting the puns and sly humor and bringing out more character in Dorothy, Ozma, and the Nome King. It's easy to fall in love with both versions of the story. So, why exactly do I love this story? The common sense of Dorothy, the serious but magical descriptions of the lunch box and dinner pail trees, exactly as a child would describe them, the sly Nome King with his logic and tempers, the tense guessing game...there's just so much to love. The story is the perfect blend of fantasy and reality, practical common sense and ridiculous leaps of logic. Baum was truly the creator of the American fairy tale and this graphic adaptation captures all and more of the story, introducing it to a new generation.

Verdict: Although most libraries are not going to carry the entire Famous Forty, you really should have the first arc of Oz books which includes the titles adapted and illustrated for Marvel. When I added the Marvel versions, kids checked them out vigorously and the originals got a new lease on life as well. I highly recommend purchasing the first couple volumes, if you haven't already, and introducing them to your patrons.

ISBN: 9780785142478; Published 2011 by Marvel; Purchased for the library

Whenever Marvel publishes a new Oz adaptation, I MUST HAVE IT. I’m not sure how long this habit will go. There are 14 Baum books, and 40 canonical Oz books, and I suppose also that human lives have a finite timespan... But who knows where it’ll end. All I know is that for as long as they make ‘em (and they’re still just as good as the originals), I’ll keep gettin’ ‘em.

In this volume, the third one, we return to Dorothy, en route to Australia with her Uncle Henry. A storm blows her overboard, and she finds herself in a mysterious fairly land known as Ev. Here she navigates obstacles, meets up with old friends, and tries to make her way back home.

I love Shanower’s writing, taking the books and condensing them down to their most interesting parts, and the way an entire scene is summarized by a single image can be downright hilarious at times. Likewise, Young’s drawing fits the world of Oz (and Ev) to a T... err Z (and V). The characters each have their own look which suits them greatly, and while the drawings may look ragged, they really, really work.

If you love the Oz mythos as much as I do, your collection is incomplete without this Marvel literary adaptation. And keep your eyes peeled for the next volume, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, probably already available as periodicals at your local comic book store. ( )