A Review of 4 Comic Books that Feature Mazes and Labyrinths
I am back with another comic book review that involves either a maze or a labyrinth. Today I take you through 4 different stories, 2 that I highly recommend you check out. We get a warrior that can’t die, a creepy horror story, a secret society of magical families and a young adult fantasy book series that was made into a few movies.
Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior Vol. 2: Labyrinth (issues 5-10) AMZN
from Valiant Entertainment, 176 Pages
by Robert Venditti ; illustrated by Raul Allen, Juan José Ryp
This comic has a body count that is high and very bloody. Our main character is a warrior who cannot die which means when he does battle others there is a lot of bloodshed and it is rarely his. If you are looking for some background on the story I suggest you start with Volume 1, but if you jump into Volume 2 to start you will be fine to follow along.
The comic begins with the left of the Eternal Warriors child, named Kalam while he is away doing battle and the subsequent quest to get him back. From there we begin the Labyrinth portion of the story. A mysterious man has captured the Eternal Warrior and is hoping to test him and figure out how he heals himself and can never die. The testing zone is an enormous high tech labyrinth (actually a maze) where he tests him with a variety of deaths/healing scenarios. That is the comic.
Of all the comics I have reviewed this has the most extensive artwork of mazes and labyrinths. Really great work by the illustrators. Here are a few of the covers/alt covers:
And here are some additional scenes of the labyrinth itself:
Comic strip from the book
If you like blood and destruction this is the comic for you. Excellent illustrations. I recommend. 8.5/10
Check out information on all 14 Eternal Warrior comics.
Ice Cream Man #30 (2022) AMZN
from Image Comics, Part of TPB: Ice Cream Man, Volume 8: Subjects & Objects 136 Pages
by W. Maxwell Prince (Author), Martin Morazzo (Artist), Chris O'Halloran (Artist)
I have read each issue of Ice Cream Man. It’s a twisted horror comic that isn’t afraid to try interesting story formats. When I was reading the TPB and I flipped to Chapter 30 and saw the cover above I knew I was going to enjoy it ! Two mice making their way through a maze, one black and one white. What happens if they meet since they seem to be trying to get to the other side ( ones start is the others end ?). And you get the theme of the Chapter from the title, “Experimental Storytelling”.
This particular story is about a medical test. One patient gets a pill while the other gets a placebo, typical in a controlled experiment. Except this, like most stories in the series has a Twilight Zone experience to it. Everything is not what it seems. And more information would require a SPOLIER alert….which I am not giving. This is a solid sci-fi book and I recommend it. How does that make you feel ?
Read it. 8.7/10 !
Excellence #12 (2022) AMZN
from Image - Skybound, 31 Pages
by Brandon Thomas (Author), Khary Randolph (Cover Art, Artist), Emilio Lopez (Cover Art, Artist)
Excellence is a comic series that ran from May 2019 - Jan 2022 and had a total of 12 issues. I enjoyed the story, which is about a group of magical families and a secret society that controls them. It has a strong father / son relationship dynamic and deals with a new generation rebelling against an older one.
The final issue, features the cover you see above of a maze so I wanted to give you a review of the series. There is no real maze, per say in the issue, just the culmination of a mystery as the characters figure out what is going on. This is an isolated story that will not make sense solo, so read Volume 1 & Volume 2, a total of 304 pages which concludes with this arc.
Overall a good story. 6.8/10.
Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Battle Of The Labyrinth (2018) AMZN
from Disney Book Group, 131 Pages
by Rick Riordan, Robert Venditti ; illustrated by Orpheus Collar, Antoine Dodé
This is the comic book version of the original book you may have read before. You could also be familiar with the 2 movies that were made in 2010 and 2013 but generally were poorly reviewed, ending the making of future movies.
This comic is all about a quest. If you like quest stories then you should enjoy this comic. From an overall story standpoint this is the 4th of 5 books that make up the Percy Jackson stories. For this reason, if you jump into this book you will not be familiar with the characters. I will say you can still enjoy the story, but you will not have the investment in the characters to really completely enjoy and understand what is happening. The bad guys won’t seem as bad, the good guys trials and tribulations will mean a little bit less.
Now about the quest. As you may have guessed, it takes place in a labyrinth hidden within the world. It you are not familiar with Percy Jackson, there are hidden worlds within our world that are used by the children of gods and half gods (like Camp Half Blood in Long Island , NY). One thing you will notice if you read this comic is that they interchangeably use the words maze and labyrinth (something I believe is incorrect). Anyway, our group led by Percy makes a journey, overcomes difficulties, meets interesting people along the way, engages in overcoming obstacles, and it all culminates in a final battle. I could have written the same sentence about any quest movie.
If you know the characters, you will enjoy this comic much more than just picking it up as a maze lover. I give it a 5.5/10.
While this was only book 4 of 5, if you are interested you can check out all 5 books:
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (5 books)
Other blog posts you might like:
The 12 Best Maze and Labyrinth Movies Of All Time