Graphic Novel Review – The Road to Oz (Marvel’s Oz Comics, Book 5) by Eric Shanower, Skottie Young , L. Frank Baum (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: All Ages
Genre: Graphic Novel/Fantasy
Length: 136 pages
Publisher: Marvel
Release Date: April 30, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0785164043
Stand Alone or Series: 5th book in Marvel’s Oz Comics
Source: Gift
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is the fifth book in Marvel’s reboot of the Oz series. There are six books total in this series. There isn’t much plot here, just lots of crazy characters. It wasn’t the best of the Oz books, but still fun to read.

Dorothy travels down the road to Oz with the Shaggy Man and meets Polychrome (a daughter of the rainbow) and Button Bright (a not so bright young boy) along the way. They go through a kingdom of foxes and a kingdom of donkeys and sail a sand ship across the deadly desert all in time to make it to Ozma’s birthday celebration.

There isn’t much plot in this book at all. This story is all about the crazy quirky characters Dorothy meets along the road to the Emerald City.

The illustration continues to be stunning. I loved both how the Shaggy Man and Polychrome are portrayed. I did enjoy that Toto was back in the story as well (but I missed Eureka). This story is basically a homecoming of all the wonderful characters we have meet in this series so far.

I have really enjoyed the forewords in these books by Shanower. He does an excellent job of explaining the original Oz story, the changes they made in the Marvel version, and even goes into the history of the Oz series a bit. Every graphic novel in this series has had this and it adds a lot to the story.

Overall this was a well done installment in this series, even if it is one of the weakest stories of the series. This is a graphic novel series that is great for all ages. I really have enjoyed it and look forward to reading the final book in this graphic novel series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge