Mice Templar #5 (Image – Glass / Oeming)
The sacred Readers of the Wheat declare final judgment on Karic’s life and his validity to fulfill the Prophecy within the heart of the Great Ash Tree. While Templar rivals Pilot and Cassius each face the ancient vengeance of bats. And Rat Captain Tosk’s slave train arrives at the capital city of the mice at last, Dealrach Ard-Vale–the Shining City–where rats, mice & weasels live together in peace… all under the cold and baleful gaze of King Icarus and his court.
While at Wizard World Chicago, we got to talk to the creators of this book, and I guess the politest way to put is that one of the creators talked back to us. Bryan J.L. Glass (see the pic here) was very personable and excited about this project and gave us a production history on each of the issues and showed us some of things that during the course of layouts weren’t what the original vision was, whether it was shading, inking or lettering. Bryan had figured they had gotten most of the bugs out now as it relates to the visual components of the book. Michael Avon Oeming, while cordial, didn’t have that kind of times for his fans (or press), he was busy talking to his very rude friend Alex Meleev (read about that here).
While this has been an incredibly strong title, right now Mice Templar has two things working against it. First, the timing… when you have a plot-driven, very detailed epic story that is entrenched rich in mythology that is already coming out bimonthly, it simply can’t be late. The fans will lose interest. It’s hard to get excited for the next part that won’t be out for another eight weeks, and that’s if (big if) it’s on time. The second roadblock that is popping up with fans is the amount of detail in this story. Issue five had very little moving forward with the story and action, and much more fleshing out the backstory and giving a big reveal for what is to come. In all honestly, for the first time I felt as if this book was taking itself way too seriously and forgot it’s a comic and not an authentic ancient myth. If this was your first issue, you may have stopped reading halfway through. It came across very dry.
There are six issues in the first “book”, so my hope is that issue six brings some closure and a little bit more story movement.
Issue grade: C+
UPDATE: News from Comic Con is that Cartoon Network is developing Mice Templar for a new series along with Image’s Firebreather and The Invisibles
