The Midas Flesh #1

By Ryan North, Shelli Paroline & Branden Lamb

From the Adventure Time creative team, we get this brand new series on BOOM! Studios brand new imprint BOOM! Box—an imprint created to give writers and artists that BOOM! admires “the freedom and means to pursue something odd, new or exciting to them. The carefully curated, artfully decorated mix tapes o comic book-ery”. Hard to argue with an imprint like that, right?

Writer Ryan North seems to have a lot of ground he wants to cover in this first (of eight) issue. We have space travel, what appears to be a talking, intelligent Velociraptor, we apparently have King Midas and a planet made of solid gold. Really, it’s an interesting introduction to what appears to be an even more interesting take on the myth of King Midas’ touch that turns things to gold. Even though North packed in a ton of information in issue one, there’s still a lot of things that need to be covered. Where the heck did this talking space-dinosaur come from? Why are these kids flying a space ship? What else turned to gold after Midas touched it? Many, many question left unanswered. But that’s what the second issue, and subsequent issues after that, is for.

Shelli Paroline and Branden Lamb really do work extremely well as a team. It’s not clear who does what, or if it’s just a true collaboration, but it really doesn’t matter. Their cartoon-y look works with the story and tone that Ryan North is presenting here. Every panel is perfectly executed and every single character is identical throughout the book—something that doesn’t happen as often as a comic reader would like. Much like they do with their work on Adventure Time, these two artists shine on every page and every panel. Impressive first issue from Paroline and Lamb.

Overall, The Midas Flesh is a good read. It might not be for everybody, but it’s fun and interesting and it’s different—something that the comic industry always needs—and it’s something that’s definitely worth a look. If this is what BOOM! Box is going to be releasing, we’re in for some awesome stuff from this new imprint.