ThunderCats #20 // Review
Jaga had been many thing before he became a distant image of a patriarc and leader. At one point there were those who might have seen him as an equal. At one point there would have been one who would know his as a friend. That complicated friendship is explored in ThunderCats #20. Writer Declan Shalvey and the art team of Joe Mulvey and David O’Sullivan look into the past of the ThunderCats. Color comes to the page courtesy of Arancia Studio. The dynamic between an arch-villain and a patriarchal hero has been explored.quite a bit in heroic fiction. It’s interesting to see it echo through the ThunderCats franchise.
Jaga and Mumm-Ra were playing a game of strategy. Some of that game played-out on the board. Some of it played--out beyond the board. Jaga had just been awarded the Sword of Omens by Claudius. Its power was intense, but there was a hell of a lot of responisiblity tied-up in that power. Perhaps Jaga sense something about Mumm-Ra at that moment...as he asked about the Sword of Omens and its power. He spoke of the feelings of pleasure that come with power. And he had asked to see that sword. Only at that stage would he come to find out that Mumm-Ra might be something other than a friend.
Shalvey exploring some interesting territory here. The old trope of the arch villain, and the patriarchal heroic figure has been explored pretty extensively in a whole bunch of different ways in the past. There isn't a whole lot that Shalvey is doing here that makes it seem too terribly interesting. However, the journey of the patriarch years after his realization is something that everybody is interesting as the journey of.Mumm-Ra years later as well.
The art team that's a good job of extricating the drama from the fantasy. The villain is very iconic. So it's quite a bit of work to pull him out of his statue as the big villain in the franchise. To make him look like a normal person who might have been casual friends with the heroes mentor. Quite an accomplishment there. It's also a very impressive accomplishment to see the Snarfs come across as looking regal and powerful in their own right. The character had always been an attempt at a cute bit of comic relief in the original cartoons. To actually give them sort of a haunting cat like appearance that feels like it's touching something other worldly. That's actually very cool. And to see these creatures, looking majestic in silhouette feels a remarkably striking.
The story continues to articulate in echoes that feel like they're very familiar without being too repetitious. It's very cool to see how it all comes together. It's very cool to see how it all develops. And it will be interesting to see where.Shalvey and company take the story as things progressed into future issues. It's nothing terribly new. But it is fun to spend a little bit of time with an old franchise from the childhood of Generation X.
