3 out of 5

It starts out with some truly wonderful energy, but this four issue lead-in to the upcoming movie quickly falls into the same trap in which most kid-geared books, to me, get snared: I have trouble caring.  I realize ongoing plotlines aren’t a necessity, but it’s the divide between quality cartoons and the run-of-the-mill – do you repeat the successful gags or do you try to keep evolving?  And this is nothing to do with “growing with your reader,” – this mini, released over four months certainly wouldn’t cover any grand life-changes in a reader’s life – it just means that you have your Adventure Times, which, on the whole, continually surprise, and then you have your Adventure Time comic books, which are fueled by creativity but rely on a predictable patter month-to-month.  Slightly off example, as the Ryan North community accounting for part of AT’s comic sales are a different audience, but similar principle.  And so Mr. Peabody & Sherman has a lot of fun winks and quirks right off the bat, with enthusiastically rubbery art from Jorge Monlongo and a really wonderfully robust range of colors by Jeremy Colwell (Tom B. Long’s letters only highlighted Fisch’s lack of new ideas by ish 2, so its hard to judge… sorry Tom…), but then the rest of the series seems to tell the same story as book one, just not as well.  The art and colors stay consistent (although Monlongo’s layouts start to feel a little clumsy in issues 2 and 3, but again, this might stem from the writing stretching for sequences instead of the organic flow of book 1), but the comfortable ‘educational’ dialogue that felt like a perfect blend of yuks and factoids slips into… I dunno, cookie cutter.

But note the 3 out of 5.  Because to be fair, the rest of the series is what I expected – Peabody and Sherman time traveling, righting wrongs while dropping light historical lessons, and lots of dumb puns.  Issue 1 was the surprise for its extra jolt of randomness that made the plotting and dialogue feel a tad more unique and quick-witted.

Great covers, both the regulars and subscription.  I do think this is a fine series for new exposure to the duo, or for those with memories of the puns of yore.