What do you wish the Great Oz to do for you? To retell classic fairytale “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in modern times, Eisner Award-winning writer Eric Shanower and Marvel’s artist Skottie Young revisit the story in form of comics with appealing illustrations and respectable inheritance from the original.

Throughout the adventures to see the Great Oz, kill the wicked Witch of the East, and meet the Witch Ginda, the gorgeous and colourful drawings of this adaptation not only bring the story to life, but also render extra details to the story, such as close-up of the silver shoes to illustrate the clue which Dorothy looked was under her feet from the very first day; a sole illustration of the Tin Woodman, who wished for a heart to love and care about others, in floods of tears to express his living sympathy for a dead beetle. With inheriting all prominent elements, the figure’s characters and plot points in this version are developed with enriched details and presentations upon comics’ distinctive integration of images and texts: following two pure drawings about the Scarecrow, who looked for brains to live like human, leaning to a tree and soon learnt to cut down the tree to cross the gulf ahead, his intelligence was conspicuously demonstrated and further explicitly reiterated through a dialogue “That’s a first rate idea. One would almost suspect you had brains in your head instead of straw”; the courage of the Lion, which he found himself missing to be the King of Beasts, was also simply but fully displayed in a single scene which the Lion roared to fight off all Winkies and marked with a short and powerful narration “The Winkies were not a brave people” to sharp the contrast.

While adaptation of classic work, especially across medium, is always challenging, this comics adaptation, faithful to its source published a century ago, preserves the essence of original story and makes the best use of genre’s features to reveal a life-long journey for kids and adults nowadays to explore inner self in pursuit of personal growth, not dependent on any others in outside world. May this comics bring you brand-new experience of this timeless masterpiece and also shed light on the way to find your own Great Oz.