Adventure Time #11 starts with Marceline and Ice King watching the rest of the video tape Marceline brought two issues ago, to try to jog Ice King’s memory. We then continue to follow Finn, Jake, and Ravine traveling to the Flame Kingdom to try and stop Robot Finn, who stole the crown that belonged to Flame Princess’s mom. Finn is worried that the evil robot version of himself ruined this romantic prospects with Flame Princess. Despite being able to salvage things with Flame Princess, he is still being hunted by the flame guards and ends up using an iconic move, the Jake Suit, to help him escape. After escaping, the team ends up on a beach where Finn and Jake have a heartfelt conversation about Finn being distracted and struggling with his new arm. Finn has a moment where he grieves the loss of his arm before jumping back into action to help Computer Princess and catching Robot Finn.
The Marceline and Ice King subplot happens throughout the main story. Marceline tries to remove Ice King’s crown in an attempt to turn him back into Simon. Ice King is hesitant to give up his crown, which leads to Marceline taking it and running away until she’s knocked out by a goose.
If there’s one moment from this issue that really shines, it’s when Finn finally acknowledges the struggles of his new arm and takes a moment to grieve the loss of his old one. Ever since Finn got his new arm from Computer Princess, all we’ve seen is all the cool things that it can do compared to the arm that he lost. Although it’s taken four issues, it’s nice to see Finn acknowledge this change.
This grieving plotline is a very surface-level look into grieving the loss of a limb and accepting a prosthetic, and I would like to see this develop more throughout the series. This is different from the grieving plotline that happened on the Adventure Time TV Show, since Finn loses his arm in a different way and didn’t have a prosthetic at the time. I think this portrayal of grieving and frustration with a new prosthetic is done in a way where it can resonate with both kids and adults that have lost a limb.
Apart from Finn’s issues with his prosthetic, he’s still struggling with Robot Finn stealing things and ruining his reputation. Given that Finn is 13, it makes sense that the thing he’s most worried about is his thing with Flame Princess being ruined, compared to the previous issues where he’s mostly concerned about finding Robot Finn. I think Nick Winn captured the feeling of being a teenager with a crush perfectly. Despite having more pressing matters, Finn prioritizes Flame Princess, something that a majority of teenagers would do in a similar situation.
The subplot between Marceline and Ice King continues to develop and gets a decent amount of page time. It’s clear that Marceline will do anything she can to get Simon back. I’m excited to see how this storyline develops further and the similarities that it’ll have to other Marceline and Ice King plotlines from the show.
The art by Agustin Morales is simple and looks like it’s geared more towards a younger audience. The characters are still recognizable, but it doesn’t look like Adventure Time. The art style is simple and looks flat compared to previous issues where it looked very similar to the art style of the TV show. Some panels have a white background, which makes for a lot of unused and empty space next to panels that have a rich background.
The Lemonhope short story continues with Lemonhope trying to escape the creature who’s following him around trying to sing with him.
Adventure Time #11 deals with grief and missing what used to be in a realistic yet heartbreaking way.
