The land of Ooo is dealing with demon bugs and Marceline is the only one who can send them back to the Nightosphere but that means having to confront her past with her dad.
Nick Winn does an amazing job at bringing back storylines from the TV show in a way that feels fresh and new without being too repetitive. We get to see Marceline interact with her Father for the first time in the comics since she needs to get the blood bugs out of Ooo. We also get to see Ice King become Simon again with the help of Betty, something that Marceline has been trying to do for a couple of issues.
Despite Finn and Jake being the main characters of this series, Marceline seems to be in the forefront a bit more often, not that I’m complaining. With Marceline and Ice King being two of the oldest characters in Ooo, it makes sense that a lot of storylines would revolve around them especially when it comes to storylines about the past.
Marceline asks her dad to help her get the demon bugs out of Ooo, but since her dad refused to help her, Marceline has to come to terms with her title as the Vampire Queen and that she’s the only one who can get the demon bugs out of Ooo. I hope we get to see in future issues why Marceline was so reluctant to use her title has the Vampire Queen and if that has to do with her relationship with her dad. We also got to breifly meet Dion, a young vampire in the Nightosphere who was in Marceline’s old house and was eating what used to be her favorite food.
While this is happening, Betty is trying to help Ice King get back to being Simon with the help of magic she learned from Magic Man. It’s clear that everyone who spent time with Simon before he became Ice King misses Simon and would do anything to get Simon back. Betty does use her magic to get Simon back, although he still has some of the characteristics of being Ice King like his blue skin, and is still struggling without his crown. I think that this storyline surrounding Ice King is quickly becoming my favorite and it’s slowly starting to span across different arcs which I hope doesn’t end any time soon. I like that Ice King isn’t portrayed as a villian in this issue or in this series in general, there’s an understanding between the main characters that Ice King is important to Marceline and that’s why she’ll go out of her way to help him.
To help the Candy Kingdom deal with the demon bugs, Computer Princess is sending BMO with a solution that will hurt the demon bugs. The panels where Computer Princess is throwing BMO is probably one of my favorite moments in this issue. BMO unfortunately comes across Magic Man while trying to fight the demon bugs.
Marceline performs for the demon bugs since they’ll only listen to her. She dedicates this song to Princess Bubblegum which is a sweet especially considering it’s pride month and the two of them just had a pride month special issue. As she’s playing her guitar, ribbons of what I’m assuming are lyrics or sheet music in the Nightosphere start coming out of her guitar which is a very cool and unique way of portraying music. The art style of this issue is more similar to the show than issues from the previous arc with minor differences that don’t take away from the story. I’m a huge fan of how Winn drew Finn’s hair since we rarely get to see his hair, not to mention how cute it was that Jake became Finn’s scrunchie so his hair is up and out of the way.
Adventure Time #14 brings up multiple parts of Marceline’s past. Nick Winn writes and draws a beautiful issue which digs into the complicated dynamics of Marceline’s relationships.
