ThunderCats, Vol. 1: Omens
by
Declan Shalvey (Writer), Drew Moss (Artist), Stephen Mooney (Writer / Artist), Martina Pignedali (Colorist), Chiara Di Francia (Colorist), Jeff Eckleberry (Letterer), Maura Gulma (Colorist)
Rating: 3 of 5 𝛺‘s
Another well loved and nostalgic franchise from the 1980’s gets a comics reboot here and this time it is the Thundercats – a cartoon that was not the greatest in terms of writing quality, but was a fun little concept that as a child, was quite enjoyable. I admit that while they’re all kiddish and goofy, there is some fun to be had rewatching some in my experience (like TMNT, G.I.Joe, He-Man, etc) and others are perhaps not as engaging anymore; maybe that is a function of which one was more attached to as a kid.
Personally I always enjoyed the comics over the years that reimagined the franchise and this one also is definitely an improvement on the source material in many ways.
The basic premise is the same: The planet Thundera is pretty much destroyed and the enemies of the Thunderan people, the Mutants of Plun-darr, are wiping them out. One ship carrying the last remaining group is fleeing to find sanctuary and they end up on a planet called Third Earth (I always found that a funny choice!) – there they crash land and the venerated leader/elder Jaga is dead and the survivors, Panthro, Cheetarah, Tigra, Wily-Kit, Wily-Kat and there young prince Lion-O, must salvage the wreckage and try and stay alive and figure out their future. The only difference from the previous incarnations is that in this version, the choice of planet was not just because it was the only available choice by luck, Jaga steered them here by his own specific choice and we don’t know why and the Thundercats themselves do not know he did that or have never before heard of this planet.
Here the alterations and all come into play – there is the familiar trope that Lion-Os’ stasis pod was malfunctioning so while he is still technically a child, he is now physically a fully grown man, but even that angle is played up and focussed on a lot more to showcase his still having a childs way of thinking and reacting and as the supposed new royal/leader, the angst and pressure that comes with it all. This puts him more overtly at odds with Panthro who wants him to be more mature and learn and it is a much more antagonistic vibe than any version so far. The rest of the characters are limited in their characterisation thus far so maybe that will be delved into in future installments – the only major change seems to be that Snarf, the 4-legged companion to Lion-O is not part of the original group and is introduced by a funky new mystically-sci-fi mechanic partway through the story. In addition, there is the introduction of a new Thunderan female as the story progresses and she is very much in the questionable morality kind of vibe from the beginning. The Mutants as the familiar group no longer exist and we have way more build with the various types (lizard, canine, vulture, etc) than in any version I’ve seen til date and that is actually one of the most interesting new developments + the introduction of Mumm-Ra who has always been the primary protagonist, is quiet slow-played and there wasn’t enough to say whether he is really altered much and there’s not much to say about him at all in this volume.
The artwork is mostly quite good – there is a bright and colourful feel to all the pages that is reminiscent of the 80’s era of cartoons and while the layouts and facial art is occassionally not-great, the overall artwork works quite nicely and some of the more dramatic bits pop-off the page quite well. There is a single chapter where Stephen Mooney takes over the artwork and I have to admit, I did not like it at all – the drastic change in style and colours and more was deeply jarring and I have to admit, I do not like this kind of artwork that feels like an artist trying to stylistically paint each panel but none of it has the rhythm and flow of what good panel-to-panel artwork is supposed to have in comics.
Declan Shalvey was an artist who I was extremely fond of for years (still am) and he worked on numerous iconic comics, but in recent years he has steadily been working as a writer on many titles and for the most part been decent in the quality of his output. This reboot is also handled reasonably well with decent choices made to balance out what to retain and what to alter and the overall progression of the narrative is paced well enough to not bore the reader while still giving at least some characters a good focus and to let the story breathe a bit – the choice to give more space to a whole new dynamic for the Mutants and to add in a nice juicy little mystery element with the backstory of Third Earth are all handled nicely and were some of the things that most made me want to read some more.
For fans of the franchise, I think this will be a nicely balanced reboot and it is most definitely a solid start to the series. How it shapes up is anyones guess but it is a good start.
One Happy Monk 
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