Art by: Bernard Chang
Colors by: Marcelo Maiolo
Letters by: Janice Chiang
Cover art by: Bernard Chang
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: December 6, 2022
Monkey Prince #9 takes Marcus's family travels to Metropolis where his Henchparents get a gig working for Lex Luthor. Unfortunately, the gig takes a bad turn when King Fire Bull arrives to steal a special Lexcorp project.
Is It Good?
Monkey Prince #9 is one of the better issues in the run. Gene Luen Yang's light, quippy humor makes the main character significantly more amusing in this issue, and the Big Bad, finally unveiled at the end of the last issue, significantly raises the stakes as a tie-in to the currently-running Batman vs. Robin series, heading into next year's Lazarus Planet event.
All the pieces fit together for a story with considerably greater scale and scope than the episodic issues at the beginning of Yang's run.
However, the issue has its challenges. New developments come out of nowhere with little setup or explanation. For example, Supergirl shows up just because. Lexcorp is breeding Bizarro clones just because. And Marcus's grandfather has access to the Ultra Humanite's body or is the Ultra Humanite or something like that. So many random developments are thrown at you rapidly, and the plot comes off as messy and chaotic; a criticism we've had of Yang's run since the beginning.
That said, King Fire Bull, the big villain curtly introduced in the last issue, appears to be a formidable threat and dangerous enough to spill over into multiple titles. It remains to be seen with only three issues left in this series if Yang can do something memorable with King, but the villain is intriguing enough to keep going with this series.
Bernard Chang and Marcelo Maiolo turn in an excellent set of visuals in this issue, with an odd exception. For some strange reason, the pencils and inks for King Fire Bull and his demonic cohorts are drawn in a crude, sketchy style that doesn't match their surroundings or the other characters. It appears to be a conscious choice of the art team, but the result is a specific set of characters that look like they've arrived from a different comic. The rest of the art looks great.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Bits and Pieces:
Monkey Prince #9 brings the titular character and his family to Metropolis for the last leg of the limited run to kick off an arc that digs deeper into Marcus's family tree and makes the Big Bad a formal presence in the story. While King Fire Bull is an intriguing character, and the art looks (mostly) great, the story is overwhelmed with chaotic happenings and random character appearances for a somewhat enjoyable but sloppy read.
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