Comic Book Day Reviews - The Mice Templar 01 with Preview

It seemed only fair to review The Mice Templar, after reviewing Mouse Guard last week. Let me start by saying that this is not an attempt to cash in on Mouse Guard's success, this is just one of those weird moments when two similar ideas hit the market at the same time and no one knows why. If you're unfamiliar with what I'm talking about check out Reaper vs Chuck in the archives.

Glass and Oeming craft a dangerous and mysterious world that has a Secret of NIMH feel to it, but with a lot more blood. Since this is Oeming's brain child, I have to wonder if they'll ever truly be enough blood and loss of limbs in a book for him. Either way I don't really care so long as he continues taking his unique style of art to the next level. If you are familiar with Oeming's style then you might be able to just look at the book and say, "Yeah that's him." but others still may have a hard time with it. It's definitely a step up in his artistic journey and really shows that he's not a one trick pony but that he's got some artist chops on himself.

The story opens with a brief history of the Templar's as told by Leito, a young mouse apprenticing with an exiled Templar. The Templar's are like the Musketeer's and have fallen from grace, having caused a war within it's own ranks and nearly destroying the Mice community. But when trouble strikes the exiled Templar (Now a Blacksmith) is there to the rescue. A spider that's been stalking the village makes an attack and the Blacksmith jumps into action flipping the spider onto it's back and chopping off it's legs. Whereas Mouse Guard shy's away from showing any actually blood or loss of limbs, Mice Templar embraces it head on.

The story however does not follow the Blacksmith, it is not about the Templar of old but the Templar that are to come. Karic is like any youth, easily excited, full of energy, and totally in love with the stories about the Templar and pretends every night that he is a great Templar. This is his story and how his dreams are going to come true, but he'll soon find out that they might come out a terrible cost. After all isn't that how the real world works? You might have noticed that I said night before, that's because the world the Mice live is from dusk to dawn. When I read that I thought it was brilliantly simple. It's enjoyable to watch Karic's Mother tuck him in as the sun rises. Since there's an Owl on the cover and an Owl at the end of the issue, I guess that Owl's will some how come to play within the story. As always I've included some preview pages, and since this book is a double sized issue and goes for 4 bucks, I don't think 6 pages will harm your reading experience. Enjoy and more comic reviews this week!