Tangled #1 Review
It’s the start of a brand new year along with the start of a brand new mini series from IDW and Disney Comics. Tangled #1, based on the hit Disney Channel television series , is now in stores and features the further adventures of everyone’s favourite blonde haired princess and her friends from the kingdom of Corona.
Guarding Against Adventure
Written by Scott Peterson Art by Diogo Saito and Rosa La Barbera
The first story starts with an old man getting robbed at knife point during the night by two thieves in the outskirts of Corona. The guards report back to the king saying the thieves have been rampant lately in the kingdom as the King orders a curfew at sunset that will keep anyone from leaving Corona.
Rapunzel, having recently earned her freedom back, is immediately outraged by this decision saying the thieves should be imprisoned instead of the thieves as she sneaks off in the middle of the night along with Cassandra to try and locate these thieves.
At the same time, Eugene and the Captain of the Guards have begun their own expedition as he spots the two ladies as he tries his best to distract the Captain to avoid them being punished by the King. Eugene pushes him by accident to try to get some steps ahead to talk with Rapunzel to convince her to go back to the castle.
Eugene eventually spots a little girl underneath the castle bridges not knowing she is secretly one of the two thieves that has been terrorizing the town. The bigger one knocks out the Captain as the girl takes Eugene captive. How will he get out of this one, who knows ?
Occupation Princess
Written by Scott Peterson Art by Roberto Di Salvo and Rosa La Barbera
This smaller story begins with Rapunzel getting her hair tied by the Four Sisters : Ella, Claire, Chloe and Leah Healy. They talk about what they would like to do in the future as an occupation. The girls ask Rapunzel what she wants to be as she ponders what she could be beyond a princess. She heads off to some local businesses.
She starts off at the bakery where the equipment gets the better of her including a flour bath for Pascal. She later gives tailoring a try but her hair makes a mess of everything, finally she tries being a blacksmith along with her friend Xavier. After some stints as a waitress at the Snuggly Duckling and painting in town, she starts to give up hope. Will our poor princess find her dream occupation ?
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Tangled starts off better than IDW’s previous attempt at adapting the television series as longer stories suit the characters more than a series of multiple short stories that is more suitable for Disney Princess from Joe Books or Frozen from overseas magazines. Having a balance of one serious story and one comedic story per issue seems to hit the right mark for our favourite princess.
The art is very nice, adapting the look of the television series very well and fixing my problems with Eugene’s nose colour in the earlier graphic novel. One very neat aspect of the art of the comic is the use of its panels, they take on the shape of words or of the characters themselves to give it that artistic spark we expect from Tangled and Rapunzel herself.
But I do have one small complaint, the guards in the second story are just copies of a character called Stan in the television series, it would have been better if Pete was with Stan to make it less obvious it’s the same drawing copy and pasted.
Tangled #1 is a very great start to IDW’s newest Disney focused mini series, it hits all the right marks to make it an appropriate companion to the animated film or television series. Featuring bright colours and action, the title is perfect for Disney and comic book fans of all ages. The further adventures of Rapunzel, Eugene, Cassandra and Maximus is highly recommended and worth the admission price.
RATING : 8 OUT OF 10