Dragon Dome

It seems like every time I turn around there's a new Labyrinth comic or book or artbook being released. I just got the rereleased 1986 comicbook adaptation last year! But I went into the city recently, and in a major bookstore walked past the comics section on the way to another section, and my eye got caught by a hardback with an instantly recognisable cover.



I stopped in my tracks and had a vicious battle with my dodgy mobile internet to check if this is an actual new thing or a different print of the Marvel comicbook I already had.

It's a new thing! With new artwork! And based on the novelisation instead of the movie itself, so there are differences! I haven't read the full thing yet, but I did browse the pages to check out the artwork, which is stylised and although I do love how Sarah and the creatures of the Labyrinth look, it is hard to capture that magical feeling that is Jareth, king of the goblins.

( Photos of some panels. )

I am 76 episodes into 189 and stuff is happening! Well, some stuff, and it is taking a while, and they are still repeating themselves as a soap is wont to do, but there's stuff!

A big chunk of this time was devoted to: Love Triangle Island, i.e. Aryana gets stranded on an island, and the boys stumble upon her when trying to find her, and the trio just... rough camp there, I guess.

Which is possibly the most stupidly indulgent way to highlight the love triangle and have both boys compete in being stupid over Aryana (one boy stupider than the other, admittedly) and funnily enough my only problem with it is that Aryana doesn't really react to it in an interesting way beyond telling both boys to quit it when they start beating each other up. I mean, this girl is happily spending time with both of them, and being affectionate with both of them, and although she's not encouraging the triangle per se and genuinely cares for both, she's not putting any hard boundaries for the two boys when that's something she's done before, and quite firmly.

Anyway this is them:
( This is not intended to be a YA OT3 but... )

A great status quo changer is that this mini-arc ends with Neptuna finally finding Aryana, Aryana escaping from her, and then Aryana being found by Queen Reyna and receiving the magical pearl, which magically gives Aryana legs! Aryana may still be a mermaid, but she can hide as a human now, as it were.

While Aryana was off being stranded on an island, I did like that they took the opportunity to rattle the Victor-Stella-Megan-Elnora status quo. Victor now firmly believes that Aryana is not his, while Elnora secretly still does, Stella has maybe been having an affair behind Victor's back, and Megan had a superb mini arc where she realized that Aryana has been living rent-free in her head and she can't pin her happiness on caring what other people think of her, which is surprisingly nice even if it is tinted with flaws inherent to that family.