Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York has spent months as one of the most consistently enjoyable comics in months, with each issue adding to the craziness that makes the series so lovable. Issue #5 was the best of the series and by the time it ended, it seemed strange that there was only one more issue before this crossover concluded. It had a lot of elements in the air and had again upturned it’s own status quo by having Jack Burton join forces with Lo Pan and the dragon-universe version of Snake Plissken (as this comic itself hilariously states early on, “Just go with it.”), so it did raise some concerns about how the series would be able to wrap up and if it would be able to satisfy the momentum it built. 

It does and doesn’t. It’s still fun, ridiculous, and full of unexpected turns, comedy, and heart, but it’s hard not to feel mildly robbed of a sense of resolution. The payoff of dragon-Snake (Dragon Plissken?) happens much quicker than expected, though it is the subject of two of the best pieces of art of the issue. Daniel Bayliss’ art and Triona Farrell’s coloring are as delightful as they have been the past five issues, with Bayliss’ cover art being representative of the way that comics can be fun.

Unfortunately, a lot of things wind up unresolved. Perhaps I wound up expecting too much out of a narrative that you should “just go with”, but it feels a little like a cop-out when we don’t get a resolution to this world and its potentially interesting blend of science fiction and mystical elements, or when the female Snake gets vaporized on the back of Dragon Plissken after having five issues hinting at something resembling an arc for the character, or at the very least potential. It feels like something really magical is going to happen by the time that the comic ends, but rather than have something ambiguous and leaving us with an idea that Snake and Jack Burton will adventure through their own multiverse, the comic takes a turn for one last punchline. Admittedly, the tone of the series feels as though a joke is the way it always should have ended, and all good jokes are built on the premise of subverting an expectation, but the expectation that it subverted was just too charming to let go of. 

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #6
3.5/5

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York has spent months as one of the most consistently enjoyable comics in months, with each issue adding to the craziness that makes the series so lovable. Issue #5 was the best of the series and by the time it ended, it seemed strange that there was only one more issue before this crossover concluded. It had a lot of elements in the air and had again upturned it’s own status quo by having Jack Burton join forces with Lo Pan and the dragon-universe version of Snake Plissken (as this comic itself hilariously states early on, “Just go with it.”), so it did raise some concerns about how the series would be able to wrap up and if it would be able to satisfy the momentum it built. 

It does and doesn’t. It’s still fun, ridiculous, and full of unexpected turns, comedy, and heart, but it’s hard not to feel mildly robbed of a sense of resolution. The payoff of dragon-Snake (Dragon Plissken?) happens much quicker than expected, though it is the subject of two of the best pieces of art of the issue. Daniel Bayliss’ art and Triona Farrell’s coloring are as delightful as they have been the past five issues, with Bayliss’ cover art being representative of the way that comics can be fun.

Unfortunately, a lot of things wind up unresolved. Perhaps I wound up expecting too much out of a narrative that you should “just go with”, but it feels a little like a cop-out when we don’t get a resolution to this world and its potentially interesting blend of science fiction and mystical elements, or when the female Snake gets vaporized on the back of Dragon Plissken after having five issues hinting at something resembling an arc for the character, or at the very least potential. It feels like something really magical is going to happen by the time that the comic ends, but rather than have something ambiguous and leaving us with an idea that Snake and Jack Burton will adventure through their own multiverse, the comic takes a turn for one last punchline. Admittedly, the tone of the series feels as though a joke is the way it always should have ended, and all good jokes are built on the premise of subverting an expectation, but the expectation that it subverted was just too charming to let go of. 

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #6
3.5/5

Just as Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York was one of the best books at the end of 2016, it is consistently one of the best of early 2017. I mentioned in one of my early reviews that writer Grek Pak could have phoned this in and many fans would still be enthralled and that from the start it has been clear that this has instead been a well-structured, well-written original story. Likewise, he could have focused the story narrowly on Snake and Jack Burton almost exclusively. They are already well-defined characters thanks to their source material, and Pak clearly has both of their voices down to a science, but again he chooses to go one step further. Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #5 had me realizing that I actually cared about all of the side characters from this crossover, whether it’s Blind Apple Mary, the omnicidal female Snake Plissken, Bobby Liu, or source material character Bob Hauk. They all have some sort of drive, but more importantly sound so dissimilar from one another that the mix of personalities is and has been one of the strongest assets of the series.

While we’re on the subject of strongest assets of the series, the art continues to be remarkably praiseworthy. Daniel Bayliss’ art imbues a sense of fun in one would be an otherwise bleak post-apocalyptic world; a sense of fun which contributes to that being the first word I jump to whenever trying to describe this event to anybody. The art in the series is good enough to warrant jumping into another series with his name attached to it, and I think him and Triona Farrell are my ideal pairing for artist/colorer. Good coloring is invisible. Great coloring stands out in the way that Farrell’s does. It’s a feast for the eyes. The two are in sync, and as the story reaches its final pages and the art rivals Chernabog-esque epicness and scale, it’s clear just how good everything going into this event is. 

The story gives us a payoff to a lot of the Blind Apple Mary stuff that may have seemed arbitrary earlier in the series. The guitar of hers that Hauk stole is a magical artifact. In a subversion of the blues-singer-sells-soul-to-write-sick-licks-at-the-crossroads trope, it turns out Mary was just legitimately the most talented guitarist in the world, but that guitar had a magic quality, one which is capable of death. This gets taken to ludicrous weaponized hair metal lengths at the end of the issue in a series of full-page splashes that honestly would have been a solid ending moment as is. Again Pak took things further than expected and we see David Lo Pan summon an eldritch abomination of a Snake Plissken as he plans to fight against the government forces with Snake Prime and Jack Burton. 

By comparison, I’m usually ready to tap out on major comic publishers’ events by the third or fourth issues. After finishing issue five out six, I find myself angry that things have to wrap up. I’m having way too much fun. 

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #5
5/5

The first two pages of Grek Pak’s Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #4 perfectly illustrate both why this comic series is a must read for anybody who even casually likes the source material and why Pak is the perfect writer for the job. In those pages, Pak provides rationale for why the Snake Plisskens of the multiverse would join David Lo Pan. This isn’t necessary. Snake as a character is inherently an anti-hero, more so than some of the grittiest hero protagonists. The fact that we are treated with two entire well-drawn pages, complete with eye-patch clad Wolf Plisskens (Snake Wolfskin?) helps reinforce that the creative team behind the latest issue of the BOOM! Studios crossover series are interested in telling a great story rather than cashing in on nostalgia.

You have no idea how lucky that makes us as readers.

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #4 picks up with the split up Snake Plissken and Jack Burton, with Burton in disguise as Plissken among David Lo Pan’s forces. As Snake makes his way towards Jack, Jack finds himself forced to prove his Snake-ness among his alternate selves. It’s a genuinely hilarious scene where he makes up stories about being a murder trucker. When Snake-Prime (just deal with my identifiers, okay?) arrives, he begins to reveal that Jack Burton is actually among them in disguise. He holds a gun to Snake-Turtleneck, speculating that he might be Jack Burton, which he obviously knows is untrue, but still, it’s interesting to see how Pak keeps making Snake betraying Jack seem plausible only to swerve it. Before pulling the trigger (RIP, Snake-Turtleneck, we hardly knew ye), he reminds us about how absurdly lucky, and potentially unkillable Jack Burton is. Luckily, the other Snakes don’t question the tautology of his argument, and are spurred on by Snake to begin fighting one another. It’s an inevitable result of getting that many Snakes in one place.

What follows is an exceptionally deep conversation between Snake and Jack. While driving, Jack comments on how evil the Snakes chasing them are. Snake doesn’t think it’s as black and white as that. “They’re just Plisskens,” he says, “Just like me. And you.” Jack starts wondering out loud about his destiny, and if that darkness inherent in all of those Snakes is also inherent in him. Is he going to inevitably become that?

“Nah,” he says, in his charming Jack Burton way. And we believe it. There seems to be something about Jack that is fundamentally different than the Snake Plisskens, and it seems deeper than just Jack’s lifetime of experiences. But what of Snake-Prime? He is actively trying to help Jack. What will likely happen is what has been slowly building throughout the background of the series. The focus isn’t on how Jack is a version of Snake, but rather on how Snake is a version of Jack. Something makes Snake like Jack, and we will likely see that come full circle in the next two issues. If you haven’t started reading this event yet, you really need to get on it. It’s worth getting the back issues and diving through them. Pak’s writing is steller, Daniel Bayliss’ art is fantastic, and Triona Farrell continues to deliver my favorite coloring in a comic book.

Big Trouble in Little China / Escape From New York #4 – Rating: 4.5/5