It’s time yet again to visit our favorite ghost dog in book 3 of the comic series called “Zero’s Journey”. Based on the characters and worlds from the hit Tim Burton film, The Nightmare Before Christmas.
In Halloween Town, Jack Skellington has just about had it to wait on Lock Shock and Barrel to bring home Zero and decides to take matters into his own hands by heading to Christmas town and finding Zero himself with the help of a few Halloween town residents. Meanwhile, Zero catches up with Lock Shock and Barrel as they find themselves in Santa’s workshop with elves building toys to put in Santa’s sleigh. The mischievous Halloween town trio, unfortunately, gets accidentally hypnotized by the head elf into thinking they’re actual elves leaving Zero to get the help of Santa Claus to help Lock Shock and Barrel snap out of their hypnosis. However, Once Santa figures out about Lock Shock and Barrel’s misdeeds around Christmas Town, things get complicated.
There isn’t that much I can say about this comic without repeating some of the same praises that I had for the other two previous adventures. Bottom line, it defanatally looks visually pleasing as per usual, and the way they keep expanding the world of The Nightmare Before Christmas is quite fascinating. There’s a lot of twists and turns in the story that makes it enjoyable to flip through the pages. My only complaint is that compared to the previous adventures it kinda felt like a step backward in the storytelling department. It still is an entertaining read, but not quite to the level of being more than just a regular old adventure.
While it’s not quite as good as it’s predecessors, Zero’s Journey Book 3 is still an entertaining enough story that keeps the narrative moving forward even if it does sacrifice what made the other stories unique. There is only one more adventure to go after this one, so let’s hope that maybe it can reignite some of the enchantment that was lost.
(Final Grade: B+)