A group of varying criminals lured into a battle royal on an island with a maze they must escape from within a time limit.
The art is colourful and attention grabbing, lots of action and graphic fight/kill scenes.
The comic reminded me of an adventure, survival type videogame.
I would recommend this for a face paced amusing read to pass a little time.

Writer Zac Thompson made a defining impression on me with his Vault Comics series No One’s Rose. Nature’s Labyrinth, published by Mad Cave and recently collected in trade, explores similar themes about the runaway cruelties that result from the intersection of capitalism and government. Aided by the lively manga-inspired cartooning of artist Bayleigh Underwood, Nature’s Labyrinth is a dystopian, battle royale satire with a biting and dark sense of humor. The book draws upon visuals borrowed from reality television, 80s action flicks, and tropes of the young adult dystopian genre, effectively mixing The Hunger Games with The Running Man and Survivor if the stakes were truly life or death.

On a private island far from civilization a man known only as Ahab has hatched a scheme to entertain the wealthy and punish the supposed wicked. Ahab has gathered eight of the world’s most infamous criminals to partake in a battle royale-style game of survival. If they can survive and make it to the center of this island labyrinth, they earn their freedom. But survival will take more than knowing how to live off the land. Contestants will have to embrace their darkest parts of themselves to make it out alive. Unbeknownst to Ahab or the other contestants, there is one player with their own plot to take Ahab and his evil game down–if they can outwit their deadly opponents.

With that dark set up, you’d expect the series to be saddled with a perpetually dark color script of murky blues and purples like a poorly lit HBO series. Instead, colorist Warnia Sahadewa embraces a lush, bright, and vibrant palette, contrasting the brutal violence of Thompson’s script and Underwood’s line work. It lulls the reader into a misleading sense of calm as the characters hike through the lush and verdant landscape. The discordant visuals make the brutality of the story even more jarring and the cruelty of the perpetrators of the game even more pronounced. Letterer Rus Wooton takes cues from Underwood’s thin and scratchy linework, his word balloons and sound effects blending in perfectly with the art. The panel layouts and balloon placement work together seamlessly to move across the page. It is an uncluttered and meticulous production.

Thompson’s story is solid but Underwood’s art, especially elevated by Sahadewa’s colors, is the star of the show here. There is an effortless humanity to the characters, the way they hold themselves and the subtle details of the design work. Each character’s visuals are distinct and memorable, with a variety of body and facial shapes. There is more than a little manga influence to the approach of the character expressions and features, as well as the meticulous detail of the island and its endless maze structure. The way she manages to balance the cartoony characters with the highly detailed landscapes is impressive. She smartly relies on big, richly rendered establishing shots that allow readers to drink in the sprawling scenery. From there, she narrows back in on characters, omitting the detail and hinting at backgrounds in a way that foregrounds the individuals and their facial expressions. The beautiful covers, presented in the trade as chapter breaks, by Filya Bratukhin and Jason Wordie are just as critical to the world-building. This scene setting is done with such intention that pages made up of multiple panels consisting only of Sahadewa’s color brushstrokes never look empty. The mind builds out the island behind them from the preceding lush imagery.

The book is at its best when it narrows its focus on the main character Jane and their one or two closest allies in the game. Jane is an undercover CIA operative out to uncover Ahab’s plans and put a stop to the deadly game. Thompson writes Jane as uber-competent and unflappable. So much so that at times it veers into heroic parody. But as the contest drags on, Jane’s body count grows–through actions both direct and indirect. There’s sharp commentary there about militarism and espionage and how governments shape individuals into deadly weapons that can be as cold and detached from human emotion as a serial killer. Jane is not in the noble pursuit of justice, but a reluctant pawn in an even larger game of death. But with limited details of Jane’s past, it’s hard to empathize or root for them without knowing what brought them to this morally dubious way of life.

As the later chapters unfold the book gets bogged down by new players and new rules that seem to exist only to add to the ultra-violence. The over-the-top nature of the action is darkly funny but what starts as a shocking non sequitur feels mundane by the end. A final act shift to focus on Ahab’s family dynamics only serves to confuse the book’s themes of capitalist exploitation.

Were the book just a bit tighter with fewer detours that take us away from the initial eight-player contest and instead gave us more insight into our protagonist’s inner life, this would be an easy recommendation. Even with its flaws, it is an exciting and entertaining action story seething with a righteous anger that spills out in gruesomely beautiful fashion. It’s hard not to admire the ambition of an imperfect work, especially with an artistic team that delivers at such a high level. As long as Mad Cave continues to offer comic creators the chance to tell these kinds of stories with their distinctive voices, it will be a publisher to watch. For those looking to break free of corporate comics, Nature’s Labyrinth offers a visceral reader experience to rage against the corporate machine. But it is more an entertaining diversion than an inspiring polemic.

VERDICT: BROWSE

Some people yadda yadda false cruise yadda yadda Maze Runner yadda yadda Battle Royale yadda yadda, OK, no book is really deserving of so naff and simplistic a review, but then few reviewers are deserving so naff and simplistic a book, with an annoying 'cat' guide to some wholly unlikeable weaponised criminals as they fight their way through a maze to survive. Principally, this is a book that is too much a fan of the kitchen sink – a story than puts everything in because in a comic you can do anything, without it at all realising that you don't have to put everything in there, and what you do include should at least make some sense or provide some entertainment.

3.7/5

I have to say I did like this one.
Even if the main plot it's not very original I still had a great time living this action comic.

Basically it's a hunger games for criminals. I liked that all of them are from different parts of the world and that there's an actual original concept behind and I really liked the open ending too.

The set of characters even if "medium size" was all worked out well. All characters have their own personality and are very different one from the other.

Art was not my absolute favorite, but I will definitely read more if there's the chance, I was pretty entertained throughout the pages.

This was an action packed graphic novel. Some people discover they have been pulled into a deadly game, and getting out won’t be easy. Along the way, we see some tough choices get made. Yet as this graphic novel comes to a close, two people end up finding a way off of this strange place.

‘Nature’s Labyrinth Vol. 1’ by Zac Thompson with art by Bayleigh Underwood is a graphic novel about a group of mostly bad people trying to survive in a crazy game show in nature.

Eight former felons are picked and given a chance for a big prize. If they cooperate to win, they all split it, but if one wins on their own, it’s even better. A bomb disguised as a backpack is strapped on them and they are set loose on an island to navigate a series of deadly traps and challenges. The biggest danger might be the other contestants.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. It’s a pretty familiar type of story, but seemed to hint that there was more going on, but that never really developed, or developed really weakly. The interior art is a manga style that revels in the grotesque way people meet their ends. The covers are actually really detailed and great, but don’t let that suck you in to a story that is better told elsewhere.

I found this intriguing but really think this would be better as a comprehensive graphic novel rather than being released in parts. I am interested in knowing what happens.

Enjoyed this graphics novel! This book gave me The Hunger Games vibes mixed with The Wilds!
Great art and I loved to check out another one of Zac's novels.

Thank you Netgalley and Mad Cave Studios for allowing me to review this book!

Nature's Labyrinth Vol 1 is an outstanding videogame horror type graphic novel. There is lots of action, blood and guts to satisfy the horror aficionado, while also not being so over-the-top for those that want an action filled story based on a videogame.

I think certain gamers and horror readers will love this doozy of a story.

A group of people wake up on a deserted island and try to survive a maze that was made to trap and kill. Creatures stalk the people and nature is ready. If anyone can finish the maze, they get a life changing prize.

Thank you #NetGalley and #MadCaveStudios for #NaturesLabyrinth

"Congratulations, you’re flourishing!" Criminals around the globe get this message along with an invite to an all-expenses paid cruise. The only ones who take the offer are those self-obsessed or deluded enough to believe they're worthy of recognition. The cruise does not turn out as expected, to say the least, and the invitees all end up in a battle royale game instead. I'm a sucker for a good battle royale. Whether it be books (The Hunger Games), video games (Call of Duty: Warzone), or television shows (Squid Games), I find a fight-to-the-death premise to be diabolically fun. Nature's Labyrinth is no exception.

Set on a beautifully lush island, Nature's Labyrinth appears, at first glance, like a very different book than it actually is. It has scenes of beautiful nature, yes, but it's also full of gore, brutality, awful people, and a metric heck-ton of chaotic fun. Most of the commentary I've seen on Nature's Labyrinth has mentioned it has a good deal of tropes and that it relies on those tropes heavily. While the battle royale trope has been around for ages, Nature's Labyrinth tackles this sub-genre in a modern game show setting, which is fun if not entirely new.

The characters are all delightfully bad, and most of the "contestants" are just self-absorbed criminals. I found this fun, but it's definitely not for everyone. I loved J., the main character, and found myself rooting for her throughout. She's an incredibly fierce character with a lot of mystery surrounding her. Nasir is also a great character, though there's very little mystery to him; he wears his heart on his sleeve so you always know exactly what he's thinking.

Art:

Bayleigh Underwood's art and Warnia Sahadewa's coloring work perfectly pair in Nature's Labyrinth. The world is vivid and bold, with striking gore and violence contrasting the lush forest setting. The character expressions were also excellent, and each character had a vivid personality based on their body posture and facial expressions alone.

Final Thoughts:

This is a really fun graphic novel. It's campy and a bit ridiculous, but it also has a lot of heart and grit. Yes, this story is full of tropes and gore, but I guess I'm learning I don't mind that so much. Nature's Labyrinth shouldn't be missed if you're a fan of brutal science fiction horror and graphic novels with bold art.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Thanks to Mad Cave for an advanced review copy! All the above thoughts are my own.

The review will be posted on Back Shelf Books at the following link (also linked below) on December 18, 2023: https://backshelfbooks.com/2023/12/18/graphic-novel-review-natures-labyrinth-vol-1-by-zac-thompson-and-bayleigh-underwood/

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.

This was a fun read, although the blurb oversold it a bit. The parts that should have been more surprising were made too obvious. And, it didn't really feel like a battle royale. It was clear who was going to make it out from the start. I think it would've helped if some of the other characters were more fleshed out. But still, there were fun parts and I liked the art style.

This was a very quick read with some pretty decent illustrations, but the story was a little flat and unoriginal. It felt like any other high stakes, life or death style competition story. It was pretty gory and violent but overall I wasn't very impressed.

What a fun, absolutely wild ride! Definitely comes from a longstanding tradition of punitive deathmatches for entertainment purposes, but I enjoyed this one a lot. Grisly, entertaining, and an all-around good time.

Nature's Labyrinth is my newest obsession!

This story follows some of the darkest criminals (who responded) as they are pitted against one another in Nature's Labyrinth - the latest and deadliest competition for a black market audience.

I genuinely got hooked on this story and found myself unable to put it down. It flew by as I raced to determine who was behind all of the nefarious games, and who was going to make it out alive. (Yes, not everyone is going to make it out safely and this just raised the stakes in a perfectly fun way).

I really enjoyed the brief character profiles that you are given to start this story out with. You get a glimpse into each character and my imagination was spinning trying to determine why each character was nicknamed the way that they were. And the action plays into each character's ability or skill.

The ACTION in this story is next level. It plays out like a vicious Hunger Games. It is also like a dark video game with the guide interludes being some of my favorite parts of the story. (Also who doesn't love this fun illustration of a cowboy cat).

The illustrations are exactly what I have come to love and enjoy from Mad Cave Studios. You know that anything that they help produce is going to be vivid, and enthralling, and readers love it!

Check this story out!

This is a story you've seen several times before. The Battle Royale type story where strangers are left on an island containing a changing maze and have to kill one another to win a treasure. The subplots are very much secondary to the fighting. They all are bad people even though their backstories are all one sentence cursory affairs that make them uninteresting. I do like this type of story and if it was fine tuned, it could have been really good instead of just OK. The art is heavily manga influenced. It also has super detailed but extremely boring covers that have little to do with the comic itself.

Exciting premise, not-so-exciting execution. I'm a sucker for battle royale survival games and was hyped for Nature's Labyrinth. It started off promising: a group of criminals with cool monikers alluding to their back stories, a weird cruise ship with an unsettling captain, weapons hinting at the characters' past crimes - gimme! The art was nice, the characters were easily distinguishable and their designs vivid and expressive, immediately telling you what types of people they were. That was very successful imo!

What ultimately didn't work was the pacing, or rather the jarring jumps that left a lot unexplained. Take Sofia and Julia: at a certain point, they start to behave as if they were one single person. They not only finish each other's sentences/speak at the time, but when one of them get injured, the other seemingly feels it. Apparently, there is something in the food they've been eating (according to the people who run the game) but we never get to know what it is, how it works, why exactly those two behave the way they do - nothing. Likewise, there were a bunch of seemingly "deformed" people/children thrown into the narrative without any rhyme or reason and I don't think I need to explain why we absolutely should not do this.
Generally, we didn't get to see a lot of the labyrinth itself. Most biomes are dealt with pretty quickly, but I would've LOVED to see more of what the arena/environment can actually do, how it is dangerous. Sadly, the comic book wastes a lot of cool setup and ultimately falls short.

So, where do I stand with Nature's Labyrinth? I see the potential and wish the creators had taken the time to properly flesh everything out. It could've been a really fun battle royale story, but ends up feeling rushed, unfinished and unpolished. As far as rating goes, to me it falls between 2.5 and 2.75, so I'm rounding it up to 3 stars for now. It's fine if you're really into these types of narratives, but don't expect the new genre-defining masterpiece.

- ARC provided by NetGalley -

Battle Royale but everyone is a piece of shit?

That's my main view when reading this. Not bad though. I was in it for the nifty kills which the art got to showcase. I really enjoyed the pace, it's never slow, and within those 200 or so pages you're pretty much getting a complete story. I will say though, these characters? None of them were likeable. Even the two "good" ones didn't come across as very "good". But overall for a bloody, horror, battle royale style book this was pretty fun, more than I expected, and would def recommend it for fans of this style genre.

This was fun to read, but it was not anything new. It was like a mash-up of the Hunger Games and Squid Game.

When it comes to comic books, I have one golden rule: the pictures better look incredible. Nature’s Labyrinth succeeds. Its story is troupe-y. Basically, a bunch of people have to kill each other on a military island, like the Hunger Games, Battle Royal, or The Most Dangerous Game. Few things make sense. Lady twin martial artists attack our hero, and then a few pages later, they blow up for some reason. Our hero asks why and immediately concludes, “Who cares?” The art sells the over-the-top zaniness and graphic gore. By the end, everything got so crazy that no complaint mattered. The story is pure pulp, and the art is fantastic. The big villain confusingly confesses NATO cops are responsible for the murder island. Hell yes, they are. This is the first book I’ve checked out by Mad Cave Studios but it won’t be the last,

The "most dangerous game" plot has been used plenty of times before, but in the right hands - as is the case here - it can be brought out to its full effect for a fun, high-activity sprint towards the prize.