Licensed comics have always had their difficulties: first and foremost, the risk that having to please another level of oversight will result in staid work, but even if that's overcome, the problem of classic material becoming unavailable as rights shift and diverge. And if you get that one sorted out too – which seems to be the case with Adventure Time, where this first volume from new publisher Oni has plugs for mammoth compendia of the classic Boom run in the back – you can still be left with the unenviable task of competing with material that was already pretty bloody good when it was coming out, and which is now sanctified by the glow of nostalgia too. A lot of people did impressive work in the Boom years, first and foremost Ryan North, who was already becoming apparent as one of the best in the business, and who's always had a knack for wit, invention and formal playfulness that perfectly complemented the parent property. Whereas here...I don't know Nick Winn's previous work, and he's clearly game, characters getting punched through panel boundaries and an issue spent trapped within paintings in assorted styles. But those are both tricks which, while potentially new to younger readers, have been doing the rounds in comics since at least the nineties, whereas North and co. would pull stunts to wow even an old git like me. There are occasional winning images (Peppermint Butler as a vexed artist!) but the overall sensation, with Finn needing to learn a lesson about what heroism really means and not yet having expressed his feelings for Flame Princess, is of a filler episode retrospectively inserted into one of the show's earlier, less bold seasons. Everyone involved is very much colouring within the lines – or not even necessarily colouring; Computer Princess may be a new creation, but she's basically Princess Bubblegum in monochrome. Still, there is one sense in which the new comic has an easier gig than its predecessor; the cartoon has finished, so for new material, this is the only game in town. And I can certainly see the thinking in playing to that with comfort food, but so far it's not doing it for me.

(Netgalley ARC)