"Revenge of the Pirates!"

[fajrdrako]

Further proving my descent into the madness that is pirate-obsession, I bought "Disney Adventures (August 2003 issue)" yesterday for the Pirates of the Caribbean comic that is in it. Bonus: three photos from the movie of mediocre quality, and a teeny pic of Legolas.

The comic is called "Revenge of the Pirates". It's written by Michael Stewart and drawn by Steven Butler, and I don't think they went without sleep to agonize over this one. I even suspect they didn't have photo-references, since the characters depicted don't look like the actors in the role - they may have been done from character descriptions or costume sketches. Elizabeth, for example, has red hair, and Anamaria has no hat.

Or maybe I give everyone too much credit. Maybe no one cared how they looked or had the talent to do better.

Jack Sparrow's general swishiness is not reproduced, but admittedly, it would be difficult to put his mannerisms in a comic - not impossible, though. For some reason the kohl around his eyes is left off: did they think it would make him look like a raccoon? I'd call that a serious oversight.

I was happy to see Jack call Will a 'swordsmith', not a 'blacksmith'. Much better!

A panel I rather enjoyed:

Murderous skeleton pirates: So - we have found you at last, Jack Sparrow!

Jack: What do you know - a band of cursed pirates who have sworn revenge against me. And I was having such a nice night.

And when Will Turner says, "looks like your old crew is back from the grave again, Jack," I scratched my head in wonder. The Black Pearl crew wasn't dead, just cursed. And after the movie was over, they still mostly weren't dead, just on their way to prison. Another clue that Michael Stewart hadn't read the script, perhaps?

The comic really isn't good on any level, though it has its amusing moments. I liked the various nobly-intentioned double-crosses that Jack pulls (definitely in character) and I liked the following speech by Jack:

Pirating's supposed to be about freedom. Freedom to go where you want - take whatever you want.

It was interesting that Elizabeth is the one who can wield the magic sword, because of her 'purity'. Funny, but 'purity' isn't the first adjective I can think of to apply to Elizabeth, and I'm not sure that Will wasn't the more pure of the two of them. Maybe it's one of those cases where only women can be properly pure - and then don't have an option not to be, however they might have the heart of a pirate.

The worst line by far: at the end, Will says to Jack, "We can't let you take the [magic] blade. It belongs in a museum." Since when do museums deal in magic objects? Not only is this prissy, overly PC, generally stupid, and impossibly anachronistic, it doesn't sound like Will Turner in the least. Not my Will Turner, anyway.

I can't call it $5 well spent, but it was an interesting diversion for a few minutes and it featured Jack Sparrow.