Thursday, February 16, 2017

Retrospective: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

EDIT:  Okay, I'm dumb, I forgot to actually schedule this to be posted.  Only didn't notice until now.  BAH!

Well, I was going to talk about the blog, but wouldn't you know it, Dr. McNinja ended right as I nominated it for Best Overall Comic.

I knew it was ending when I made those nominations, of course.  And by the time the articles were going up, I knew it would end the week of the awards.  Still didn't award it, but not because it failed to win, but mostly because the actual winner did so much more.

I figured 2016 to be the year of all the comics ending, with Dr. McNinja going first, but instead it hung on into the new year.  And it was a great final story.

Much can be said about the run of McNinja, from it's humble beginnings as a joke to a time traveling epic that went from the moon to the Radical Lands, featuring characters from all over the map, and nearly all are memorable.  It's only in the last chapter, though, did all of them come together to make one hell of an ending for such a great comic.

Not that it was always great all the time.  King Radical, despite being the main villain of the comic, got old after a while, and only by revealing who he really was did the comic finally find a good use for him.  And no, I don't mean him being from the Radical Lands.  But the duds were often out shined by the fun and awesome of the comic.  For every repeated King Radical story, there was one where McNinja surfed on an robotic Dracula back into the Earth's atmosphere.

The comic tried to be outrageous, and yet kept things reasonably grounded.  You could believe these things could happen, ALMOST, which is the best part.

The ending, as I said, was perfect.  King Radical died in the most radical way possible.  Dracula finally met his end, thanks to hacking, and Dr. McNinja retired from the ninja life to be just a doctor, with his new name being the perfect choice given the history of the comic.

It'll be hard to fill the space on the list where Dr. McNinja enjoyed his adventures.  I still find myself reflexively visiting the site, even though I know it's over.  Christopher Hastings, the creator, artist and writer and moved on to print comics, including Gwenpool and Adventure Time, and I'm sure his time with the irish ninja who happens to be a doctor helped him immensely to get those jobs.  I wish him the best of luck in the future and I might even try to read some of his books if I get the time.

And money.  Stupid video card is dying.  Bleh.  Anyway, until next time kiddies.