Prince of Persia – The Graphic Novel Review

Comic book adaptations of popular videogames have a long but not so storied history ranging back to the middle of the 8-bit era when Nintendo heavies like Mario, Link and Donkey Kong could be found in everything from TV shows to cereal boxes. For two decades, the most consistent of the comic book titles have been relegated to kiddie-fare, the Sonic the Hedgehog series of comics being the video game to comics translations biggest success story. But are videogame to comic book adaptations doomed to always be treated as child’s play?

Marvel Comics made a bold move two years ago when they announced that the creative team behind their most successful Daredevil run in years would be putting out a four issue comic series bridging the gap between Halo 2 and Halo 3. Today, over a year since Halo 3’s release, the four issue series not only has yet to conclude… it’s almost too boring to follow, Master Chief’s gun-blazing heroics almost an afterthought to the story’s drawn out and aimless main tale. On this week’s Geekscape, I’ll be talking about the recent release of Wild Storm’s Gears of War adaptation, a book that surprisingly succeeds by giving us exactly what we’d expect and nothing more: a clearly narrated story with action, gore and Marcus Fenix in a central role. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, but it definitely gets the job done if you’re a Gears of War fan looking to get into comics. These new books, based on more hardcore gamer fare, present a conscious effort by the comic book industry to get serious gamers to pick up their titles. And after experiencing both titles, I’m still on the fence, but know that deep down that we’re only going to see more in the years to come.

With that, the Prince of Persia graphic novel, released by First Second books, lands on my desk for review. I gotta say, I was looking forward to cracking it open. Prince of Persia is one of those platform games that you remember fondly from its inception and one of the few survival stories of the constant console reinventions (that seem to have left even Sonic the Hedgehog in the dust). My first memories of the original revolve around playing the game with my brother Paul and marveling at the fluid animations in the character design. It was revolutionary. Then, when Sands of Time hit on the PS2, we had another familiar platformer, this time in 3D, but with a similar revolutionary element. The franchise had stayed fresh for over 10 years.

With revolutionary approaches the strength between each Prince of Persia outing, it shouldn’t have been surprising that First Second would take a chance on a new way of presenting the familiar Prince of Persia story to comic book audiences. With a story by game creator Jordan Mechner, a script by A.B. Sina, and art by the husband wife team of LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland, Prince of Persia The Graphic Novel looks and feels a lot more like a European graphic novel than an Americanized version. The artwork is more similar to expressive brush and pen strokes than the careful pencil and inkwork of American books and sometimes the character’s forms and consistent looks are traded in for fluidity and movement. Story wise, the Western three act hero story we’ve become accustomed to in our weekly comic book stories is replaced by two parallel tales about similar princes living 400 years apart. The book takes its time exploring themes of time, identity and reincarnation. And neither of these princes are ones that we have met before in the Prince of Persia titles.

Is the book successful as a videogame to graphic novel translation? I would say no. The effort is admirable, but too much of what make the games successful never shows up in this story. We don’t have any clearly defined goals for our hero and the story wanders back and forth searching for a through line you can follow. The characters are also thinly sketched so you don’t find yourself really married to anyone in any time. Would I be crazy to think that all I wanted from a Prince of Persia graphic novel is the same action and suspense that I receive when playing the game? Half of this book is spent wondering whether what you’re reading is a physical story you can follow or a collection of fever dreams painted out for us by the book’s creators. With a property that built a huge audience using accessible, high concept storytelling, it seems counterproductive to offer a product that eschews all of those conventions.

With no end in sight to videogame comic book adaptations, and with videogames only increasing in popularity, it appears that the time is right for this lesson to be learned by future creators: Don’t stray too far from the well. What I wanted was a Prince of Persia graphic novel. What I got was something unrecognizable to me. In the war for audiences’ attention spans, and with videogames pummeling comic book readership, graphic creators need to realize that some lessons can definitely be learned from the digital new kids on the block. The Prince of Persia Graphic Novel should definitely be notched up as a missed opportunity to give readers as exhilarating an experience as the Prince of Persia games have done consistently.