Comic Review: Puppet Master #16

Puppet Master #16 kicks off a new arc and I’ll admit I had some questions going into this. So much had been wrapped up in the previous issue and with the Bodega Bay Inn having been closed and abandoned for so long, I was curious about how it would be opening up to guests again in the very next issue. The leap forward in time was smart, especially because everything that happened in the meantime gets explained with relative ease. Anthony was taken in and given room by the hotel’s new owners because they thought he was a runaway.

But the gap between last month’s issue and this month’s is not the time jump that’s most interesting in this book, interestingly enough. We’re also introduced to a mysterious character who we know nothing about as of yet, only that he keeps jumping from body to body, throughout history, interweaving with the Toulons’ lives at various points. While this could be a new character being introduced, it could also be yet another returning character from the films and if this is the case, I have a very distinct theory as to who it may be—but one that I’ll save until I’m either proven right or wrong.

This issue also makes great use of the theatre concept that was introduced last month. This is the psychic space Anthony pulls the puppets into so that he can communicate with them as human beings, the way we saw them in the Rebirth arc. This gives us some great character moments between them that we obviously couldn’t get in the movies and have therefore been a highlight of the comic series.

Six Shooter, in particular, stands out. One, he’s calling everyone on their bullshit and the way they as a group have always sort of leaped into trust even when it’s almost always gotten them into trouble. And he says this mostly through pointed comments at Khan, the latest, mysterious addition to their puppet troupe. But then his own actions are called into question when it’s pointed out that he was absent for the events of the first two movies and none of them ever knew where he went. This is the sort of care put into continuity that makes the Puppet Master comic shine.

I would love for this to not only be explained in this arc, but I would love for this to be important to this arc. I want wherever Six-Shooter went to have something to do with our new body-hopping character, whether Shooter knows it or not.

We also don’t know where the Toulons are, even though their puppet bodies have been left behind. This is an issue that is full of questions, but does not feel incomplete. It really keeps you guessing and that’s what I want, especially at the start of a new arc. It’s exciting. I have almost no idea what’s going on at this point and all that means is that I can’t wait for next month’s issue so that I find out just a little bit more.

WICKED RATING: [usr=8]