Let me start by saying that Big Thunder Mountain is one my favorite rides in Disneyland Paris, only narrowly beaten by Les Mystères du Nautilus. So, of course, when Marvel and Disney announced that the runaway train was being turned into a comic, I was excited.
Design-wise, it’s very pretty. Like all Disney Kingdom series books, it comes only in hardcover. Which is too bad, because it means a fragile flap and a higher price than what you would pay for a paperback edition. On the upside, once the flap is removed, you get a really nice sketch of the ride.
Now onto the story: Disney is basically retconning the original ride backstory for their Californian park, making this the one and only correct one.
For ride and Disney geeks, this is, of course, really interesting and probably worth reading for this alone. It still leaves all the other Disney parks hanging when it comes to their backstories though. To be fair, reading this comic, that’s not a bad thing.
Without giving away anything of the story, it’s a fun enough tale when it comes to a mining town setting in the Wild West with just a little hint of the Weird West.
In itself the characters are nothing original either and development is simply lackluster. The story is, all in all, just like the characters: unoriginal.
Also the choice of the female lead/heroine feels a little forced. Daddy’s girl isn’t pleased with society’s view on how a women should behave and look. Rebellious as she is, she “does something about it”. In much the same way we’ve seen hundreds of times.
The art is fine, but not the best I’ve seen.
All in all, it’s rather disappointing. It feels like Disney figured that people would buy this book anyway, because of the popularity of the ride (they’re not wrong) and so they didn’t have to make an effort.
