Not that it feels like a rewrite of someone else’s story.

He’s added a little bit of a touch of Norse mythology into this story, while also having shades of various Jack & giant fairy tales. Hatke’s illustrations are amazing as always. It seems very natural when you’ve been two separate teams that it would take a little work to get into a flow with more people and for everyone to find how they fit in. I like that they have to work out how to work together. They manage to visit places and see creatures on their adventure trying to stop the invasion that harken back to both of their past series of adventures. It was so nice to be adventuring with Jack, Lilly, Zita, Joseph, and gang again. When giants threaten to break the door between the inbetween and invade Earth, Jack, Lilly, Maddy, Zita, Joseph, and the rest of the gang have to find a way to stop the invasion and save Earth. Regular life is a little hard after you’d adventured elsewhere. Time passes.Ī little time has passed since Jack, Lilly, and Maddy had their adventures overthrowing the ogre king, and Zita & Joseph, Madrigal & Piper have been back on Earth for a while since their adventures in space. The fact I just noticed, reviewing the Zita covers, at least: the characters are getting older. The sense that all these characters are somehow becoming, and each has his or her thing. The connectedness among the Zita and Mighty Jack stories and proven out here.

The scale, the sense of a real, weird setting with rules and history. My 9 year old, once hearing that this book was physically present in the house, immediately retrieved it and was blissfully incommunicado for nearly a whole hour.Īnd it is lovely to sink into this-into any Hatke piece really, take this as commentary on them all.

So good on you, intelligent Hollywood producer-type, and get the hell moving on it. I had this big rant all ready about Hollywood and my-God-why-haven't-you-acted-on-this, but a quick Google later indicates that the Zita stories have been optioned for an animated feature.

Mighty jack by ben hatke