About.com Rating

Volume two of this 1930s-style adventure comic improves in many ways over the first volume, with more action, more insanity, and further development of the characters. Creator Paul Roman Martinez has continued to improve his art, design, and writing, making this book even more fun than the last.

Publication Information

• Full Title: The Adventures of the 19XX: Montezuma 1934
• Series: The Adventures of the 19XX (#2)

• Writer/Artist: Paul Roman Martinez
• Publisher: Paul Roman Martinez
• Publication Date:  2012
• ISBN: 978-0-9858573-0-1

The Further Adventures

Although Montezuma 1934 picks up shortly after the end of Rise of the Black Faun (read my review), it's a self-contained story, so readers don't need to have read book one to enjoy book two. Of course, as with many ongoing series, it is worth reading the first book, not only because it's good, but also because it provides more background for the current story.

In this volume, engineers of the 19XX (a secret society devoted to caring for mystical artifacts and combating evil) are in Mexico helping a small city to develop a fancy new hotel and a dam to provide income and power to the community. During the construction of the dam, they uncover an ancient Aztec temple, which attracts the attention of both the evil Black Faun (another secret society, and nemesis to the 19XX) and a local cult called the Temple of the Sun, who are devoted to bringing back the god-emperor Montezuma in order to exact revenge on their Spanish conquerors.

Re-Defining the Past

"Re-Defining the Past" is one of the headings in the extra material at the back of the book, and it suits what this book does. Creator Martinez draws extensively on historical material -- if you know anything about the history of the 1930s and the Aztec empire, you can see all the research that has gone into this tale, from what machinery and buildings would have looked like, to how people talk.

But The Adventures of the 19XX isn't a straight-up historical tale. It falls into the "dieselpunk" genre (like steampunk, only more recent), and creates a history that could have been if technology had taken a slightly different path or advanced a touch more quickly, rather than a history that was. But that said, and even with the addition of techno-supernatural elements, there is a sense of accuracy and fairness to the portrayal of the past.

Dinosaurs and Zombies and Human Sacrifice

As much as this book draws on actual history, it also takes inspiration from pulp adventure and period science fiction. Thus, we find the heroes of the tale battling Aztec cult members (who, I should point out, aren't entirely evil, though they have to be stopped because of the destruction they'll wreak on the world otherwise). Then the resurrected sun god raises an army of living fossils from the stone below, and our heroes have to fend off dinosaurs and other ancient reptiles (kudos to Martinez for pointing out that pteranodon was not a dinosaur). And if that wasn't enough, the bad guys then resurrect zombies from an ancient battleground, creating an army of near-invincible zombie Aztec warriors and Spanish conquistadors.

The good guys, too, recruit some locals to help fight, including a gang of pilots who usually spend their days pirating choice cargo ships, and a certain famous Mexican painter with mystical tendencies. Oh, and Howard Hughes shows up in a fancy new airplane, and the ghost of Isambard Kingdom Brunel offers engineering advice. Yes, it sound utterly insane and it seems like the plot should be a complete mess. But it works, and it's more fun than Indiana Jones and Lara Croft put together.

I Heart Pulp

It's no secret that I love a good pulpy adventure tale, and this series might almost be tailored exactly to my tastes. But the fun action, the art that keeps getting better (though I still find some of the screen tone a bit overwhelming), and the occasional laugh-out-loud moments make this an accessible  book for many readers. And though I don't really like to divide books into "girl books" and "boy books" or assume there are things each likes that the other doesn't, there are elements here for both, and all sorts of readers in between.

The characters are a bit more of an ensemble cast than the last volume, though the two main characters -- the boy known as "the Kid" and the captain's daughter Jorie -- still have significant parts to play. There is a lot of violence here, so some parents and more sensitive readers may want to be cautious, but if you're OK with the sort of thing you'd see in an Indiana Jones movie, you'll be fine here.