"The Mask Omnibus Volume 1" is a collection of 3 graphic novels, composing a whopping 350 pages of Mask-related content. To be quite honest, I only read it because I knew about the movie. If Jim Carrey and the rest of the gang didn't bless me with their masterpiece of a film, I would've never heard of this. It would've been for the best.

Like most poorly-written comics, they start off with an interesting setup: a guy gets a mask and wears it, only to find it gives him cartoonishly-violent superpowers and turns him into a complete nut. Invincibility, huge-ass weapons he pulls from god knows where, and a zany approach to handling any situation.

Then, the writers don't know what to do after that; once a guy gets invincibility and's a complete psychopath, what does our hero risk? So, they write it as a sort of self-destructive object; changes the persona of the wearer, makes them erratic, self-destructive. While no one started living in crack-dens because of it, it caused a lot of deaths and inner-struggles. In short, the mask gets passed by a few hands, to say the least.

Not once did I feel attached to any of the wearers, nor their plight, because none of them were ever alive or wearing the mask long enough to be interesting. Hell, even when they were alive they weren't that interesting. Every character's life seems to revolve around the stupid thing, the closest that characters begin to act like people is when they're suffering trust issues with their friends. However, even then this is considered the "climax" of the story, where ultimately our hero decides that the mask is too dangerous to wield, and therefore, must be gotten rid of, usually with some great, big fight with the police or crime syndicate. Or, with my favorite character: Walter.

Walter is an eight-foot fucking machine. He's a momma's boy; he doesn't say a word; he cuts his face for fun; he gets shot, stabbed, trampled, hit by a car while set on fire, attacked by a golded-toothed lion, fought by armadas of whatever gets on his bad side, and he just doesn't care. Whenever I see "Big-Head" (as the public has decided to call whoever wears the mask), I feel that there's nothing at stake because the wearer can't get hurt. But with Walter, holy shit he can take a beating! He's so badass, that even when I know nothing can kill Big-Head, I still think it's a fair fight. And this goes on for about 350 pages; even with Walter the comic gets a bit stale.

So, sadly, while I did wish the best for this book, I fell short of enjoying this. If anyone wants to appreciate any Mask-related media, please, just stick with the movie. ( )

I found this to be an enjoyable book, but quite different from the character in the movie, which I have enjoyed for years. Sure, there is a semblance of similarity in the actions and such of the mask in both the book and the movie, but it was a bit of a shock to see the differences too. ( )