Review by Frank Plowright

Return to Skull Island is a continuation of the animated Skull Island show, Skull Island of course being home to Kong, mightiest of all gorillas. The inclusion of a synopsis before Simon Furman’s story brings everyone up to date, and the short version is a ship’s crew are stranded on the island and Charlie has just been captured by the locals. They resent him upsetting the balance of nature as Kong is now poisoned, and should he die the belief is that everything else will die.

Furman’s an old hand at adventure comics, and feeds in enough of Skull Island’s massive and monstrous elements to ensure Christopher Jones awes with the art. Jones succeeds in bringing home the sheer scale of the creatures, yet renders them finely as gnarled, leathery or hairy. Some are tamed by the locals, but more than enough are threats and Furman builds toward a spectacular attack.

Events on Skull Island are counterpointed by events in the dull regular world, where Annie and Mike, previously saved by Charlie, decide it’s time to return the favour. However, Furman knows we’ve picked up Return to Skull Island because we want to see Kong and others battering seven bells of hell out of each other, or failing that terrorising the ant-like humans. There’s plenty of both served up, with the additional gastronomic treat being Charlie’s consumption by a giant hippo, although Jones has him remarkably dry when cut free.

Everything is calculated to be a lot of fun, but a cliffhanger ending leads to Escape From Skull Island.