The latest Oz reading

Yup, I'm back in an Oz cycle! So, here's what's been in front of my eyes lately:

• Ozma of Oz #8. Yes, Eric and Skottie's adaptation from Marvel has wrapped up at last (with a great promo pic for Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #1 in back). This issue picks up after the Scarecrow has thrown his eggs at the Nome King, and Dorothy steals the Magic Belt, and goes to...well, the end, of course. This means another hardback collection to buy in the spring!
  
• The Ozmapolitan of Oz by Dick Martin. I've decided to incorporate some of the older books in my collection that I've previously read into my regular Oz reading, as I've been enjoying reading some stuff to Laura (and my nephew when he visited for a week — more on that one later), and for whatever reason, I picked this one first. This was Martin's only written addition to the Oz books, and it's a lot of fun, actually. Dorothy and Tim, the most recent employee of Oz's largest (and, it appears, only) newspaper, The Ozmapolitan, are off on a news hunting expedition. It appears to be a random set of little adventures, but it turns out that Tim is hiding a secret, and that ends up tying the whole story together. It's fun and Ozzy, and I enjoyed rereading it.
  
• Mary Louise Adopts a Soldier by "Edith Van Dyne", who is, of course, actually L. Frank Baum. This was Baum's last non-Oz book (but not, as it turned out, Edith Van Dyne's, as many of you may know). Like all of the Mary Louise books, it's pure girls' adventure. Mary Louise and Grandpa Jim hire a soldier, just returned from the recently concluded Great War, and Danny seems to be quite smitten with Mary Louise. But he's hiding a secret (hmm, seems to be a theme in my current reading), and appears to steal Mary Louise's car for his own nefarious purposes. Towards the end it all starts getting a little far fetched, with German agents trying to destabilize relations between the United States and Mexico (!) and a road trip to Albuquerque, but of course it all comes out fine in the end, the good guys win, the bad guys end up in jail, and all is well — until the next book, of course...