Ah, Ninjak. You crazy British ninja. Always an intriguing part of the month when your book comes around.
Last year, Valiant relaunched the Ninjak book in what has turned out to be a surprisingly serial story. Each arc, and even issue, has led right into the next. I'm happy to say that I can look back from where we are now, in Deadside where Ninjak is squaring off against the Magpie, and say, "Ah yes, I can recognize that events in issue two have indeed led us here." Or, more importantly, issue six, as we have today.
This issue is the start of the "Shadow Wars" arc of Ninjak, in which the titular hero must hunt down the greatest band of former ninjas/ assassins, the Shadow Seven, and take them in before one of them can detonate a great nuclear bomb. The arc was brief, lasting from issues six through nine, but each one featured a fun new face and relation to the past. The long-lasting tie between all of the Ninjak books so far has been the "Lost Files" at the end, sort of accounting Colin's backstory as well as his ties to the Shadow Seven and greater mystery at work.
What's particularly interesting about Ninjak is its ability to go further than one would expect. Colin isn't just a ninja he's a futuristic ninja, using high-tech gadgets of tomorrow as well as common ninja tricks that we all know and love. He's also an incredible businessman, but not in the way you think. Colin does not use his newly acquired company, Weaponeer, for himself but rather to spite his enemies and get them busted by the world governments. It's really some clever stuff, shown early on in this issue.
One of the major changes, besides an arc, that occurred in this book was that we got a new artist, who brought a completely different style to the book than normal. Yet I can't help but think that without Raul Allen's art that the book wouldn't have been quite as good. When I first read it, I thought it was merely okay. I was used to the more 3-D, concrete art that we'd seen in the past. But here, it felt very much like a "back-to-basics" approach, and I did find it appealing when preparing for this review.
Much like my Unity #1 review, I won't be going over the book bit-by-bit, but rather how it works as a whole. Once again I'll stress that I want more people to read Valiant books, and will try not to spoil the ending of the book.
The strongest point of any Ninjak issue we've gotten so far is how Colin King, Ninjak, interacts with both his environment and the situation presented. Not necessarily through the text captions, but just in the way that he does things. He moves always in a calculated way, planning out every step and knowing that things are always at stake. There's a real pressure to his mission early on. Not only does he have to manage a new, illegal, very powerful company, but also has to stay completely undercover so that MI-6 doesn't even know where or what he's doing.
It does feel that the events of the beginning do have a fairly sharp turn toward Ninjak hunting down La Barbe, the second Shadow Seven member he'll be facing so far (though oddly enough I don't think we ever see the full seven of them together until later on). He goes from running Weaponeer in Japan to just dropping everything to carry out his mission, with little explanation why. The transition is weak and while it does establish La Barbe's character a bit, it does feel lacking.
However, the book from here on out is excellent, showcasing Ninjak's skills with gadgets as well as his fine-tuned senses as a true ninja. Ninjak is, as some would call him, Valiant's answer to Batman. Though, to be honest, I have a tough time decided who would win in a fight. Sure, Batman is an awesome detective and in recent years has been dubbed as something of a ninja, as he manipulates shadows and does all that fun stuff.
But given what we see in this book, it is a tough call. Ninjak's use of gadgets and his incredible athletic ability make him a real force to be reckoned with. He's just so fast, so skilled with a blade and so quick on his feet that he really does stand out as a powerful warrior. It's times like these when I can understand how he can defeat X-O Manowar, and the various apprentices of the Undead Monk.
One of the weaker points of Matt Kindt's writing sometimes seems to be that he will explain things too much, that the book does not feel quiet. Here, things are quieted down, and we get to see just how Colin King works in the darkness, and even, out in the open for a bit. And the art here does help that a lot, emphasizing the shadows of the night against Ninjak while in keeping with that simplicity that is brought up throughout the issue. The final bout with La Barbe shows this as well, when Ninjak is blinded and he has to rely on his training over his gadgets--which is ironic, considering how his character is often brought up solely for his gadgetry.
It reminds me of a moment in Divinity #3, when Divinity traps them all in their own minds, and Ninjak is the one that manages to find a way out. A ninja is someone who is so in tune with their mind and body that they should, essentially, be invincible. Their mind is what makes them strong, and their attention to detail aids in their eventual training. This is shown here. Ninjak and La Barbe hardly exchange more than a few punches, yet their fight is so gripping as it is based in their pasts and their training, with La Barbe noting their difference in style.
As I mentioned before, every issue of Ninjak has the "Lost Files" at the end of each issue to show part of Colin's past and how he became Ninjak. In this issue, it shows how Colin finds the hidden temple of the Undead Monk, and the story of all those characters is one explored in the excellent fourth issue of the book (highly recommend it). The Undead Monk is a man who has been meditating for a long, long time, with possible connections to Deadside. People began to worship him and began to think he was giving them orders. Eventually, they built a temple around him and characters like La Barbe or Roku or Fakir showed up, and they came to form the Shadow Seven. Each has some strange quirk or power about them, more likely based in magic.
The "Lost Files" always stood out to me because their events often related to the book, but brought an extra mysticism to them. Angelina, a former lover of Ninjak as well as his mentor at MI-6 was the focus of the last "Lost Files" and while she is a part of the story, it is obvious that we are going to find out how Colin came to know the Shadow Seven and learn under the Undead Monk. Yet there seems to be something far more going on, and that is what helped me coming back each month, and is also what got me so excited for the current arc, "Operation: Deadside" to see how all of this will come together.
This issue of Ninjak is both an excellent jumping-on point for new readers as well as an even better continuation for the story of Colin King. Enough exposition is shown in the beginning to get the reader's attention--like how Colin will take weapons of mass destruction and screw with them enough to backfire on the corrupt user, how awesome is that?--and the art is simple yet adheres very well to the writing of the book. The action is fantastic, playing to the ninja-elements more than the expected gadgetry ones, and the mystery of the "Lost Files" brings up compelling questions about Colin's past and how he will eventually become involved in this war. Definitely check it, and the rest of the series (it had a $1 debut recently, seriously go find it!) out soon!
Next time, as we draw closer to the big showdown for Marvel, we'll take a look back at a mediocre side-event where the Hulk battled Iron Man in Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man! See you then.
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