A look at one of the more intriguing characters.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Kindt
Art: Stephen Segovia, Juan Jose Ryp
What They Say:
Ninjak goes toe-to-toe with the brains of the Shadow Seven operation: The deadly and very intelligent Fitzy. But as Colin King discovers he has much more in common with this group of thieves and murderers than he’d like, will he be able to hold onto his honor…and his sanity?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As Ninjak works through more of the Shadow Wars arc I’m still finding myself a bit frustrated by it simply because of how fast it’s all moving. While I’m not hoping for a novel style approach in terms of depth and exploration, we had a five or so issue run with Kannon that brought out a lot of neat things while also exploring Weaponeer and giving Colin a chance to show the depth of his infiltration skills and situational awareness. But since then it’s been barreling through the other members with a series of quick takedowns and Colin’s ascent to running the show under his assumed identity while trying to alert the proper authorities to various weapon deals. It’s not bad story but rather a story that’s not given time to breathe.
With this issue, we actually get Colin not in most of the main story outside of a few brief moments at the end, and even then it’s mostly just flashback to his childhood years. What we get instead is a focus on one of the Shadow Seven named Fitz. His origin as a clone that has an immense amount of material pre-loaded into him is intriguing as he tries to figure out the world on his own after escaping from the doctor that was responsible for his creation and updating. With a whole series of clones that all bring back their experiences, it certainly creates an interesting person. We get that through Fitz as he goes around the world trying to find something new yet realizing that in his previous forms that he’s done almost everything. It’s his trip to Kathmandu that brings him something new as he deals with the undead monk and ends up working with Kannon, though not exactly enamored of him and his world.
The story provides for some really good hooks and you can see where they could do a miniseries about the character and really flesh him out if he didn’t already feel like Ninjak or Bloodshot in some other form. Fitz’s monotone presence doesn’t exactly make him hugely compelling either. But I like the concept of it and how it unfolds, especially when we get to the trick of it at the end with Colin listening to his story and realizing that the two of them are mostly on the same side in the end. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that and it works well. Colin, however, is having to deal with some other bigger problems with Neville arriving and trying to get him to focus on certain aspects of the goals more, particularly since his own boss is freaking out over what Colin is doing. Slicing and dicing enemies that have a dead man’s switch to a long lost nuclear weapon from WWII will do that to you.
In Summary:
Ninjak’s focus on Fitz’s story works well enough and is made more interesting than it might normally be thanks to Segovia’s artwork and layouts. We get a good trip around the world, meet some interesting characters and end up at the undead monk all over again. I also really enjoyed the backup story, what little real story there is to it, as it shows us some of Colin’s training there with the things he had to survive and surmount. While the story is obvious and kept simple, it’s Juan Jose Ryp’s artwork that just elevates it with a great kind of grittiness that makes it feel very earthy and raw as it should. Ninjak has a damn good installment here, but it’s one that feels like it should have been spread over two or three issues with more meat given to it and a chance to breath more.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: October 14th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99