Mulan reveals her true superpower – ticking everyone off.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marc Andreyko
Art: Micah Kaneshiro
What They Say:
Amid a conflict between gods and demons, Mulan is faced with a destiny-altering decision: will she allow the world to toil under eternal tyranny, or can she right the universe’s wrongs by making the ultimate sacrifice?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Mulan: Revelations moves into its fourth issue here of its limited series run without a fifth installment solicited yet, which is kind of unsettling. Is there more to come? If there is, will it make sense? This issue throws a lot of things at the reader but after the less than stellar foundation we’ve gotten so far it all just feels very rickety as it progresses. Though the series opened well for me with a lot of curious aspects to it with how the world works, it’s never put that world together in a cohesive way that felt like it made sense. So like Mulan, we’ve all just been along for the ride. On the plus side, it’s a very appealing looking ride as Kaneshiro continues to deliver constantly with his artwork.
What drives this installment is the continued Mulan on the run element, along with said companion who does little more than occasionally provide some mild commentary/observational elements that doesn’t make him useful in any way. The chase is one and there are some beautiful sequences here as we get the pair attempting to evade capture, which in turn has them landing in a massive atrium. There’s a beautiful shot of those after them sliding down on their ropes while Mulan tries to figure out what to do, but the problem once again is that Mulan’s powers are so ill-defined and open-ended that no matter what she does it seems possible. The sequence is beautiful visually as we get them whisking out of the area through teleportation, and it’s balanced by what Longwei is doing in trying to figure out what’s going on as well, but it’s just a cluster of moments with no cohesive story.
What we do get that’s interesting with Mulan is that she ends up where the higher beings are that have been watching this all along. She’s essentially the Chosen One, so all things open to her, including access to where they are. This in turn becomes a fight with Dragon as he refuses to deal with her and it turns into another beautiful but empty experience with what unfolds. Compounding it with events going on with Longwei that just feels even further disconnected at this point, the book becomes more and more of a mess. It’s beautiful to look at and I love the color design of it, but it hasn’t found a way for the story to catch up. It’s almost like poor man’s Cliff’s Notes presentation of the story where the key pieces are left out and the characters are just racing to where they need to be to achieve objectives.
In Summary:
I have no idea what to make of this book at this point. With the gap between the third and fourth installments making it even more difficult to connect things together and an unsolicited fifth issue that might not arrive into well into the first quarter next year, Mulan: Revelations is anything but a revelation. I’ve largely given up on story at this point and am simply enjoying Micah Kaneshiro’s artwork. It has a great Brian Steelfreeze kind of vibe to it while being wholly its own that’s just engaging to dig into and look at all the details. That can’t sustain the book in terms of truly enjoying it and certainly not recommending it, but for fans of this style of artwork it’s definitely a treat.
Grade: C-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 18th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
