A good bit of closure as the book opens up for what comes next.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Kindt
Art: Clay Mann, Juan Jose Ryp
What They Say:
A duel to the death with The Shadow Seven! As Ninjak goes head-to-head with Fakir of the Shadow Seven, devastating secrets of his past stand revealed that will change his life forever! Plus: Roku makes her move… and an atom bomb goes missing.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
My frustration with the Ninjak series has been there for the last few issues worth of material as it feels like we’re just flying through potentially interesting stories and events that are being so overly compressed as to suck the enjoyment out of them. Not that there isn’t a lot to like with what we get, but it’s felt like it could be oh so much more if given a bit more room to breathe. With this issue we get the end of both the main storyline and the backup storyline that takes us through a number of events in Colin’s life. Bringing us to the end of the Shadow Wars with just a few issues certainly makes for compact storytelling, but after the time spent with Kannon, nobody else feels like they’re fleshed out enough to really care about.
The main storyline again arrives in two parts as we get past and present unfold. The present day storyline could be a solid issue all to itself as we get Colin going up against Fakir with some significant stakes. With Fakir having set a deadman switch to a nuke that could destroy all of Las Vegas, there’s plenty of tension from Neville over it, especially with the way that Colin has been working lately. But Colin is right in that caution leads to fear and that leads to mistakes. The exploration of Fakir’s place is minimal, though impressive in seeing what he has and the bomb itself, and the fight sequence is decent enough considering Fakir’s abilities. But it’s the truth of what’s in there that’s really neat as we get to see that he’s managed to bring the Undead Monk here some time ago and is using him as part of his plan. Bringing that character’s story to a close after giving him such reverence for so many issues feels a little abrupt, but it also feels pretty necessary so we can move on from it now that the Shadow Wars are concluding. Keeping him around would just extend it.
The main book has the flashback tale to Colin’s youth explored here as well as that involves some time with his mother talking her his origins, the connection to Alain and all that it entails. It’s… weird? It makes sense and adds an odd layer to things but it also explains Alain’s intensity and how he’s managed to do what he’s been doing for so long. I like that it does put Colin on the right path and that he does it with more knowledge than he started out with. And it plays well to the backup story we get as wel that brings us to an end point for Colin’s time training where the Undead Monk was for so long and with all the others. Touching upon all of these connections here and on top of everything in the previous eight issues really gives us a good depth of character. One that hopefully doesn’t focus on his past too much for a bit and instead deals more with the present and where he’s going next.
In Summary:
Ninjak brings a lot to a close here and while I’m frustrated with it on some level I’m also pretty pleased by it. The series has covered a lot of ground in these nine issues and accomplished a lot to really make it clear why Colin is as good as he is and gave him some solid opponents to deal with that has some meaning. It could have been a lot more and I could easily envision a few years worth of stories working through all of this, though some of that is looking ait through a manga-style lens. After dabbling lightly with other Valiant books in the past, Ninjak is the first one that really became a must-read book for me to see if it’s able to really step it up. It’s definitely done so overall and has me looking forward to seeing what’s next.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: November 4th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
